Who I am

Translating and working between strategy and operations is my thing, so think of me as like a personal trainer and coach for closing the gap between reality and vision. 

Life is too short to be stuck in organisations where we can't add value, or feel like we're always in the losing team - I love growing people and improving how we work. 

After 20+ years working as an internal and external coach for leadership, management, service improvement, and workplace culture, the journey travelled hasn't always gone to plan.

I'm an improver by nature, and my energy comes from sharing how organisations and the people in them can be adaptive. Work makes up a large chunk of our life so we need to make it worth our effort - why settle for average when we can feel trusted and free.

The psychological and practical game to shift thinking, change behaviour, and get results can be tough. I was crazy enough to compete in two bodybuilding competitions just to prove to myself that I can adapt emotionally, mentally, and physically!

With an extensive public sector background in complex, large-scale organisations, and private industry experience, I understand the clarity, systemised approach, and discipline needed to make the most of what you have and adapt for sustainable high-performance.

As an Air Force veteran, I'm also passionate about helping private companies create veteran-ready cultures that benefit everyone and partner with Mission Bridge for this.

Everything we do is based on trust. It's risky, contextual, emotional, and essential for leveraging our skills and growing further. For myself, and the people I work with we don't always have trust when we need it, and are dedicated to creating more of it.

We often struggle to trust ourselves, and/or others to make significant changes, even with a clear vision and strong reasons to do things differently.

On the corporate side, I've experienced ridiculous amounts of time, money, and sanity wasted on disconnected and unsustainable 'solutions'. I've also suffered from the overuse of external experts to implement and improve things with limited success. As a previous public servant, and after experiencing client pain and frustration as a consultant, I doubled down hard to create a practical and evidence-based approach for achieving better outcomes at scale.

The primary reason so many improvement plans fail is that 'leadership, performance, and culture is everyone's responsibility', it can’t be outsourced, led, or sustained by anyone other than you and your teams. 

Another big reason for failure is a lack of dedicated resourcing and skills. I've seen many clients fail because they are overwhelmed by expectations, don't trust the changes to be made, and aren't set up for success.

Seeing and feeling the pain of distrust due to massive gaps between big picture strategies and operational realities, I wrote Trust as a practical guide to bring people together. 

I'm passionate about starting with one thing, and building confidence by developing and growing what leaders at all levels can do now.

I am not a consulting company. When you engage me, you get me as a partner who is committed to sustainable outcomes. 

My approach is to develop and grow what your organisation already has - if you don't have something, I'll work with you to create what is needed with your teams.

Together we'll build trust through co-design, skills transfer, and business improvement.

Everyone is responsible for bringing a vision and strategy to life. To ensure multi-disciplined teams work in-sync, I developed the Adaptive Culture Model, an evidence-based, systemised and easy-to-adopt approach for all disciplines to own their contribution as a member of one team.

Working as partners we'll optimise leadership, business intelligence, and how people deliver services for sustainable high-performance.

If you're prepared to partner up on the work, I'm here for your journey. As a team we will:

1. Obtain unfiltered intelligence to address root causes of issues
2. Work with the operational challenges, pace, and pressures
3. Provide employees with the opportunity, skills, and support to be successful
4. Save money by growing capacity and realising value with what you have
5. Co-create solutions that make sense
6. Implement practical outcome-driven approaches for success
7. Deliver in ways that are calm, sustainable, and continuously improving.

I don't have a cookie-cutter offer. It's better to create a flexible and bespoke approach based on your challenges, the problems to be solved, and the outcomes to be achieved.

Foundational services are on the programs page, but if you've read this far, a conversation about what you need would be easier and better for both of us.

Message me on LinkedIn, or via melanie@melaniemarshall.com.au to arrange a complimentary initial consult on what you want to achieve.