Design and implement strategies for change.
Employees thrive when they are given agency.Leaders need to take action via people, process and culture. I help organizations act.
“It’s not about standing still and becoming safe. If anybody wants to keep creating, they have to be about change.” – Miles Davis
Experience
I enjoy helping companies ideate on and solve challenges that exist at the nexus of internal and corporate communications, employee engagement and change management. I’ll help you navigate these areas in the context of technology, collaboration or organizational culture, including coaching you through the impacts on operations and leadership.
Since 2013, I have worked with more than 25 for-profit and non-profit organizations in medical technology, biotech, media, technology, healthcare, energy, streaming media, entertainment, logistics, and entrepreneurship.
I use empathy and active listening to guide my services. In a world where 70% of change programs fail, and engagement among workforces is at historic lows, creativity is the most-needed skill for the future of business. I use storytelling, authentic connection, and community management principles to help you tap your organization’s employee voice and nascent superpowers.
Work with me! I am exuberant about the future of your organization.
Change management, collaboration, and culture
How does your company function? What’s the culture like? What are the shared points of delight or friction for your employees? By being curious, I find most companies fail to plan for the holistic picture. They forge ahead intending to save money/time with something they can control and measure (perhaps a technology solution) and are shocked when efficiency and productivity don’t increase. This method accrues organizational “change debt” and fosters exhausted workforces.
Employee ecosystems and organizational leaders can be coached by someone with high emotional intelligence on how to create and facilitate change with grace and balance.
Whether you’re trying to make your team more agile, or respond internally to external and market forces, your people probably already have the answers. Using a design thinking approach, I can help you uncover and implement them.
Community & audience building
Feeling connected with other people because of a shared profession or passion is powerful. I blend analytical and behavioral inquisitiveness so businesses make the most of their online investments, build their audiences and foster healthy employee community.
I organically create audiences using social media and storytelling best practices, combined with behavioral science principles. Strategic communications practices leave positive impacts on internal communications. The result is a more aligned and unified workforce.
Services I Offer
Change management initiative design, planning, communications, and implementation/operationalization
Design thinking workshops focusing on: employee engagement, employee experience, culture-building and ideation
Employee focus group facilitation
Leader interviews and communications coaching
Technology education and learning design
Community design and building
Virtual education events
Internal communications planning and strategy
Content development and planning
Train-the-trainer workshops
Audience building and digital engagement
Employee recognition programs
Strategic communications and community outreach
Education
My academic training is in journalism and psychology, a combination that gives me a love of finding root causes and storytelling (isn’t it interesting how those things are sometimes at cross-purposes?!). Once the digging is over and a scope is defined, I work with you to define services that fit your company’s challenges.
I am a certified as a:
- LUMA Institute Human-Centered Design Practitioner
- LUMA Institute Facilitator
- Prosci Change Practitioner
- Firstup Product Certified
- Institute of Organization Development Organizational Development Process (ODPC) professional
I also incorporate formal training in mediation, conflict resolution, and non-violent communication (NVC) principles into how I work.
![learn strategies for change learn strategies for change](https://rachelmedanic.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/IMG_6923-scaled-e1599252501504.jpg)
What People Say
Results
I have helped companies maintain their brands inside and outside of company walls and despite the pace of change in business and the tsunami of increasing employee and customer expectations. My work has been measured in things like adoption, risk prevention, and more humbly, in small leader behavior changes such as shifts in perspective, attitude, and actions.
From my early career in marketing, public relations, and digital communications I have helped companies craft key messages that build their brands. I have also helped companies strategically de-construct those same kinds of messages so they are instead co-created with cultivated digital networks like employee and customer communities. I saw the power of the mobile revolution and of social media networks in the mid-2000s. I made sure my expertise and my work on behalf of my employers were fully part of that communications renaissance.
Talk Social to Me
I have been a consultant since 2013. However, my tenure (2017 to 2021) with Talk Social to Me was especially formative for my current work helping companies understand how employees collaborate, what motivates them, work together and how to create cultures that engage and retain them. I have consulted with startups, non-profits, and philanthropic foundations on their change management, employee community and learning and development efforts.
Cisco Systems and Intuit
I have helped companies like Cisco Systems and Intuit use online customer communities to create new products, services, and offer more cost effective customer support. I was a founding team member for the Cisco Learning Network which grew to 450,000+ members. The community generated learning product sales of $1m+ annually. I helped Intuit retain 30 super users in the QuickBooks help community at a time of deep changes to the company’s flagship product.
Startup Companies & Non-Profits
At the beginning of my career, my skills as a marketer and in building relationships and content was part of two successful startup companies’ initial public offerings. I also spent 5 years in the non-profit sector helping organizations serving the business, humanitarian, arts and professional development sectors get more publicity, raise more funds, and serve more constituents.
In December of 2020, I joined the board of directors for Cazadero Performing Arts Family Camp.
Fun Facts About Me
I am unquenchably creative and resourceful. I think “outside the box” and take action with ideas, wisdom and savvy relevant to the environment or situation. The arts have always helped me keep my perspective and method fresh, creative and unencumbered.
I’m a portmanteausiast (“portmanteau” + “enthusiast” combined into a new word) who loves hybrids, mashups, extemporaneously rewriting songs, dance, and singing. I produce a podcast and blog about sound in the performing arts called Agile Vocalist. I come from a long line of horse-lovers.
![uncledoc](https://rachelmedanic.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/uncledoc.jpg)
Thinking & Aspiring
The Playlist: Songs of Community Managers
How do community managers describe their work as songs? I asked a bunch of them and got this rich playlist back in return. It paints a picture of the work and the breadth of skills you need to be a community manager.
Songs of Community Managers
I’ve been thinking a lot about community and music. Both are deep passions of mine and in honor of Community Manager Appreciation Day, I compiled “Songs of Community Management” to bring us together around music and meaningful stories that uplift...
Let’s change your world.
Work with me! I am exuberant about the future of your business and its impending transformations. My experience with organizations of all sizes and in diverse sectors are my lens of organizational experience.
Creating meaningful change is a journey. Let my design-thinking approach be your guide and trusted partner.