Melanie Marshall

Today on The Jay Allen Show, Jay speaks with Melanie Marshall. Melanie is the author of the book Trust- The Foundation of Healthy Organizations and Teams. Melanie in the past and present had/have positions based in trust, listen to a few - military veteran, personal trainer, public servant, service delivery executive, coach, and leadership advisor.

Enjoy this conversation with Melanie Marshall, today on The Jay Allen Show.




The transcript is not perfect.

[00:00:03] spk_0: This show is brought to you by safety FM. Well hello and welcome to another episode of the J ALLen show. I hope everything is good and grand inside of your neck of the woods and you're having all kinds of fun doing whatever it is that you're currently doing during this mid section of the summer because that's definitely what time frame were located in anyways. I have had the pleasure of speaking with Melanie marshall as of recent and I am so looking forward to being able to share this interview with you. So are you familiar with mentally marshall? If you're not, let me give you some information, who is she? You might be asking. She believes that everything she does is based on trust and that our energies are best spent on things that are meaningful. She had multiple roles as a military veteran, personal trainer, public servant, service delivery, executive coach and leadership advisor. The common skill across of these is the ability to build healthier organizations, teams and people as someone who frequently gets parachuted in complex cultural challenges. She understands the care, effort and persistence needed for positive and sustainable change, enjoy my conversation today with Melanie marshall here on the J allen show, the show is streaming now on safety FM dot life. So let me kind of just ask you how did you get started down this journey where we're able to find some things on, when we did some of the background search on you, but we weren't, there was a gap there and I think I don't know if there was an intentional gap but hey, I guess we'll kind of get into that. But how did you get down into this journey where you got interested in interacting with organizations and the word trust? Ah So trust came out of years and years of frustration and angus I kind of fell into the organizational culture and change space. I've had half a dozen different different careers throughout my life, but I had reached a point where I was going into organizations and the theme was consistent. People were saying that they weren't being trusted to do their jobs, they were feeling quite miserable, they wanted to do more and if anything the performance was suffering, so you would walk into an organization and you can feel the culture within moments really quickly and there was after a range of organizations where I was feeling that kind of vibe and part of my job is going in and and helping sort those out, helping people lift that lift that spirit and deliver better things. But this one particular organization was really, really flat and after a, after a cycle of organizations that are all in the same spot, I was getting really cranky and I was sitting next to her mate at lunch. I'm like, I don't know what it is, but it's either I'm doing something wrong or other people are doing something wrong, but I'm so cranky, I'm really just done. I need to I need to do something different because the job that I'm doing just isn't enough and I'm sick of being pigeonholed as this cultural change person or, or change person or something. It's a joke. And he said, well, I said, what's my thing? You know, I should write a book because I've got to get all of this anger at this energy out. And he said, well, he said, you're all about leadership. And I rolled my eyes and like, oh gosh, no, no, the world does not need another leadership expert please. And a little vomit in my mouth. And I know that's not me. And the thing that really, really grinds me, makes me really, really cranky is that people don't trust each other. If there was more trusted an organization, everybody would perform better. And boom, that's what it was. That's the thing I'm going to write about. I'm going to write about trust because I do know that when I can trust other people and when they can trust me, things are just magical. It's like you have these magical unicorn moments where everything is just humming along. Everyone performs at their best and it's great. It's fantastic. It's such low effort when everybody is in that space and high performance just naturally follows and it's not soft and fluffy. So if people are going to go down this path of telling people that, you know, it's all about communication engagement. I said, well, that's, that's garbage to Yeah, that's right. Exactly. Exactly. because I'm so sick of people focusing on what they think are soft skills, there's nothing soft about trust it, you've either got it or you don't and when you don't, it's dangerous. So how much build up did you have before you got to this point? Because this sounds like years of aggravation before you got here. So how long are we talking? I've been playing in this space now for I would say about 20 years, So now that you acknowledge it, so 20 years and I mean that's a long period of time. So all of a sudden boom, this comes to you, you're frustrated. You say, okay, this is my thing, when you start going down the path, how do you