Life is different in rural and regional communities.
Need to deliver on a country project?
Got a wicked community problem that needs new thinking?
Need to find rural business improvement?
Let’s make a good thing happen.
I work with rural and regional communities and business people to find ways to shift gears. When a new way of collaborating is needed; when people are stuck with un-discussable issues of power, conflict and unhelpful cultures; when there is a stake in finding effective solutions – we can get together to reframe and find a good way forward.
I have worked with technical, accounting, health care and engineering people operating in rural areas and regional towns. I have worked with those who have a lot of power, and those who feel they have none. With those who have the loudest voices and those who say little, who have experience.
What I can do is facilitate, coach and lead co-design processes that use the knowledge and resources of your organisation to think differently.
I work with people in the difficult, stuck, complex, contested uncertainty. As long as there really is leadership commitment to getting it fixed and a willingness to be open to new ideas, to reflect on how we are part of the problem, to give permission to challenge, to talk truth respectfully…we can get somewhere better. It takes a little time and persistence but the results are more holistic, more embedded and are able to adjust as things change, again. This is about learning together and becoming more capable.
My unique skill is bringing people together to co-design solutions to problems.
I’m a facilitator, coach, strategist, problem-solver and trainer. All those skills are needed when we have to work together and deliver a new thing. Change.
- Find the common values and vision; what’s the goal.
- Remember the basics for communicating and relating with others.
- Understand what’s going on and why.
- Explore, experiment, challenge, create.
- Manage accountabilities and have them sorted.
- Get a handle on how to address disagreement more easily.
I facilitate, coach, strategise and teach to build the capacity of your crew. We work on the real business – what is going on, what can be done better. We strategise. We problem-solve. We explore and experiment. We learn. We deliver. I work with your team on the business of the business, to get better at working together and delivering under pressure.
If you are willing, it can be better. We can work things through; we can work it out.
Call me for a chat to see if your team can lift to a new level.
Saleena
About Saleena
Dr Saleena Ham has spent decades working with and within rural communities in rural and remote areas of Australia. She is able to bring people together to find better ways forward, whether it’s a private business or a community. She is a researcher, problem-solver, leader and facilitator. She has built a career based on helping people understand, manage and be ready for change, building the spaces needed to work together on difficult and complex issues. She works with messy real-world problems and people, resolving situations where often there is an untidy history. Saleena facilitates, coaches, teaches and learns with those invested in the situation, to build trust, work through problems, learn skills, reframe and generate new stories of what is possible.
Saleena has conducted research in rural and regional communities on economic and social impacts of rural digital connectivity, the health and rural business and community on structural and process changes and emerging challenges. She has worked with public sector and private businesses to deal with difficult situations and deliver business improvements.
She was brought up in far western NSW and has had a career working with rural industry and regional communities. Starting with a degree in Agricultural Science she began working with rural representative organisations including the Queensland Farmers Federation as an advocate for primary producer interests in natural resource and environment policy development and implementation. She was employed as a Director in the Queensland Department of Natural Resource Management. She ran her own consultancy from 2001 working as communication strategist and facilitator on contested issues with community, corporate, not for profit and public sector organisations across Queensland and Northern NSW. She also completed a sting worked for the Barkly Regional Council in the Northern Territory, Utopia Indigenous Homelands Community as Shire Services Manager.
She has a Doctorate in Rural Sociology, a Masters in International Studies, (Peace and Conflict Resolution), a Diploma in Professional Coaching, and has been a nationally accredited mediator. She is a highly experienced facilitator in co-designing solutions and resolving conflicted issues..
