About Maria

Hello. I’m so glad you are here.

I help leaders strengthen their teams so the relational load gets lighter and the work moves better.

My practice is built on a single idea: that how people relate to one another at work is a category of organizational risk in its own right. It is worth seeing clearly, naming honestly, and addressing as deliberately as any operational or financial risk a team is paying attention to. When that work is done well, the possibilities open up: better decisions, stronger teams, leaders who can lead through what is now and what is next.

Over more than two decades, as a CEO, an organizational executive, and a facilitator across the public, private, and not-for-profit sectors, I have come to believe that the relationships between people are infrastructure, and that strengthening them is some of the most consequential work an organization and leader can do.

That belief shapes how I work. The frameworks and tools I have developed, from the book Understood: The Greatest Human Need and the Key to Engagement, to the Relational IQ Assessment, to the curriculum that has grown around them, exist to give organizations, leaders, and teams a way to see themselves clearly and act on what they see.

I work with organizations, leaders, and teams who are ready to take relationships seriously as infrastructure. The work is practical, observational, and foundational.

I am happy to call Stony Plain, Alberta home. I’m a proud step-mom to Nolan and Cassidy and love spending time with my two doggies, Indy and Boo.