go? How is this going to make sense into a book? Like because there's a lot there, because I'll tell you, I have all kinds of ideas if I ever had to sit down and properly write a book, I'm done, because it's probably not going to happen. So how does it come up that you're able to structure it? Well, that that was, I have the same problem, I've got so many different ideas, I couldn't narrow it down to one, so, when I came up with with trust, and I wo I've picked like, a really little word with a hell of a lot of meaning in there, there's there's a lot of things that you can you can go down, so I read everything that I could find first about trust. So, lots of different books, I also signed up to uh the Oxford Review, where they do summaries of academic research, I'm not an academic, I can't talk like that, I can't be like that, but they do find ways to come up with some real gold. So I'm like, well what I do is going to be sort of evidence based because it can't just be my idea or me writing in anger here. So I need some some grip behind it. So I I joined up the Oxford review, read a lot of their research summaries, read every book that I could find, listen to podcasts, tried to find other people who had given a practical guide around how to actually build trust. And I couldn't find any that I connected with and I definitely couldn't find any that my clients would connect with either because they were either written from a bit of a touchy, fairly kind of generic lens or they were written from larger consulting companies and firms who they connect when you're in that sort of consulting space. But if you're talking just you and I are a small team or even a larger organization, I couldn't find a way that it was practical. So knowing that there was a gap, the way that I then structured the book was really about defining what's the problem that we have, what, what is it that is happening? What is the impact around not having trust and who do we need to be as people in order to be able to lead with trust? Because trust needs to be assumed as opposed to earned. And that's a real, it's a really weird fundamental thing for people to flip like that because we've all been bert right. We've all trusted somebody, been disappointed with all. We've all burnt somebody else's bridges before by saying that we do something and then we didn't. So there's a lot of fear and fear rent giving your trust to somebody or assuming that you can trust someone. So I had to understand what was, what are all of those sorts of things that are holding people back from trusting one another. And then once you understand the context and trust is very contextual because I could trust you, you know, here and now I was talking this is great. Uh in another environment, would I trust you to look after my child who might be a little bit of a handful sometimes, maybe? Maybe not. Don't let them and listen to this later on. So understanding the context that you're in all of the different things that you're playing with other people where they're at within their mindsets around who they trust. Why they don't trust is key. Then finding out who you need to be and coming up with those core competencies. I call them not. It's not a formula. You can't you can't formulas trust. Uh it's definitely not a linear thing where you go, well if I do X, Y Z. I'm going to get trust. Like no, that doesn't work either. So you know, and I apologize for interrupting you. But you have a lot of you have a lot. So I want to make sure that we're able to that we're able to get into it. You spread something that I really like because you say that you went and you talk to the academics, you get you received some data and that's what you started to put into practice. Um I always like modeling and I always like data sets because I think that they're important when you're actually trying to move forward with the project. But you said something in regards of assume trust opposed to earning trust, which is, I'm gonna say different than when you're inside of this environment, when you're doing the the worldly things, we'll put it that way. So when you say they assume trust, does it almost you look at it from the standpoint that it comes with it ranking or a position inside of an organization? Is that come with the title, Is that how you would envision that or I just wanted to see how you can get a little bit more confidence. And trust is not about titles in any way, shape or form. And it's interesting because in an organizational context, if an organization is calling out that that they're going to be trusted, it means that they're not and it means that they don't quite get it yet. I say yes, because it's a learned, it's a learned thing. Uh So if you're in a position, whether you be a ceo whether you're being a middle manager or you are at the coalface, you're all in a position where you can lead with trust. Because nothing that we do is in isolation. No organization operates as a solo individual. And even if you are um uh an independent soul operator like myself, there's a lot of people that I need to be able to trust and lean into in order to do my job the best way that I can. So yeah, it's definitely not position or what what I came up with, what I call the heart and soul competencies of trust. And these are the things of who we need to be. So quite often we focus on trust about being honest, empathetic and reliable and they're