I am Isobel Madle. I am a strategic account manager at Verj. Verj is the research and strategy of a group of digital consultancies called LAB Group. There are a few other agencies in the group, we work very closely with Riverr who are our product and tech build arm and Studio Blup who are a creative agency. It's a full digital consultancy.
This is a new role for me, and I have been in this position for about 5 or 6 weeks. Before moving to the private sector, I worked as a behavioral scientist for a government consultancy called DG Cities. They primarily worked in the environmental tech sector with local councils and government bodies. I moved back into the private sector because I previously worked at Edelman, a PR agency. I was based in the behavioral science arm. I found that the pace of work in the commercial sector was more to my liking, and I enjoyed being able to see the impact of my work quickly. I also found it easier to sell and progress behavioral science projects in the commercial sector. The public sector are definitely doing it, but it takes a lot longer for things to get approved.
Could you share more about your journey of landing BeSci positions?
To provide some context, I had work experience in behavioral science prior to pursuing my Masters degree. Specifically, I spent three years working in Edelman's research and innovation team, which slowly morphed into the behavioral science team. During the COVID pandemic, I decided it was a good time to do a behavior change Masters degree at UCL. Following that, I had a brief stint at a PR agency called Ketchum as their behavioral scientist before landing my job at DG Cities.
I'm predominantly a qualitative researcher but I do mix-methods. At DG Cities, I have mainly worked on qualitative research and behavior change projects in the environmental space. I completed two major projects, one of which focused on reducing energy consumption for people in fuel poverty through the use of smart energy monitors. The other project looked at ways to reduce fly tipping, which is people throwing large amounts of rubbish, out on council estates within one area of London. Both were year-long projects that allowed me to gain hands-on experience in conducting primary research, designing interventions, implementing interventions, and evaluating their effectiveness. It was great to get the full spectrum of the behavior change projects.
How did you position yourself when you applied?
In my CV, I talked about making the most of my experiences. I started my career in marketing, but part of that was conducting research, albeit secondary research instead of primary research. I emphasized my experience in conducting research and translating it into actionable insights for clients, whether in a marketing or behavioral science context. That's what I tried to focus on when I applied for the job.
I also reached out to the hiring manager before sending my CV to try to understand whether they might be interested in someone like me. I haven't followed the traditional behavioral science route, so I wanted to make sure that my skills were transferable. I do think that behavioural science is such a broad sector, you have a range of skills and you can be an asset if you take a different approach to the subject. Fortunately for me, my skills were a good fit, so I do recommend focusing on transferable skills because they are essential in all consultancies, whether in the public or private sector, especially as behavioral science is moving into the consultancy world.
Are individuals with a background in behavioral science more likely to become consultants or are they more likely to work in-house as associates in the UK currently?
In the UK, there are a couple of big players in the consultancy space such as Ogilvy Consulting, Cowry, and Influence at Work. They are applied behavioral science consultancies. This makes it challenging for new grads because those are the big names in the industry. However, they don't have jobs for everybody. In my opinion, most people working in the private sector are in some sort of agency or consulting, working with multiple brands or clients. In the public sector, behavioral scientists work for government departments, such as BIT or governments may have individual behavioral analyst posts as well. It really depends on the sector. But, the consultancies are definitely winning on the private side.
How do you approach incorporating behavioral insights into your work?
I have an interesting role in my new job. There is a challenge in the behavioral science world on how to sell behavioral science. Many enthusiastic people promote it, but if clients don't understand it and don't want it, then this discipline will become redundant. I work on bringing in new business to use behavioral science and data science work, so I receive client challenges and work out how our services can be used to solve the problem. A big part of my role is learning how to package up behavioral science for different clients, so that they will use our services. It's bespoke to the client; for example, the way pharmaceutical companies use behavioral science to look at patient journeys will be different from how financial institutions use behavioral data science to serve vulnerable customers through online journeys.
So I mostly work at the beginning and the end of projects, first I work out what methods to use to solve a client challenge, then once we’ve conducted all the research and made our recommendations, I work closely with the client to implement the recommendations into their current business model.
Finally, a small part of my role involves sales, and I do a bit of outreach through platforms like LinkedIn and networking. Books like "The Art of Persuasion" have been useful in figuring out how to engage stakeholders and get them on board. This role is quite different from my previous one, which focused on the end-to-end process of research and intervention design. In my current job, I design the e projects, but my focus is on strategy rather than research. Finding the right person for my role was challenging because those who work in strategy and sales may not fully understand the methodologies behind behavioral science research. And people who are researchers may not necessarily want to do the strategy. But I consider myself fortunate to be able to bridge the gap between the two.
