Nick Isbister
Read more about experienced executive coach Nick Isbister, who has been a trusted advisor to business leaders for 26 years.
Nick’s approach
For over 30-years, Nick has run a strength-based coaching business. He is the founder and Managing Director of the Listening Partnership. The company specialises in high-level Executive Coaching and Leadership Development for individuals and teams.
Nick has increasingly focused on working with senior executives and executive teams to sharpen their focus and achieve better traction. Nick helps them negotiate the pressures they face at the top of their organisations and work out what they really want.
He regularly works with: CEOs; CFOs; many ‘C-suite’ Executives; Executive Boards; partners of professional service firms; directors of charities and business owners.
Nick’s expertise
Nick has worked within a wide range of sectors as an executive coach and as a consultant. These include corporates, professional services firms, SMEs and charities. He has developed long relationships with many of his clients, and worked with them on many projects, and on many diverse issues over considerable periods of time: BT (28 years); BP (25 years); Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (20 years); Oxfam (15 years); O2 (11 years); Vodafone (10 years).
In addition to his extensive experience as a consultant and coach he was the Executive Chair of Turley, a role that builds on his 25-year relationship he has with them, helping them go from being a young, dynamic, regional player to being the largest Independent Town Planning Consultancy in the UK. Turley is an EO Business.
Nick has developed a powerful coaching methodology using a narrative approach that helps business leaders and others to make sense of their personal and organisational experience and be more effective. This approach to coaching he calls Transformational Narrative Coaching. In addition to being a practitioner, he also trains other coaches in the process.
Nick’s experience
Nick has extensive experience of coaching clients at all levels in organisations, as well as private individuals who are at transition points in their lives. He helps people know what they want; create new options beyond their existing constraints; supports and challenges teams as they work through the interpersonal dynamics to enhanced performance. Nick has also been a trusted advisor to many leaders and emerging leaders.
- Diploma in Executive Coaching from Ashridge Business School
- PhD in Psychology from Cambridge University
- MA (Cantab) in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University
- Member of the EMCC and adheres to their Code of Ethics
- Published Author – Who do you think you are? (a ‘self-help’ book)
- Published Author – Freud: an introduction to his life and work (critical biography)
If you are interested in discussing your coaching, supervision or consultancy needs with Nick, please contact us today.
‘I have worked with the Nick over the last 7 years and it’s been a fantastic journey of discovery, incredibly rewarding and at times provocative. I am absolutely convinced that my professional development, clarity of personal brand and overall career fulfilment have all benefited significantly since working with Nick and the team.’
Barry McNeill
Chief Operating Officer – Catapult Sports
Working with boards
Nick has considerable experience and talent at working with Boards. He ensures they are crystal clear about their strategic purpose and become guardians of their organisation’s long-term success. He will adopt either the role of an external consultant to the board or take on the Non-Executive Chair internal resource position. In both contexts, he brings a range of strong capabilities and astute personal leadership to the table.
Nick maintains that healthy boards lead and sustain strong, healthy organisations. He believes that clear board leadership is vital for any organisation’s ongoing viability.
Nick offers a range of board services:
- Executive Coaching for CEOs – Nick provides a safe space for CEOs to download their thoughts and feelings. Time to stand back and strategise. A combination of responsive attention on the pressing, immediate board topics and strategic input to the longer-term agenda. He offers a blend of robust challenge and calm support that is always determined by the concerns of the moment. This includes the CEO’s personal needs and the business-critical issues of the organisation
- Strategic Governance Reviews – Nick can build strategic reviews for your Board. Time to evaluate existing practice to see if it is fit-for-purpose. Time to go back to ‘first principles’ to determine if the organisation’s Governance cycles are robust, in place and working well
- Team Dynamics – whether the Board is well-established, or relatively new to its task, Nick’s input builds strong foundations right from the start. He will focus on the fundamentals of board process and the relationships, as well as the utilisation of the group’s diverse talents
- NED and Non-Executive Chair work – Nick’s track record as a Chair – both Non-Executive and Executive gives a depth of knowledge and expertise that will benefit any board looking for strategic change
If you are interested in improving how your board operates, get in touch, Nick will be pleased to speak with you about possible ways of working together.
‘I have worked with the Nick over the last 7 years and it’s been a fantastic journey of discovery, incredibly rewarding and at times provocative. I am absolutely convinced that my professional development, clarity of personal brand and overall career fulfilment have all benefited significantly since working with Nick and the team.’
Barry McNeill
Chief Operating Officer – Catapult Sports
‘I have worked with the Nick over the last 7 years and it’s been a fantastic journey of discovery, incredibly rewarding and at times provocative. I am absolutely convinced that my professional development, clarity of personal brand and overall career fulfilment have all benefited significantly since working with Nick and the team.’
