Who is Melanie Franklin?
I have dedicated the last 20 years to understanding then communicating the drivers for change in organisations. This has exposed me to a wide range of organisational structures and individuals from around the world and it is this experience that I build on every day. Aside from the academic and professional qualifications that I acquired over this time, my ability to share new concepts and inspire others to embrace change and strive to improve their personal and professional performance is what I am most proud of.
I am in a unique position because I balance being an active practitioner of change with transferring my knowledge to others, whereas most people with my experience are either solely leading change or training and coaching full time. I believe this balance ensures my advice is relevant and practical.
As Chair of the Change Management Institute UK, I lead a volunteer organisation dedicated to increasing the professionalism for managing change. During my time as Chair, I have built up a UK wide network of local chapters hosting events, identifying speakers and providing networking opportunities for our members and potential members. I Chair the Thought Leadership panel which brings together global leaders of large-scale transformations, typically affecting in excess of 20,000 staff. We debate our most pressing issues and I am responsible for developing our thoughts into papers and other collateral to broaden the reach and help our members develop their skills.
My credibility for leading this panel is that I am involved in leading several significant transformations including 38,500 staff impacted by 24 programmes of change in the Middle East and 24,000 teachers within Wales experiencing a complex change to the provision of education for pupils from 5-16 years of age.
Other client assignments include the development of the change management capability for a university that is doubling in size over 5 years and a cultural shift of an EU NGO in the health arena.
I am trusted by respected organisations in many sectors
Private sector
Penguin Random House; Saudi Electricity Company; Zain; National Grid US; SABIC; FIFA; Hoelscher Wasserbau
Public sector
UK Parliament; United Nations; European Medicines Association; Welsh Government
Not for profit
British Red Cross; European Patents Office; The Stroke Association
Why work with me
My passion and track record is for
Transformational change consulting
Executive Coaching
Workshop design and delivery
Exceptional delegate results
My client work involves a broad spectrum of capacity and capability building. These are some of the examples of my most recent work
- Creating a panel of executive coaches to provide a 2 year coaching programme for the Dubai Health Authority. We are responsible for supporting the leadership team in their sponsorship of 24 programmes of significant change. I undertaken one to one mentoring with senior leaders, as well as leading the team of experts. I provide support for these experts in the challenges they face with those they are coaching, as well as developing and running action learning sets for coaches to share experiences and learn from each other.
- Providing coaching to a new Managing Director and his senior leadership team as they seek to change the culture of their organisation which has suffered from an environment where bullying has thrived. This requires the ability to hold a mirror to some senior leaders and help them to appreciate the impact of their behaviour, as well as identifying ways in which they can amend their leadership styles to be more supportive of staff.
- On-going support for a new programme within UNAIDS to achieve dignity at work and ensure that women employees particularly are not discriminated against, in the 36 countries in which UNAIDS operates. I am also a sounding board for the Director General, helping her to shape her strategy and resource her leadership team.
- Supporting an NHS CEO as he seeks to professionalise the approach to project and portfolio management within his trust including development of portfolio management processes, portfolio assessment criteria, example benefits maps and agreement on multiple leading indicators to assess the likely achievement of these benefits from project initiation to post project review.
- Creating the next evolution of change toolkits, moving from templates, checklists and guidance notes for each of the activities in the Change Plan to guidance on how hold difficult conversations where those impacted by change are expressing their resistance to the change. Effectively this toolkit will become a playbook for effective coaching during change and transition for use by internal managers.
- Designing, training and providing on-going support for a network of Change Agents across primary, secondary and special education in Wales for the adoption of the Donaldson recommendations. This is a huge commitment by Welsh Government involving thousands of teachers, teaching assistants and school governors.
- Continuing my work with the Parliamentary Digital Service and the development of a network of local change champions across the House of Commons and House of Lords. I have helped to create the User Engagement Team which supports multiple programmes across both houses, as well as leading briefings for the Director General and other senior appointees on the effective governance of change and transformation.
- Developing a programme to help senior and executive managers within a global insurance company effectively sponsor change. This includes strategic analysis, options analysis, benefits and portfolio management methodologies and emotional and psychological support to build and sustain trusting relationships with those they lead.
- Defining an approach for building organisation wide capacity for leading change. This involves the up-skilling of high volumes of staff in the basics of change management, building their confidence in their ability to lead themselves and those in their sphere of influence into new ways of working. This requirement has been in such high demand that I partnered with an international accreditation body to develop a syllabus, training course and qualification to recognise the achievement of these ‘Local Change Agents’.
I am in a very fortunate position in that I love my work
According to Maslow I am at the point in my career where I am ‘self-actualising’! I find it hard to draw a line between work and hobby as I find what I do so stimulating and rewarding. I want my legacy to be increased skills and confidence in others to help make a difference. I measure my success by the success stories of those whom I coach and train and I am in the fortunate position that they write to me from all over the world to share their achievements.
As part of this I regularly write papers and host webinars on the development of the change management profession and I am the author of 8 text books on project, programme and change management, including the development of an agile change approach. I support an examination body in devising its syllabi for change management qualifications and am developing a new agile change management qualification for 2019.