Rich and Diane serve as both catalyst and conscience as we strive to improve the culture of our organization and the development of our leadership team. They know our business, our people, and our customers, and their advice and direction keep us focused on our long term objectives.

After working with Diane and Rich, I feel much more equipped to deal with what I assumed to be complicated leadership interactions. Our Leadership Team understands each other much better now and we feel that our effectiveness is at a higher level.

I have known Diane for over ten years. We have partnered together on many successful organizational development strategies. She has keen sense and ability to quickly diagnose existing gaps impeding the organization from realizing and understanding their full growth potential. I have personally witnessed her success in developing leaders who make high-impact change and thus produce results. This by far is her most notable strength.

Rich’s ability to understand what goes on behind the thought processes we forge together to make our decisions has helped completely transform the way our management team now looks at and solves problems inside and outside our organization. Internally, we have learned how to work with others in the organization and bridge gaps that previously seemed insurmountable. Rich’s coaching and participation in some of our team meetings has allowed us to see every day common issues in a renewed light.

In working with Diane over the course of 10 years, I have found her to be a delightfully frank and pragmatic consultant and leader. She is exceptional at understanding those issues that are most impacting her clients, often those very issues they are trying to ignore or avoid, and helping them chart a course for improvement.

I am already re-reading A New Brain for Business. I found it to be a useful business reference that provided logical approaches and solutions within context to each and every business issue outlined. I am outlining key points from the book for my own quick and easy referral. A New Brain for Business has a utility that I haven’t found as much in other business books. It was a very worthwhile read.

I read your book and really enjoyed it; very interesting and useful connection of leadership and behavior to the science behind the behavior. It was also a quick and easy read, and quite practical.

Congratulations on a terrific book! I thought it was very easy to read and it provided lots of good information that many business people don’t really know or if they do know, they don’t know what to do about it. I really like the “what to do about it” sections — very practical and in bite-sized pieces that make it possible for someone to actually do.

I’ve read the book (twice!). I found it very insightful and particularly liked your ‘real world’ examples.  I am now more aware than ever of my old brain kicking in & just yesterday realized it was happening & was able to calm it down. I’m scanning this email right now to see if I’ve used any ‘old brain’ language! Reading the book also helped to understand some of the changes our firm is making so I can be more supportive.

Diane and I began working together as consultants at PDI. At that time I appreciated Diane’s professionalism and willingness to share her knowledge with me as I was learning my way around the new consulting organization. Once Diane decided to open up her own consulting practice, it provided a great opportunity to rekindle our working relationship. While at Valero Energy, I hired Diane to work with a variety of leaders/leadership teams. In each case, Diane received glowing reviews from her clients’ teams that she worked with increased their levels of effectiveness and leaders gained significant insights into their own strengths and development areas. If ever I have a need for a professional coach or team coach, Diane would be the first person I would call. Her integrity, honesty and courageous coaching are invaluable in helping to grow leadership talent.

Diane and Rich helped my refining team and I learn how to get the best out of our people in a profoundly different way, by communicating respectfully in a way that makes them want to do well for you. Learning about our own “stories” that we tell ourselves is very liberating and allows us to be open to possibilities that we never would have seen. Before you can deal effectively with people in your workplace, including organized groups of workers, you must learn to be open to their thinking, and the new brain concept opens this to you.

The biggest breakthrough for me was taking the new brain concept into my personal life. It has helped me to deal with life challenges and relate to people in a different way. It is wonderful to watch people, including your children, respond in very positive ways through the thoughtful interaction style that Diane and Rich teach.

As I move forward with my career, I will continue to expose co-workers to the new brain…I feel it is an obligation to help them be the best they can be.

Diane has an extraordinary gift that she brings to her consulting and coaching work. She quickly recognizes the central issue(s) and has the skill, candor, and compassion to address it head on — and in a way that allows each person she works with to feel valued. She is ‘real world’, has seen it all and handles beautifully even the most complex of people and situations (and with all of that came her humor, intelligence, and genuine interest in helping). I would recommend Diane (and have!) without hesitation.

Diane worked with me at my current facility. She was a great coach who provided straight forward feedback based on real information. Diane is a great listener and gave insight on how I could improve my effectiveness as a business leader. I have heard many good comments from the people that I work with that I have changed and improved my leadership. I credit this improvement to Diane’s coaching.

I have had the pleasure of working with Diane on several occasions that included group training on situational personnel evaluation and coaching; and group leadership and functionality training of near dysfunctional leadership teams of which I was a member.

Her methodical approach, intuitive understanding of team dynamics, talent for facilitating frank open discussion, and insight into “old brain/new brain” psychology has produced eye opening revelations about why a ‘group’ of high performing individuals does not achieve acceptable results.  Using those revelations as a basis, Diane works with the “group” to develop a plan for performance improvement.  Group and individual follow-up with Diane, and a willingness of the group to make a change can result in dysfunctional group becoming a highly effective team.

