EXPERTISE

Expertise

"We help guide people and organizations in the process of being aware of their most powerful attributes, innovating on those attributes and then balancing them with goals that are both reachable and transformative."

President/Founder – Brett Gardenhire, M.Ed., PCC

Brett Gardenhire is a specialist in leadership and organizational development with a focus in universal/360 optimization. With over 25 years’ experience in working with the leadership/management matrix, entrepreneurial strategies and people/process innovation, he partners with organizations as a coach, consultant, trainer and speaker, helping to enhance their workplace culture as well as their productivity and innovation. Additionally, he works with executives and entrepreneurs in achieving optimal creative performance in their leadership endeavors both professional and personal.

Before founding BGI he was both the catalyst and co-architect of multiple multi-million dollar change management endeavors spanning six industries that range in outcomes from double digit revenue percentage increases and market share growth to total workplace culture and administrative process overhaul. He has worked as a professional coach and trainer for large and medium sized organizations for over 10 years.

He holds an M.Ed in Organizational Performance, Learning and Change from Colorado State University; a Bachelor of Science in Business Management from Sonoma State University; and a Bachelor of Arts in Cinema/Television Production from Columbia College. He is a Professional Certified Coach (PCC) through the International Coach Federation (ICF) and is trained in Co-Active coaching from the Coaches’ Training Institute in San Francisco, CA; leadership and talent management coaching from Lee Hecht Harrison; a certified Elevations for Organizations coach and trainer from Elevate, Inc.; and a qualified practitioner of the Leadership Challenge LPI 360 assessments, Strengthsfinder 2.0 and DiSC leadership assessments. He is a member of the Association of Talent Development (ATD) and the International Coach Federation (ICF). 

Not all life is consumed by leadership development however: when not consulting, training or coaching, Brett maintains a few competing life-long passions: music composition and performance, writing/reading, gardening and cinema/photography. He is a former certified botanical professional and designer by the California Association of Nurserymen (CAN); has taught courses on film aesthetics, cinema history and music for cinema; and has been a jazz and fusion musician for over twenty years.

Reading Lists

  • Selected Books Regarding Business Philosophy, Theory and History
    • Americanization of Edward Bok – Bok
    • Andrew Carnegie – Nasaw
    • Ascent of Money – Ferguson
    • Barbarian’s at the Gate – Burrough and Heylar
    • Berkshire Hathaway: Letters to Shareholders – Buffet
    • Built to Last & Good to Great – Collins
    • Business Adventures: Twelve Classic Tales from the World of Wall Street – Brooks
    • Competitive Strategy – Porter
    • Crossing the Chasm – Moore
    • Crucial Conversations - Patterson, et al.
    • E-Myth Revisited – Gerber
    • Essential Drucker – Drucker
    • Focus – Ries
    • Forbes Greatest Business Stories of All-Time – Gross
    • Genius of the System – Schatz
    • Getting Everything You Can Out of All You’ve Got – Abraham
    • Greatest Salesman in the World – Mandino
    • Grinding It Out – Croc
    • Guerilla Marketing – Levinson
    • HP Way – Packerd
    • In Search of Excellence – Peters & Waterman
    • Influence – Cialdini
    • Innovation and Entrepreneurialism - Drucker
    • Leadership Challenge - Kouzes & Pozner 
    • Leadership & Self-Deception - Arbinger Inst.
    • Lean Startup – Ries
    • Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son – Lorimer
    • Made in America – Walton
    • Made in Japan – Morita
    • Managing at the Speed of Change – Conner
    • My Life and Work – Ford
    • My Years with General Motors – Sloan, Jr.
    • On Becoming a Leader - Bennis
    • One Minute Manager - Blanchard
    • Out of the Crisis – Deming
    • Purple Cow – Godin
    • Snowball: Warren Buffet and the Business of Life – Schroeder
    • Switch – Heath & Heath
    • Titan - Chernow
    • Toyota Way – Like
    • Zero to One – Theil

  • Selected Books on Creativity Optimization
    • Art of Thinking – Harrison and Branson
    • The Artists’ Way – Cameron
    • Big Magic - Gilbert
    • Brand of the Tartan - Huck
    • Creativity - Csikszentmihalyi
    • Designing Disney – Hensch
    • Disney Imagineering – The Imagineers
    • Flow – Csikszentmihalyi
    • Genius – Bloom
    • Imagineering Workout – Disney Imagineers
    • Innovate Like Edison – Gelb and Caldicott
    • Lateral Thinking – De Bono
    • Revolution in the Head – 
    • Saying Something – Monson
    • Six Thinking Hats – De Bono
    • Songwriters on Songwriting – Zollo
    • Saying Something - Monson
    • Thinking in Jazz - Berliner
    • The War of Art – Presfield 

  • Selected Works Regarding Optimized Living
    • A Guide to the Good Life –  Irvine
    • Acres of Diamonds (Essay)  – Conwell
    • After the Ecstasy, the Laundry – Kornfield
    • Art of Mindful Living – Nacht Hahn
    • Art of War – Sun Tzu
    • Extreme Ownership – Willink and Babin
    • Finding the Hat That Fits – Caple
    • Full Catastrophe Living – Cabat-Zinn
    • Getting Things Done – Allen
    • How to Live – Bakewell
    • How to Master Your Time – Tracy
    • How to Read a Book – Adler
    • Inner Game of Tennis –  Gallwey
    • Levels of the Game - McPhee
    • Living In Joy – Huber
    • Magic of Thinking Big – Schwartz
    • A Million Miles in a Thousand Years – Miller
    • Mindset - Dweck
    • Now, Discover Your Strengths  - Buckingham/Clifton
    • Personal Power II – Robbins
    • Power of Full-Engagement – Loehr/ Schwartz
    • Power of Habit - Duhigg
    • Seven Spiritual Laws of Success – Chopra
    • The Strangest Secret – Nightingale
    • The Way of the Peaceful Warrior – Millman

  • Selected Works That Caused an Elemental, Internal Change of Perspective
    • A Brief History of Everything – Ken Wilbur
    • Antifragile – Nassim Nicholas Taleb
    • Cashflow Quadrant – Robert Kiyosaki
    • Essay on Compensation – Ralph Waldo Emerson
    • Essays of Montaigne – Michel de Montaigne
    • Good To Great - Jim Collins
    • Laws of Success – Napoleon Hill
    • Lessons of History – Will and Ariel Durant
    • Letters From a Stoic – Seneca
    • Man’s Search for Meaning – Viktor Frankl
    • Mastery - George Leonard
    • Meditations - Marcus Aurelius
    • Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle
    • The Prince – Machiavelli 
    • Rich Dad, Poor Dad – Robert Kiyosaki
    • Six Pillars of Self-Esteem – Branden
    • Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance - Robert Pirsig

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