Leadership, culture and organisational change. Helping organisations and their people, work better.
Led by Ann-Marie Barlow, Energise Development is an independent consultancy working with organisations across the public, charity and private sector.
We work with leaders, managers and HR teams who want to think more clearly, lead more confidently, and get better at the things that actually matter at work.
We know the people side of organisations can be complicated, and we’re comfortable working with that. We bring the experience to make sense of it, and the energy and optimism to help you act on it.
Trusted by people like you
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"Ann-Marie was a total pleasure to work with and quickly became a trusted critical friend, balancing support and encouragement with the right challenge when I needed it. Her sessions are delivered with pace, professionalism, and good humour."
Rob Faricy
Chief Delivery Officer, RNLI
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“Ann-Marie is an authentic leader with a real passion for making a difference. Her inclusive and energetic approach leads to innovative and credible outcomes underpinned with a breadth of creative OD approaches.”
Sonia Grewal FCIPD
Director of People, Customer & Organisational Resilience, Swindon Borough Council
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“I found Anne-Marie's style both refreshing and reassuring. Nothing was sugar-coated, nothing was avoided. I would recommend Ann-Marie to organisations who are serious about looking in the corporate mirror.”
Guy Williams
Former Assistant Chief Fire Officer, Shropshire Fire and Rescue Service
Sound familiar?
Your managers keep handing the difficult conversations to HR.
A restructure is coming, and your managers will be leading it while still running the day job.
Your values are on the wall, but they don’t always show up in how people behave.
Your engagement survey results are in, and you’re not sure what they’re really telling you.
You know you need more from your leadership team, but it feels like a mountain to overcome.
You’ve stepped up into a bigger role, and it feels a lot bigger than you expected.
How we can help
Some of our work is strategic, like shaping a people strategy or making sense of what’s really going on in your culture. A lot of it is hands-on, like running listening sessions with your teams or workshops for your managers. Most of the time, it’s both.
Leadership and management development
Workshops and programmes for managers, from people new to managing to experienced heads of department and directors.
Some are our own, on leading change, having difficult conversations and communicating clearly as a leader. Others are designed around what’s going on in your organisation.
We run them in-house for your team, in person or virtually.
Organisational development and culture
People strategies, organisation design, values and behaviours, culture audits, and making sense of your engagement results. And, the stuff that feels big and important when it comes to humans at work, but doesn’t fit into a neat box.
Coaching
Coaching for heads of department and directors. It’s a confidential space to work through whatever’s getting in the way, whether that’s stepping up into a bigger role or a tricky relationship at the top.
We can also use tools like 360s and psychometrics, if they’d help, so leaders can see their strengths, and their blind spots, more clearly.
Change
Helping your leaders and managers take people through restructures and change, while the day-to-day work carries on. We give them the tools and confidence to communicate big, sometimes difficult, decisions, and to better understand how people respond to change and uncertainty.
And sometimes you just need some experienced capacity, working alongside you for a while. We often work with clients for a day or two a week, to deliver projects in partnership with them.
Some of our recent work
Writing a people strategy that could only belong to one organisation, then staying on to help deliver it.
A culture audit that talked to everyone, and gave a true reflection of what it’s like to work there, one that people across the organisation could recognise.
Helping managers lead their teams through a restructure and how to be the leader their team will need.
Helping set up an internal podcast, to take learning beyond workshops and towards human connection.
Speaking at all-colleague events about how to lead through change.
Behind Energise
Energise was set up by Ann-Marie Barlow in 2020. Today, it’s Ann-Marie plus a small network of trusted experts, brought in when the work needs them.
We’ve spent most of our careers inside organisations rather than advising them from the outside, so we know what it’s like when the plan meets real life. And we’ll always help your people build the skills to carry the work on without us.