they're three very key things that came up in the research around what you needed to be. But what I found was that there were moments where I was those things, but it still wasn't enough and I was still making mistakes and scratching my head. It was what was what was I doing right or wrong in that moment. And interestingly those competencies came from a conversation and discussion that I had with a a grocery like a supermarket checkout operator and his name is Andrew and I called him adam in the book because to protect his identity. But he's cool. He's cool with with releasing his name. But Andrew was amazing. He he always served with such joy and such delight and genuinely cared for all of the customers that came through his check out. And I watched him for months just being in total service, total service to people. And this one particular day I thought you know what I'm going to go and I'm going to find out how he's doing because he's really inspiring. And I don't even think that he knows it. So it's my turn to get served. And I said hi there. And I could see his name was Andrew. So I said hi Andrew. You are always so amazing with people you really serve with so much joy and you're inspiring. And I don't think you realize that. But how are you doing? And he stopped and he thought, and he looked and was a bit shocked and he said, well actually I think I've lost my life purpose. Whoa, okay. That's just not me. But at the capture to shoot right away. Yeah, that's not, that's definitely not the conversation I was expecting. But I thought, wow, he has trusted me with this information and he doesn't even know me. And that's a really big statement to make. And as he said it, he appeared shocked. He's like, I can't believe I just said that, that's okay. I really appreciate the fact that you've just come out with that and that's horrible. That's really horrible. Nobody deserves to feel like that. Was there ever a time where you actually did feel that you had a purpose? And he said, well, yeah, I am, I did actually. I really liked liked to paint said, okay instead of there, is there something stopping you from being able to paint example? Well, no, I think I just kind of just kind of haven't, I just kind of let other things get in the way. Okay. This is it possible that you could potentially pick up a paintbrush again or if you've got something that you might be inspiring to be able to paint. Like I've got a whole box of photos and I can pull those out and you could just see the light returning to his face again. Now there's a long jump between having lost your purpose and all of a sudden picking up a paintbrush. So it's not that simple and I get that and I'm not I'm not I'm certainly not saying that it is. So of course, you know, I'm going to have to ask, are there other people standing in line, is this conversation because you know how people always get inside, get inside of the lane? They're like, what's going on here? Yeah, come on, girl, hurry. I think I want to get my groceries done yet. Now we were lucky because there wasn't a great deal, there wasn't anyone behind me at the time. But as we were sort of wrapping up the conversation, he was finishing my groceries. There wasn't a pause, it was all happening as he was scanning my groceries. And I'd say the whole conversation interaction all happened within probably about three minutes. But it was amazing. There was as we were wrapping up the conversation, somebody else came in. So he didn't hold anybody up, which was good. But but at the end of it, he had made a commitment and he said, well, he said, I'm I'm I'm going to have a I'm going to have a look at my photos and see what I can come up with. Well, I really like that. And would it be okay if I asked you about it next time I saw you? And he's like, actually, yeah, that would be good. That would be good. So every time I went and got my groceries, I would sort of swing past and Andrew would serve me and we ended up having this love hate relationship because he would hold me accountable to things as well. And so if you're going to hold me accountable to something, I'm going to, I'm going to make sure your training and your exercising and you're doing all of this other stuff like, okay, all right. And we used to laugh and giggle because there were days that I would sort of go, oh gosh, you know, I don't want to see Andrew because I haven't done my stuff, it would be the same rego, I don't want to see Melanie because she hold me accountable and I haven't, I haven't picked up my pencil yet or started drawing. But the fascinating thing about all of that is that prior to that, one day, that conversation I'd asked my husband Anthony what is it that I do? Because people always tell me stuff. It's just a thing. He's like, well it's just a thing as well. Hold on. Did he did he paused to give you an answer right away. I would be very timid about being asked by my wife. I'm just I just want to figure out did he do the right thing here? Yeah. Well, he he always does the right thing generally. It was generally we need to slave this clip later on. I'll remember this what it just doesn't surprise him because it doesn't matter where I go. People just, I don't know how well I do know how it happens now. But at the time I didn't I said, what is it that people just tell me their life stories and stuff that I've never told anybody else? I said there's something that