Barry McNeill
Chief Operating Officer – Catapult Sports
‘Nick and Jude are perceptive, impactful and motivational at personal, team and corporate levels. Working with the Listening Partnership for over 20 years in manufacturing and third sector organisations has been a highly valuable experience.’
Stuart Leed
Interim FD – Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust
‘I saw Nick at a pivotal point in my career. His quiet wisdom and guidance helped me see my future in a very different light. I can’t recommend him too highly.’
Jay Hunt
Creative Director Europe – Apple
‘I have worked with Nick for over twelve years through major transitions in my career and challenges in delivering business outcomes. What I value most about Nick is his ability to reground me and get both perspective and focus into how to work through challenges. I appreciate the alternative approaches he brings to how to deal with issues and his pragmatism and practicality. As an executive coach he supportive, thoughtful and relevant.’
Laurence Milsted
Global Finance Director – London Law Firm
‘I have worked with Nick since 2002 finding his insights and help profound. Nick always helps me unpack my jumbled thoughts, helping me to be present as a leader, giving me the confidence I need to thrive and perform.’
Guy Mason
Cfo And Director – Bp Shipping
‘Nick has made a significant and lasting impact on my confidence and effectiveness. He understood the key issues and what would work for me. I feel better equipped to take on ever bigger challenges.’
Kelly Barlow
Commercial Director – Bt Consumer
‘Nick has injected impetus and direction into both my professional and personal life. A fantastic listener and facilitator, I genuinely feel empowered by the reflective process of discovery he took me on.’
Blake Wooster
CEO – 21st Club Ltd
Being different – The value of not always quite fitting in
On the outside, you look the part. You seem competent and at home professionally. But inside, part of you often feels you don't quite fit in. You'll never really be a 'good corporate fit', and you have always felt that way.
Kintsugi, wabi-sabi, and why it’s fine to be imperfect
In Japanese ‘Kintsugi’ means to 'join with gold', an elegant and graceful way to mend broken pottery, leaving the mend fully visible and highlighting it with the precious metal. The pot shards are fused back together with gold, and the gilded cracks become part of the object's beauty.
Has your enthusiasm wilted? Are you bored? You might be pot-bound in your role!
The alarm clock goes off. At first there's that lovely blank feeling, the feeling you get just before you fully wake and realise what your day will involve. Then you remember it's a weekday and your mood sinks.
Forget your superchickens and connect better for brilliant teams
Margaret Heffernan recommends we move past the pecking order at work. As the successful former CEO of five businesses, Margaret has discovered that one of the most common ways businesses are run invariably leads to troubled waters.
Leaders are weavers – of people and stories
In the current crisis, this may seem like an unusual way to talk about leaders. An odd way to describe how they can influence others. The idea of a leader being ‘a weaver of people’ resonates with us. We also believe a leader is a ‘weaver of stories’ - both a story-maker and a storyteller.
What does it mean to flourish at work? Introducing the PERMA Model
Are you happy at work? For most of us, our professional experience is a mix of frustration and fulfilment, plus many hours of grind which can be bland and monotonous. It can also be the opposite, highly pressured and seemingly relentless.
Are you Relentless and Unstoppable?
The tragic, untimely death of basketball legend Kobe Bryant at the end of January 2020 shocked the world, robbing us of a remarkable talent. Professional basketball lost a great player.
How to lead a company well in an increasingly complex world
The subject of how companies should be run is an enduring one. Business Schools and business gurus peddle endless creative solutions, making a good living at theorising and pontificating about it.
Innovate or stagnate? Get ahead of the curve
In a fast-changing world it is important to stay open, and be aware that people who are the most responsive to change are those who survive, even thrive. Does that sound familiar?
Finding your rhythm to achieve the work exercise balance
Do you find daily exercise a constant struggle as it’s often the first priority to get scratched as you juggle a myriad of deadlines at work and at home?
Little decisions, big impact – Small changes have more power than you think
Most of us appreciate the big, sweeping positive changes that happen in our lives. But they're tough to achieve, requiring time, strength and dedication. Little changes are different.
Flattery isn’t feedback – it rarely encourages or inspires genuine confidence
How do you feel about being flattered? Most of us find it slightly uncomfortable, even though we're not always sure why it doesn't feel right. Praise and encouragement almost always feel real. Flattery and ingratiation tend to have a shallower edge, an undercurrent that isn't as positive as it might at first seem, a hidden agenda.
Nick’s approach
For over 30-years, Nick has run a strength-based coaching business. He is the founder and Managing Director of the Listening Partnership. The company specialises in high-level Executive Coaching and Leadership Development for individuals and teams.
Nick has increasingly focused on working with senior executives and executive teams to sharpen their focus and achieve better traction. Nick helps them negotiate the pressures they face at the top of their organisations and work out what they really want.
