Protect and create value
The ultimate playbook for high value change
Adaptive Excellence : How the best leaders and teams optimise performance and profit
Organisations spend billions on change every year, yet most programs overpromise, exhaust people, and deliver mediocre results. The issue is rarely effort; it’s friction: unclear priorities, slow decisions, misaligned roles, and operating rhythms that create rework and noise.
Adaptive Excellence is a human-centered, commercially grounded playbook for CEOs, ELT, and transformation/change leads who need results under pressure with better decisions, faster execution, and measurable value without burnout.
With a unique blend of people development and business engineering tactics, this book shows how to:
Remove the constraints that slow delivery, increase risks, and drain profit
Lift leadership standards, decision quality, and performance at every level
Design, implement, and embed team-led change for better ROI.
Globally recognised in 2026 as a Distiguished Achievement by Thinkers360 for Book of the Year, read and apply this book.
Lead with trust
Most leaders don’t have a culture problem — they have a trust problem. And it’s costing them performance, people, and profit. Your organisation can’t afford the cost of distrust.
If you want to increase your influence and impact, this book shows how to:
Stop cultural decline before it becomes irreversible
Build psychological safety without becoming “soft”
Create clarity, connection, and commitment at scale
Lead in a way people trust and follow
Trust is a strategic advantage, a leadership accelerator, and a culture‑saving intervention.
For leadership people believe in, start here.
Insightful, easy to read, and powerful.
“Melanie's book ‘Trust’ cuts through this mass of research and offers practical ideas and principles to help build trust in organisations and teams whilst being easy to read and powerful. This is an important subject, and this book deserves to be read in every organisation.”
Dr David Wilkinson, Editor-in-Chief -The Oxford Review UK
“Melanie reinforces that "excellence" isn’t about scale, it’s about responsiveness. It’s about adapting in real time to what’s in front of you and choosing to make it count. It’s why we have Melanie partnering with us”
Dr Tanya Bell, CEO Footprints
“The conversational, deeply researched, sometimes witty and honest style of Melanie’s writing has impact. Even if you only read the pop-outs, you will get something rich from this book.”
Jacqui Parle, Director Consulting Services - BPA Analytics Pty Ltd
Featured podcasts
Whether as a podcast guest, keynote speaker, or roundtable contributor, Melanie brings practical insight and real‑world perspective for building adaptive, high‑performing teams and organisations.
Insights & articles
Thought leadership from global research for practical application.
Leveraging insights from The Oxford Review UK, this is carefully curated content with proven tactics that work.
Ben Wendel and Melanie Marshall explore what it really takes to lead, grow, and build trust despite uncertainty.
From self-doubt and business growth to delegation, burnout, and paying for past negative experiences, this is a candid conversation about backing yourself before anyone else does, and bringing people with you.
Podcast details
Most people wait for permission before they back themselves. Some wait for decades.
In this episode of Internal Momentum, Ben Wendel sits down with Melanie Marshall to unpack what it takes to back yourself, lead through uncertainty, and create trust with people who have every reason to hold it back.
Melanie shares what it was like spending years inside big organisations, from government departments to large private companies, and constantly being told she was too passionate, too vocal, too fast.
She had never been around people who ran their own businesses, until one conversation made her question everything and inspired her to break out on her own.
She opens up about the confidence wobbles that still show up every time she levels up, why she is more risk-averse than she would like to be, and the belief that carries her through them.
Ben and Melanie explore the messier side of growth. Ben admits he has held back from growing his own business and struggled getting teams on the same page when he had lost confidence in the direction himself.
Melanie explains why getting everyone on the same page can be difficult, why experts forget half the steps when they hand work over, and why your best people are often quietly burning out on work they’re good at but hate.
When the conversation turns to trust. Ben confesses that the idea of someone not trusting him almost offends him.
Together they unpack why every new relationship is paying for the sins of whoever came before, and why owning a mistake can build more trust than never making one.
If you’ve ever been told you are too much for the role you are in, or held back from growing because of what growth might cost you, this episode will help you back yourself.
Chapters:
00:56 The Journey of Backing Yourself
05:50 The Importance of Self-Trust
08:15 Maturity and Readiness for Opportunities
10:49 Navigating Leadership Challenges
14:10 The Balance of Delegation and Control
22:07 The Complexity of Expertise and Training
25:33 Navigating Change and Team Dynamics
30:45 Understanding Strengths and Delegation
34:39 Building Trust in Leadership
40:58 Building Trust Through Empathy
43:43 The Importance of Transparency in Business Relationships
45:04 Navigating Challenges with Honesty
46:28 The Value of Specialisation and Collaboration
48:01 The Power of Partnerships in Business
49:52 Exploring Identity and Belief in Business Growth
About the host
Ben Wendel created Internal Momentum for ambitious business owners who want more than tactics.
Through practical business experience and candid discussions with entrepreneurs, leaders, and experts, Ben helps business owners create momentum, build systems they control, and grow businesses and lives that align with who they truly are, not who they think they're supposed to be.
About the guest
Melanie Marshall is a globally recognised transformation expert. She works with CEOs, executive teams, and business owners to remove operational friction, lift leadership capability, and build trust at scale.
Melanie is the author of Trust and Adaptive Excellence, and founder of Adapt & Excel.