I do that I don't know what it is and if I can bottle that up and write it in a book and show other people how they can also do this. I think that would be really powerful because it'll be practical and help a lot of people. And he said, oh baby, just that's just who you are like, oh gosh, that's beautiful. But we're really unhelpful. So I had that conversation beforehand and I'm kind of jumping around in the story here, but back to Andrew after I had the conversation with Andrew about him losing his purpose and then identifying something that could help him get back on track. I got into the car and I just burst into tears. Just totally broke down into tears because just being able to connect with somebody in that way that you've never known and to be really, really have that level of insight face to face in an unexpected way and to be able to handle it and not get freaked out about it. And to be inspired yourself. That's like that's magic. You can't buy that, you can't manufacture it. You can't it's not positional. It was it's totally human. But you almost have to be open to this. It's there has to be an openness because you could have been more along the lines during the time. You know, I need to make sure that my list is here. I got other things going on is how I'm going to pay for this. Is it already set up and so on. But you were open to not that you had the expectation that this was going to be the conversation, but you had an openness and you decided to take a risk even by even how you started off the conversation. That's right. Well, trust at risk is the risk is a really good word, because trust is incredibly risky. There are so many uncertainties in it. You're putting yourself out there and you're being vulnerable for somebody else. Uh he was being vulnerable for him. I was being vulnerable for myself because like what if what if I had opened up some massive can for him? And I didn't know how to put them back? Yeah, but when I went, I got into the car when I reflected, Yeah, I I burst into tears and I went, oh my goodness. And the words, Heart and soul popped into my head and it's an acronym for all of the things that in that moment, both both Andrew and I gave one another. So we gave each other honesty, empathy, reliability. We gave each other, um, an openness, like you said in an understanding of who we were within that moment and who we wanted to be. We had a lasting focus to the conversation. It wasn't just like hurry up, I want to get X done in order to achieve this. There was a, there was a you're going to be part of an interaction whether or not it's somebody that I'm always going to see every day. I'm not going to say what you want to skip down the hands and do that with everybody. But certainly the conversation was one of his eyes on the horizon. What what would be the greater good here from this conversation and then having that sincerity and also being accountable for one another, created a different sort of partnership and took what could have been a very random interaction of how should a good, how is the weather good? But we have those automatic responses, I think when we go to work it's a so, and that's where I would like to go next. I mean, of course just started a very interesting interaction with you two. It also started a journey to an extent because now when you're seeing him, you're holding him accountable on the regards, painting your and then he's holding recordable in regards to the gym stuff. Which I think is interesting because I recently watched a video of you talking about it being uh not wanting to go to the gym, but you did go to the gym just to make sure that you got the work done, even though you didn't love it at the time that you were doing it. I think it's great for you. Oh yeah, there's a lot of things that I hate doing, but I know that there's a trend I think were the things that I hate doing tend to be the better things for me. Most beneficial is normally the way that it actually, it's about chasing the feeling, right? So let's go a little bit deeper here. So let's talk about someone that, you know, so as you're doing these interactions potentially at work, this is, this might be people that see you every day, so it's not going to be the, well we won't call it at the ah ha moment, but kind of that, that interesting interaction, they see you every day, they've seen how you are, how do you build this level of trust or this level of communication inside of a scenario where someone might know you from the day that you walked in to where you are currently. Yeah, it's being, I know this sounds really trite, but it's that whole ability to be human. I got some feedback years ago and I'm not a fan of being human. I must admit what nobody likes to show their flaws, right? I think that everything is all cool and perfect and fine, but the reality is it's just not. And and we showed when we show that we're fabulously flawed, we show a weakness and it's scary. You don't want those weaknesses to be I guess exploited and we all come with baggage, right? We will come with experiences from other organizations, experiences with other people that we've had. And it's about being able to own your own beliefs about trust. And if I want people to trust me, what are the blockers that I'm putting up for me not trusting them? So it's that yes, making sure that I guess the the checklist that you have in your head of what other