He regularly works with: CEOs; CFOs; many ‘C-suite’ Executives; Executive Boards; partners of professional service firms; directors of charities and business owners.
Nick’s expertise
Nick has worked within a wide range of sectors as an executive coach and as a consultant. These include corporates, professional services firms, SMEs and charities. He has developed long relationships with many of his clients, and worked with them on many projects, and on many diverse issues over considerable periods of time: BT (28 years); BP (25 years); Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (20 years); Oxfam (15 years); O2 (11 years); Vodafone (10 years).
In addition to his extensive experience as a consultant and coach he was the Executive Chair of Turley, a role that builds on his 25-year relationship he has with them, helping them go from being a young, dynamic, regional player to being the largest Independent Town Planning Consultancy in the UK. Turley is an EO Business.
Nick has developed a powerful coaching methodology using a narrative approach that helps business leaders and others to make sense of their personal and organisational experience and be more effective. This approach to coaching he calls Transformational Narrative Coaching. In addition to being a practitioner, he also trains other coaches in the process.
Nick’s experience
Nick has extensive experience of coaching clients at all levels in organisations, as well as private individuals who are at transition points in their lives. He helps people know what they want; create new options beyond their existing constraints; supports and challenges teams as they work through the interpersonal dynamics to enhanced performance. Nick has also been a trusted advisor to many leaders and emerging leaders.
- Diploma in Executive Coaching from Ashridge Business School
- PhD in Psychology from Cambridge University
- MA (Cantab) in Natural Sciences from Cambridge University
- Member of the EMCC and adheres to their Code of Ethics
- Published Author – Who do you think you are? (a ‘self-help’ book)
- Published Author – Freud: an introduction to his life and work (critical biography)
If you are interested in discussing your coaching, supervision or consultancy needs with Nick, please contact us today.
‘I have worked with the Nick over the last 7 years and it’s been a fantastic journey of discovery, incredibly rewarding and at times provocative. I am absolutely convinced that my professional development, clarity of personal brand and overall career fulfilment have all benefited significantly since working with Nick and the team.’
Barry McNeill
Chief Operating Officer – Catapult Sports
Working with boards
Nick has considerable experience and talent at working with Boards. He ensures they are crystal clear about their strategic purpose and become guardians of their organisation’s long-term success. He will adopt either the role of an external consultant to the board or take on the Non-Executive Chair internal resource position. In both contexts, he brings a range of strong capabilities and astute personal leadership to the table.
Nick maintains that healthy boards lead and sustain strong, healthy organisations. He believes that clear board leadership is vital for any organisation’s ongoing viability.
Nick offers a range of board services:
- Executive Coaching for CEOs – Nick provides a safe space for CEOs to download their thoughts and feelings. Time to stand back and strategise. A combination of responsive attention on the pressing, immediate board topics and strategic input to the longer-term agenda. He offers a blend of robust challenge and calm support that is always determined by the concerns of the moment. This includes the CEO’s personal needs and the business-critical issues of the organisation
- Strategic Governance Reviews – Nick can build strategic reviews for your Board. Time to evaluate existing practice to see if it is fit-for-purpose. Time to go back to ‘first principles’ to determine if the organisation’s Governance cycles are robust, in place and working well
- Team Dynamics – whether the Board is well-established, or relatively new to its task, Nick’s input builds strong foundations right from the start. He will focus on the fundamentals of board process and the relationships, as well as the utilisation of the group’s diverse talents
- NED and Non-Executive Chair work – Nick’s track record as a Chair – both Non-Executive and Executive gives a depth of knowledge and expertise that will benefit any board looking for strategic change
If you are interested in improving how your board operates, get in touch, Nick will be pleased to speak with you about possible ways of working together.
‘I have worked with the Nick over the last 7 years and it’s been a fantastic journey of discovery, incredibly rewarding and at times provocative. I am absolutely convinced that my professional development, clarity of personal brand and overall career fulfilment have all benefited significantly since working with Nick and the team.’
Barry McNeill
Chief Operating Officer – Catapult Sports
‘I saw Nick at a pivotal point in my career. His quiet wisdom and guidance helped me see my future in a very different light. I can recommend him highly.’
Jay Hunt
Chief Creative Officer – Channel 4
Nick’s latest articles
Why triangulation and gossip at work is toxic
Gossip may seem like just a bit of fun, but in reality, it’s far from harmless. Left unchecked, gossip -along with the triangulation that comes with it, can be highly toxic. It creates a working atmosphere so unpleasant that it can leave people miserable, impacting individuals, teams, performance, and general productivity.
The neuroscience of habits and how the brain works
Over the past decade, the integration of neuroscience, technology and behavioural economics has led to a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the power of habit and the pivotal role that habit plays in behaviour change. It is all about different parts of the brain and how they work together.