Which behavioral science framework or method do you use in your work?
It's really dependent on the client. I went to UCL, so I'm a big proponent of using the COM-B method and the Behavior Change Wheel. One of my colleagues went to Warwick and she's very big in behavioral design. We also often look at social heuristics, especially because we generally work within the products and tech space. So those sorts of heuristics come in really handy for looking at how to gamify apps and make them more usable. The frameworks are brilliant, but they need to be practical, and I think that's another part of my role - how we can bring behavioral science into reality to make it practical so that people use it.
What is the biggest challenge that you have faced in terms of communicating BeSci insights to your clients?
The challenge I find is that "behavioral science" has become a buzzword. People think they know what it is. However, in a couple of conversations, I've realized that people don't really understand it when I start speaking in technical language. If I cannot quickly translate it into terms they understand, we won't get anywhere. Clients often don't appreciate how much is involved with behavioral science. They think a simple nudge will create an impact, but it requires a lot more. My manager always says, "do the hard yards early," so a lot of research is needed prior to designing anything. It's trying to prove the value of behavioral science so that it's not undersold. Nudges sound fun and like quick wins, but that means people think behavioral science is cheap and quick to do. I’m trying to reframe it as a program of work rather than just a nice add-on. There is so much room for the sector to grow, and we just haven't figured out how to do that yet.
How do people in your organization perceive BeSci?
I'm very lucky in that we've got a few people in our organization whose backgrounds are in behavioral science. So I have people who are fairly aligned in that sense. But I would say we all come from slightly separate disciplines. We have data scientists, product strategists, and software developers, etc. I think sometimes people find it hard to distinguish behavioral science from consulting. Sometimes the frameworks can be applied in such a way that it does come across as a consulting project. So I would say there's some resistance in that sense. Obviously, I'm quite a new member of staff, so still figuring out how best to communicate my views. But it's also just that the field is developing. I think it's very hard for people in other organizations and industries to really appreciate the value of behavioral science when all they're reading on LinkedIn is "nudges" and "behavioral science is going wrong.” We sort of need to reframe the message and sell in behavioral science, both internally as well as externally.
How do you stay updated with research and new insights in behavioral science?
Newsletters. The big one I love is Front line BeSci by Colin Strong. That's a weekly one that I like to keep up with. I have to be on LinkedIn for work quite a lot, but it does mean that I go down rabbit holes of reading other people's behavioral science articles.
One of the nice things about in the UK, I don't know if it's the same in the US, is the behavior change Masters. There are three main ones, and they're all taught very differently. My colleague is from another university, and I learned so much from her because we come at the same subject from completely different angles. Her course was more focused around behavioral economics, and I learned a lot from the public health sector about intervention development. So it's really nice to learn from other people in the sector to grow and keep up to date with it as well.
What topics or areas of interest in BeSci or related to BeSci that you have?
I'm really interested in systems thinking and system dynamics. I did a module on it at university. I just think it's such a brilliant way of thinking and analyzing problems. In my previous role, we worked with the UK Government, and they were starting to use it to assess the validity of policies and how policies would impact areas of the climate system, among other things. I think it's not just a great tool to approach problem-solving, but also as a mindset or lens. I'm in the weeds of exploring that at the moment.
I also think it's something that we can use in our organization as well as our election work. We are like 5 agencies, so we want to work together in a complementary manner. I appreciate the customer experience (CX) aspect because research overlaps with CX, but we're two separate teams. So, it's about how we can collaborate to achieve the best outcomes without stepping on each other's toes.
What is your professional aspiration?
I see my role as a strategic manager as a stepping stone. I would like to learn how to sell behavioral science, essentially because I would like to be able to run a team. I'd like to be able to be a director of behavioral science at Verj. I'd like to learn how to grow it as a capability. And so that's sort of why I've been collecting experience both within the research and strategy space. I'd say I've got five years of research experience now. Now I need to learn how to strategize.
What is one piece of advice you would give to someone who started their career, based on either your personal or professional experience?
Don't be afraid to take risks with your career choices. See this as an opportunity to try new things and collect as many skills as possible and trust your instincts, because you know if the job is right for you and when is the time to leave. Also don’t worry just because the job you want isn’t available at the moment. You may have to take an intermediate job to get where you want to be, but know that the sector is growing and changing, so the job you want may not exist yet. Have faith in yourself and take risks to ultimately learn and grow. I think in an industry as broad as ours, all experiences are worth having, as long as you are able to connect the dots and identify why the skill can enhance your abilities in the b-sci field.
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This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Isobel and I had this chat on 04/26/2023.
You can connect with her on her Linkedin
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