people need to do to what you feel, earn your trust, How easy is it for you to earn their trust. So it's it's really understanding that and the key is definitely about being honest with who you are and where you're at and when people can see that you're relatable and you're human and you're not perfect. That in itself gives people permission for them to also be the same with you. And I had I had a real turning point conversation with a guy called Dave and I was working in in a large hospital and he was one of the woodsman And it was the toughest gig I've ever had. It was I had just over 300 staff. I'd come into a culture that was known as being quite toxic. They were the problem kids because that's how they, would you say this is the roughest one you were in the Air Force? At one point, I'm not taking this out of the equation. I would say the hospital environment was rougher than any military environment I've ever been, wow, okay, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Just um that that was my experience, might not be other people's experience from the military, but my experience is the roughest, hardest organizations I've worked in have been hospitals and so I was leading towards services and they do the patient transfers, they do all of the administration as well as the infection control for patient flow. And anyway, Dave, if you can imagine he is, I'm not very tall, I'm about 100 and 59 centimeters. Dave is you know like about 100 and 80. He's just a big burly bloke, big beard, he kind of looks like he belongs in a biker gang. And he's very, when you look at him he's very scary and intimidating. But he pulled me aside one day and he said, you know what he said, I wish you'd just stop being this corporate chick. I'm like whoa, okay, what's that? And he said, well he said we know that you're under a lot of stress and a lot of pressure and we know that you really care about us and that you're trying to do the right thing and we want to be able to help you but you won't let us in. I'm like whoa right. I've just gotten a lesson from the scare is barely black. I know because I mean how do you think it I mean they're telling he's telling you this like let me in. How do you take the information? Yeah. Well I am. Well 1st, 1st there was a bit of a long silent pause because you're waiting for the punch line. Like it was a joke. I would I would imagine it first, right. It was the shock of it. It was just wow. You know, I thought that I thought that I was being this really good solid leader. I thought I was doing the right things for people and we were making a difference. I knew I was making a difference. We were getting some really good, really good traction. We were getting more funding to better support the staff. We were getting equipment replaced that had been broken. We were addressing some very significant risks in how, how they were working and things that they were doing that we're you know, putting their own health and safety at risk. We're pulling all of those things together. But the stress and the pressure of of that was taking its toll on me and I was really burning out fast. So at this time I was really quite vulnerable to that. and when Dave said that, okay, yeah, I I was just shocked because I never saw myself as somebody who was this corporate robotic check, you know, like I just didn't like I it was so far removed from who I who I was as a person deep down inside and certainly it was very far removed from the vision or my intentions as somebody who wanted to be respected by them. And I guess seen as a leader, I mean leadership is not positional either, it's it's the people around you who decide whether or not you're a leader and and I wanted to be a leader for them and and in that moment I realized that I was in some ways I had been failing them and I've been failing myself and it was hard and and once I got over that initial sort of shock and that initial reflection of crap, I'm not who I who I thought I was, or at least that's not who I'm being. Which is more to the point, it's about being being somebody who you need, who is inspiring. I realized that I had been given an incredible gift and Dave had initially just totally freed me in that moment. I I really was able to take a step back and go, well, I'm not responsible for the organization's culture, I'm not responsible for lifting 300 people out of what would be described as nothing, nothing less than a cultural depression, which is where they were on the employee satisfaction and culture scale. We're all in this together and I'm robbing them opportunities to be able to create something amazing here. And that means I don't have to do any of this stuff alone. How cool is that? So, in that moment he gave me a gift and from that time I then started doing things differently. I let people in, I walked the floor differently. We shared more of ourselves and what was happening outside of the work life as well as what was in the work life. And when I did that, everyone became more open. We walked side by side, people told me things that they knew they might get in trouble for, let's talk about that because how does the transformation occur? Because I would imagine you have to have the initial shock. It's the initial shocking. Even though it's a gift, it's an initial shock. I mean, it has to hurt because somebody's being off, Somebody has to be authentic with you and they're