For six weeks, I spent the very start of my week (Monday mornings at 8am!) in a Zoom room with a group of people who, on paper, had very little in common.
We were leaders from different organisations, sole traders and people working across completely different sectors. We had different clients, different business models and completely different day-to-day realities. As a group, we covered marketing and communications, education, the bridal industry, wellness coaching, a food delivery service, amongst others. The one thing we had in common was that we were running small businesses in Oxfordshire, and we all had problems we were trying to solve.
I was taking part in the Foundations to Growth programme, run by Enterprise Oxfordshire. Each week, one of us would bring a real challenge we were facing to the group, with one important rule: nobody was allowed to give advice or respond with a solution.
Instead, the rest of the group could only ask questions. It sounds like a small distinction, but in practice it completely changed the conversation, and it was much harder than it sounds.
It turns out, we’re very good at jumping to solutions. When someone tells us about a problem, our instinct is usually to fix it.
Have you tried this?
This worked for us.
You should speak to…
It comes from a good place. But it also means we tend to filter someone else’s problem through our own experiences. The structure of the sessions forced us to do something different in staying curious for longer. Rather than deciding what somebody should do, we had to ask questions that helped them interrogate the problem themselves.
What are you actually trying to achieve?
What’s stopping you?
Why does that matter?
What have you already tried?
What would happen if you did nothing?
Sometimes the most useful question wasn’t particularly sophisticated. It was simply something the person closest to the problem had stopped thinking of asking.
Your expertise can create an echo chamber
The part of the programme that surprised me most was how valuable it was to talk to people outside my usual professional bubble. In our day-to-day work, we naturally surround ourselves with people who speak the same language. We read the same industry publications, follow similar people on LinkedIn, attend the same conferences and talk about the same trends.
There are obvious benefits to this: shared expertise makes it easier to go deeper, but it can also create an echo chamber. When everyone around you understands how your sector works, certain assumptions stop being questioned.
Someone from a completely different sector doesn’t necessarily have those assumptions. They might ask a question that initially feels incredibly basic and then make you realise you don’t have a particularly good answer. Or they might question your use of a term that, for your team, has become part of the vocabulary, but for someone else, creates confusion.
This outside perspective became one of the most valuable parts of the programme.
Sometimes you need someone who doesn’t know the answer
There’s a tendency in business to seek out people who have already solved the exact problem we’re facing. (And sometimes that’s exactly what we need) However, I came away from these six weeks thinking there’s also enormous value in the opposite, in talking to someone who knows very little about the specifics of your world.
They’re not there to tell you the industry-standard answer and they can challenge the premise of the problem itself. Because the format stopped us from immediately offering solutions, the person bringing the challenge still had ownership over what happened next. At the end of each session, we came away with our own action points, informed by the conversation, rather than prescribed by it.
The aim wasn’t to leave with somebody else’s answer; it was to leave seeing your own problem differently. My biggest takeaway from Foundations to Growth was the value of getting outside your echo chamber.
There’s expertise in knowing your sector inside out, but there’s also value in deliberately seeking perspectives from people who don’t. Sometimes the best way to find a new answer is to speak to someone who is seeing the problem for the first time.
Ruth Davis
As the Strategic Engagement & Impact Lead and Co-Founder at Oxygen, I specialise in building strong partnerships, leading high-impact projects, and guiding organisations on how to embed sustainability into their communications and strategy. With a Master’s degree in Sustainable Development and a background in strategic and digital communications, I’ve worked with a wide range of organisations – from climate-focused startups and B Corps to membership bodies and community development charities. My experience spans brand development, messaging and strategy, and website projects, all with a clear focus on purpose and impact. At the core of my approach is collaboration. I’m passionate about aligning big ideas with practical action, helping teams turn values into value and purpose into progress.
