Michael Garner, President

Michael is a native Minnesotan and was raised on a 4th generation family farm near Atwater, MN.  Michael currently resides near Rochester, MN in the rural town of Kasson.  

Michael has an extensive background in adult education and human resource development, as well as experience and passion for continuous improvement tools and frameworks, particularly the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence.  With a strong skill set for training and facilitation, Michael is eager to use his talents to enhance the performance of your organization.  

Organizational Excellence: Experienced & Passionate

Michael has led the writing of five applications responsive to the Baldrige Criteria for Performance Excellence, has guided organizational responses to four Feedback Reports following state-level Baldrige assessments, has served as an Evaluator for six assessment teams at the Performance Excellence Network (including twice as Lead Evaluator), and has designed and delivered engaging Baldrige learning sessions for workplace settings and for the Performance Excellence Network.  In 2014, Michael completed Examiner training with the national Baldrige Performance Excellence Program. Michael has also served as a Master Examiner for the American Health Care Association’s Baldrige-based Gold Quality Award process.  Michael continues to pursue the vital learning that is needed through the use of the Baldrige Criteria, and is eager to share his knowledge and experience with others.  Michael's knowledge, combined with his skill for training and facilitation of engaging, customized learning sessions, can ignite the commitment and passion your organization needs to drive continuous improvement efforts forward.

Strengths Coaching: Effective & Purposeful

As a Gallup Certified Strengths Coach, Michael can work with you and your team to understand, apply, and develop your areas of greatest talent and potential. After you complete the Gallup CliftonStrengths Assessment, Michael will guide you through the coaching process so you not only appreciate your natural areas of talent - your Strengths - but will help you to identify how you can focus them toward success and effectiveness. With approaches for Executives, Leaders, Teams, and Individuals, we can co-design a comprehensive and customized coaching plan that leverages the decades of research behind the Gallup CliftonStrengths model. Are you ready to thrive by focusing on what you naturally do best? Let’s start your Strengths journey today! 

Training & Facilitation: Engaging & Powerful

Michael's experience as a trainer and adult educator spans over thirty years.  From his work as a franchise-wide trainer for a global restaurant brand, to his design and delivery of workforce and leader development for a regional employer of 400 people, Michael has always worked to engage and inspire learners.  During his time at the University of Minnesota studying Human Resource Development and Adult Education, Michael explored the strong links between workforce education and organizational development.  As he moved forward with his career, Michael had the opportunity to combine his passion for helping others to learn with his knowledge of implementing change and improvement frameworks.  Colleagues have endorsed him as a "powerful" communicator and "a highly effective 'translator' of complex ideas."  Michael has facilitated a wide array of learning sessions for many organizations and conferences, including: the Performance Excellence Network, the Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce's Leadership Greater Rochester program, the National Association of Qualified Developmental Disabilities Professionals, Care Providers of Minnesota, Providers' Network Inc., and several others.

Strategic Planning: Empowering & Prepared

Michael has twenty years of experience developing and implementing tools to create and guide strategic plans.  With his understanding of strategic planning requirements in the Baldrige criteria and his skills for facilitation, Michael is an adept guide for strategic planning sessions.  Using information gathered through structured information gathering approaches and user-friendly planning tools, Michael can guide a group through the process of identifying strategic priorities, articulating an organization's strategic direction, and formulating a meaningful plan to build success and sustainability.  Michael also has over a two decades’ experience with effective implementation and measurement of strategic plans - often the weak point in strategic planning efforts.