willing to be open and honest enough to say, hey, this is what's going on. So you have that initial shock. Yes, I know the pause, but it's not, we're not shooting on all cylinders momentarily afterwards. No, reflecting before you say, I know internally I need to change. Yeah, Well, because because of my background, I can flip very quickly on that. So if you think, I mean at that, by the time that moment to come, probably had about mm between 10 to 15 years worth of executive coaching, life coaching, um, or psych type experience under my belt. So once you kind of know that stuff, you don't even know it. I know exactly. So for me, it doesn't take very long to get an insight and go, whoa, okay, right, let's, let's turn that around at rapid pace. The thing that you've said is really key. The transformation doesn't happen overnight. It is a real face punch when you first, when you first realized I've gotta, I've gotta not just change. I've got a totally evolve into something else entirely and it's not just at a personal level, but organizationally we had to do that as well because there were lots of things within our system that was broken, that was leading to people being angry, frustrated, behaving badly, accidents happening. We had to look at everything from a whole system perspective. So whether for any kind of a transformation, whether it be you yourself into me, I want to go on a personal transformation, whether it's a team, whether it's a large organization, you've got to look at all of the components within that, within yourself, within your team, within within your organization or culturally go well. What are all of the drivers, What are all of the practices that we use? How do we think? How do we be, How does that all work together? So it's always about systems, your internal systems, your external systems and your environment. I liken it to a professional football team, for example, they have amazing systems around them that enable them to achieve high performance. They've got a coach, they've got training plans, they've got equipment that works, they've got structured plays, they've got a range of people around them to make sure that they've got therapists, physios to ensure that people are at their peak, the players themselves have to take care of themselves. They've got to get adequate sleep, put the right fuel in the tank with their food and their nutrition. They've got to do the work on their own game consistently, even when they don't want to day after day to make sure that when they show up as part of a team that they are the best version of themselves that they can possibly be in that moment. And if you think about an organization, being many teams, if everybody had an approach to, to being a high performance player, the whole team would be available more successful and that bottom line would be a lot better. So, so yeah, it is definitely about understanding your context and the problems who you need to be to be able to lead with trust and bring your best self to the table, looking at all of the structures around you and the supports that you have or you don't have that you need to create and that's where the co design of these things is really important. Yeah. And then putting that into a way into action so that people truly are connected, clear around what they need to do and then committed even in the days where you don't want to do it, because motivation is waning. That, that ebbs and flows, but being really connected to why you need to transform and working on the house together and being able to lift one another. When everyone's motivation is not always going to be high, some will be high, some will be low, Someone will be in between when you can all be reminding each other of, of why this is important, why what you do matters and contributes to the whole. That's when everyone owns the success, just as much as everybody owns when you trip and fall to and they're there to pick you up. So, so how do you get to that point inside of an organization? Because I think that that's really going to be a key element here because I would love to say, okay, let's read a book and that's it. I wish it was that simple. But you know, that that's not not the case. But how do you get to that point? Because you're establishing to an extent personal relationships, it's opening up to your coworker. It's opening up to your team members in regards of actually having those deeper conversations besides that. Hey, maybe the work that we do is not the greatest on the planet, but we have something that we kind of coexistence. So let's talk about some things that we we might have some common interests. I mean, let's just be realistic, not all, not all work is glamorous. Um, so it's not great, but we have some common practices and we also might have some common interest is. So how does those things actually occur? How do you start developing those relationships? Yeah, well, well, when you really get in and you understand what's broken, when people are when people know that when they're when they're in that pain point, they're working through those painful things day in and day out, chances are they also know how to fix them, but they're not given the opportunity to. So it's understanding and doing like a bit of an assessment around well, what isn't working for us right now, what is holding us back? Because there's a very big gap, oracle transformation gap betw