About Maz
For more than 20 years, everything ran through me.
I was the EA who knew where everything lived, who needed what, and who to call when it went sideways. These days I help the people still in that chair build systems that carry the load, so you can switch your phone off at a family wedding.
I'm Marianne Tansley (Maz to almost everyone), a Systems Strategist and Microsoft 365 educator in Hervey Bay, Queensland.
cheering the room on
Eli, on watchthe phone call that changed how I work
10pm on a Saturday, at my brother's wedding reception.
10:04
Saturday
Incoming call
ICU · After hours
mobile
At the time I was EA to the director of an intensive care unit. The locum registrar hadn't turned up, and nobody on the floor knew what to do next. Who to contact at the agency. Whether anyone could stay on. Who in the hospital needed to be told.
None of them had ever needed to know, because I'd always handled it. So their thinking was fairly logical: the system Marianne runs isn't working, so we'd better call Marianne.
The next 90 minutes were phone calls, emails and texts between some very senior people. I was running the whole thing without the authority to make the final call. All I could do was recommend up the chain and keep pushing until someone who could approve it did.
We sorted it. And I realised I'd made myself so essential that I couldn't step away, even for a family wedding.
So we rebuilt it.
Structure
Who to call for what
A clear line of contact for each situation, so decisions didn't have to come down to me before they could go back up.
Flow
Information anyone could find
Contacts and steps for every scenario we could think of, written down where whoever was on shift could see them.
Experience
A team who felt ready
Training, so the team had the confidence to handle a small crisis themselves.
the next time a locum didn't show…
Nobody called me. I got an email afterwards saying what had happened and how it was sorted, so I could add it to the log.
That's the job I do now. Your version probably isn't an ICU at 10pm. It might be the client who'll only deal with you, or the process nobody else knows how to start. Whatever it is, it's worth fixing before it finds you somewhere you'd rather be.
the chairs I've sat in
Twenty-odd years of making other people's work work.
Team administrator for a Discipline Leader and a team of environmental scientists and ecologists
Keeping a team of scientists organised so they could get on with the science.
Practice Assistant to multiple partners at BDO, Cairns
Several partners, several ways of working, one of me.
EA to a professor running a medical research group and director of an ICU
Research deadlines on one side, a 24/7 intensive care unit on the other.
where I really cut my teeth
EA to Rochelle Courtenay, Founder and Managing Director of Share the Dignity
Supporting the founder of a national charity.
Thrive Admin Services opens as a VA service
It grew from there into training and strategy, because the people I loved working with most were the ones who had to make the work work.
Marianne Tansley, Systems Strategist
Same business, my own name. Strategy, training and memberships for EAs, OBMs, VAs and small business owners, with Microsoft 365 as the toolkit.
what all those chairs taught me
I translate between the big idea and the steps that make it real.
Give me a half-formed idea and I can see what it's trying to achieve. I can also see the steps it'll take to get there, and how to join the two up. I assumed for years that everyone could do that. It took me a long time to realise it's the thing I bring to every room.
"We need to get on top of client onboarding… somehow?"
→ me in the middle →
- 1Map what happens now
- 2Decide who owns each step
- 3Give the information one home
- 4Build it so it runs without you
what that means for you
How I work with the people in that chair now.
1
I start with what actually happens
We look at how the work runs on a normal Tuesday before deciding anything. Audit, decide, then build.
2
Big picture first, then small steps
I'll show you how it all fits together, then break it into common-sense steps you can do this week.
3
Plain English, always
I taught myself all of this, so I explain it the way I wish someone had explained it to me. No IT degree required.
4
Honest about the fix
If the honest answer is "that's not the right fix for you", you'll hear it from me, even when it's something you can do on your own.
off the clock
When the laptop's closed.
- UK comedy on repeat
- Pottering in the garden
- DIY videos on Pinterest and YouTube that make my husband Steve nervous
- Travel, with Paris at the top of the list, always
- Baking for whoever's around
- Mum to two adult kids
- A full house: Steve, my mum, and two dogs (Eli and Skye) who think they run it
- Still an 80s and 90s kid
me, mid DIY idea
family dinner, plates everywhere
Steve & me, Dublinwhere you might have seen me
Teaching rooms full of the people who keep organisations running.
"LOVED today, thank you Marianne!"
"The engagement in the chat was gold. People love that personalised experience, and you do it so well, using people's names and understanding the context of their questions. Just beautiful."
Trinity, EA How To
now you know me
Let's find your version of that phone call.
See everything I offer side by side, or book a free 30-minute Clarity Call and I'll point you to the right place to start.