I highly recommend Diane and hope to have the opportunity to work with her again in the future.

Diane was able to quickly grasp our business issues and help us see patterns and watch points in our senior leaders. She was excellent at facilitating the sessions and leading us to desired outcomes.

Diane was instrumental in evolving our technical management team into a goal oriented, cohesive organization focused on delivering results. Her ability to facilitate the internalization of proven business and team strategies into our daily approach to problem solving was invaluable.

Over the years that we worked with Rich Trafton at Longmont Dairy, we discussed many issues, faced challenges, and overcame a few obstacles.  We had serious, deep talks and I remember lots of laughs, too. One piece of advice that stands out in my mind is “clarity and focus”. That recommendation is as relevant now as it was ten years ago. A business cannot move forward without both clarity of what the goals are and focus along the way. Rich has always been willing to talk and council us to keep us on that path.  He is a good example of how to execute clarity and focus.

Trafton and Marentette have defined in simple terms how our brain’s design and functionality contribute to the success and failure of effective communication in today’s leadership environment. Recognition of the patterns defined in the book have allowed my team to move past debilitating organizational behaviors previously thought to be normal.

Diane is a fantastic leader and great consultant. It was a privilege to be on her Western Region Leadership Team where she led the integration of multiple offices and the development of strategies to grow a profitable business.

Rich and Diane bring skill, curiosity, humor and practical solutions to the problems leaders have today. They are articulate, intelligent, and thoughtful professionals who connect their expertise in how to create successful workplace and leadership results with years of ‘in the trenches’ business experience. Their unique point of view on the conscious navigation between Old Brain and New Brain has been thought provoking and extremely useful in the work that I do with senior leaders.

Diane does a fantastic job bringing to light the obstacles that get in the way of effective leadership. I’ve found that her ability to apply the appropriate communication style at the appropriate time really helps to ensure that a message is successfully delivered. She has helped me put aside emotional distractions to identify what needs to be done to bring success to my team. This logical and scientific approach definitely translates well into “A New Brain for Business” through realistic examples and practical tools and techniques that can be used to put egos aside to optimize both personal and team results.

Working with Rich and Diane over the past few years has enabled me to utilize the skills they gave taught to provide clear direction to fellow team members and achieve successful, positive outcomes.  Personal growth continues to flourish as a result of their unending commitment to assist in developing the inner confidence to accept new challenges and understand the capabilities of myself and others.

I worked closely with Diane, who was with a supplier we worked closely with over a 6 month period, while I was the client-side contact for a global roll-out of a coaching program for senior HR leaders. Essentially, the difference Diane brought, which seems to underlie everything she does, is her ability to come across ‘beyond the brand’. Brand names like to say the right things, but they can’t deliver on these claims without people like Diane.

What differentiates Diane is her ability to go beyond the brand – she raises the bar for everyone – participants, and co-faculty alike, on business-applicability, awareness, creating personal connection, working concretely with local situations with ‘global contexts’ – and does so as appropriate to the person, the role and the situation, however these come together. I have always been impressed with her sense of professionalism, which doesn’t constrain her from taking up difficult viewpoints or, when needed, saying what “can’t be said” in a way it can not only be heard, but taken in and worked with. If there’s a drawback, it’s that she can’t be replicated – yet!

Rich and Diane are true experts who embody the trusted advisor model. Together they balance research-based foundation with practical organizational savvy in order to implement change that hits at the core of how people and organizations really operate. They also invest selflessly in others’ development, mentoring and developing their clients and other colleagues in the field.

Rich and Diane have retrained my thinking and behavior in order to use management decision-making tools that have made a real difference for my company. Since our work began, we have a more stable work force, people are committed to the well being and future of the company, and we have established a culture focused on customer service. We have established a reputation as a great place to work and people feel a part of a team that makes a difference.

Wanted to let you know how much I am enjoying the book — I like the way it is organized because you provide recommendations for change behavior that are a substantial percentage of the chapters.  So many other books spend 95% of the text defining the problem and a couple of sentences on what to do about it.  The analogies are also good.  I particularly liked the one about the iceberg and how it relates to emotional responses.

We have been working with Rich and Diane for a long time and they have helped us learn about behavior – like not blaming people, or focusing on the future – that really make a difference in how we help people do their best work. They understand our business and ask challenging questions that help us do our best thinking about our business. We recently participated in their “brain” survey, and the results indicated that we are not doing too bad! We learned about that from them.

As soon as I came across Rich and Diane’s work, I recognized it for what it was; an innovative and needed professional approach that combined the best of performance optimization with cutting edge research blended with best practices consulting integrity. They were both accessible and open to new ideas and business development opportunities. If you haven’t read their book “A New Brain For Business,” You Should.