For the past few months, we’ve been running an experiment at Isometric called IsoLabs.
Once a month, a group of Isometric team members gets together to share a work-based challenge, conundrum, or something they’re stuck thinking about in a peer-to-peer learning conversation. One member of the group presents for a few minutes, then goes into ‘listening mode’—research shows we listen more deeply that way, versus when we’re listening to respond. At that point, members of the group pose open questions, offer other perspectives, and occasionally even challenges—to help the presenter advance their thinking or see things differently.
Crucially, though, the group never offers advice. Instead, it’s built on a foundational principle, drawn from Whitworth et al. (1998), that each of us is ‘creative, resourceful and whole.’ In other words, we’ve learnt that each person is best placed to solve their own dilemmas, and that the most valuable thing the organization can provide is space to think.
At the end of each section, the presenter is asked to share what’s new for them. Often, this will give rise to ideas for experiments they’re going to run or actions they’d like to take—which again is something the group can support with simply by providing an accountability structure.
What’s gone well
Our first IsoLabs cohort included six people, and ran for four months. One of the volunteers, David Armstrong, Partnerships & Policy Manager, had this to say about the experience:
"At a soft level, it was a really nice chance to build connections amongst the group. It’s quite rare that you get the chance to sit with colleagues for an hour and openly and non-judgementally explore things. So that was lovely.
"We thought it was very helpful as a way of stepping back from the day-to-day. Before I agreed to take part, part of me was thinking ‘how am I going to find time to do this?’ But actually, the return-on-investment was huge. And for the sake of an hour every so often, it was a really valuable chance to reflect and zoom out.
"The open-questions structure is incredibly helpful and surprisingly difficult. It’s hard to resist the temptation to give advice and ask leading questions, because you quite quickly form an assumption in your mind of what the root of the problem is, and how you might address it. But it’s really useful to build the discipline of taking a step back from that and forcing yourself to open up the issue. And that translates well beyond the IsoLabs structure to negotiations and group discussions in various forms. It’s surprisingly widely applicable.
"And practically, we all gained usable insights from it. Which is strange, because you generate the insights yourself in response to the questions. But it’s amazing how a few questions can lead you to a place you wouldn’t have got to yourself."
What we’ve tweaked
After the first iteration, we’ve tweaked a few things. For example, we’re going to run some IsoLabs cohorts specifically for our scientists and facilitated by Sophie Gill, Head of Marine Science, because we’d like to explore the pros and cons of action learning within a team of close colleagues.
We’re also going to try running some thematic cohorts—for example on communication, leadership, or time management. Our hypothesis is that we might get a more satisfying sense of progress from beginning to end that way, but the debate around emergence in coaching is clear that there are no easy answers on this topic!
Finally, we’re going to encourage more touchpoints in between sessions, especially to prompt preparation and accountability for actions.
What’s next
Having piloted the group with six people, we’ve had 21 put their hands up to be included in an upcoming IsoLabs run, which represents nearly half the company!
It’s our intention that, in combination with the lunch & learns we run in-house, the 1:1 coaching we offer at key junctures in people’s careers, and the highly distinctive management programme we’ve designed—more to come shortly in a future blog post—every member of the Isometric team will, through IsoLabs, have access to highly individualised, high-quality learning opportunities.
We want Isometric to be a place people come to turbo-charge their careers; a place they come to learn, to be challenged, and to experience the joy and satisfaction of becoming more skilled.
