You know how even smart, well-intentioned leaders end up paying full paychecks for partial performance?
What if it’s not your people that are broken, it’s your system?

I’m Michelle Arentz, Your Workforce MD.

You could say I’m in the business of curing people pain.
Not the surface symptoms everyone complains about, but the deep, systemic stuff that quietly drains performance, profit, and potential.

I diagnose and treat the root causes of organizational pain: the mis-hires, mis-alignments, and mis-management that keep companies sick.
My work helps leaders and organizations turn avoidance into alignment. I make hard truths safe to face and transform dysfunction into data.

I’ve seen billion-dollar businesses run like junior-high cliques and small teams outperform their size by miles, because scale doesn’t equal health.
Healthy leadership does.

I help leaders stop managing blind and start leading by evidence: treating human behavior as data, not drama. That’s how you repair trust, clarify roles, and build systems that actually sustain growth.

Let’s be honest: most businesses make money in spite of themselves. They could be far more profitable, effective, and human if they stopped pretending the problems would fix themselves.

I call this Truth Leadership, because readiness doesn’t come from another trend report. It comes from facing what’s real, and knowing what to do about it.

How I got here

I actually started my career in business before taking a turn in the classroom. Early on, I saw how often people were thrown into roles they weren’t ready for: no clarity, no coaching, no real guidance… and yet being expected to figure it out.
So when I became a teacher, I swore I’d never let that happen to my students.

In my classes, I knew my job was to set them up for success, not sabotage. They’d have to go out of their way to mess things up. Clear expectations. Guardrails. Systems that worked for real humans, regardless of age.

Then I returned to the business world, and saw the same patterns all over again.
We assume adults “should know better,” but we don’t actually teach them how to lead, manage, or collaborate well. We hand down bad habits like heirlooms and call it leadership training.

It’s like watching patients chain-smoke and eat fast food while saying they want to live longer and then acting shocked when the test results come back ugly. That’s when the medical analogy stuck for me: You can’t fix what you refuse to diagnose.

What I believe (and know)

Things don’t need to be this hard, wasteful, or frustrating.
Change isn’t mission impossible. It’s just uncomfortable. And that discomfort? That’s the real work of leadership.

Getting “real” means getting into the icky, awkward, very human stuff most businesses fear, shame, or avoid. The messy conversations. The misaligned expectations. The leadership behaviors that quietly sabotage everything else. That’s where I work.

Because better workplaces really do create a better world. We spend half our waking lives at work. Shouldn’t it be a place we actually want to be?

What makes my approach different

Most leaders call me thinking they need a quick fix: a workshop, a training, maybe help with one “problem employee.” But people problems are ecosystem problems. You can’t solve them in a two-hour session on a Tuesday afternoon.

What they really need (and what I bring) is clarity. Data. Insight. A clear picture of who they are, who their people are, and what’s actually driving the disconnect.

I use diagnostic tools like The Predictive Index and CoEfficient Solutions to take the guesswork out of people decisions, but insight is what I’m truly known for. I see the patterns most miss. I connect the dots between leadership, hiring, team dynamics, and culture because none of it works in a vacuum.

Who I am (and who I’m not)

I’m warm, curious, and quick to laugh (and try to get you to join in), but I’m not a cheerleader. I won’t sell you platitudes, placebo fixes, or corporate fluff. Some medicine tastes bad, but it’s what gets you healthy. I won’t pretend otherwise and set you up for false hopes.

I’m not here to be liked. I’m here to be useful. I’ll tell you when there’s broccoli in your teeth before you walk into the board meeting. That’s not mean. That’s real care in action because I truly give a damn.

If you’re passionate about improving performance, ready to stop guessing, and brave enough to get real then you’ll love working with me.
If not, that’s okay too. I’m not for everyone. I never will be.

The short version

Diagnose what’s really wrong.
Treat the root cause(s).
Optimize for sustainable strength.

Outside of work, I’m usually recharging with my husband (a fellow educator) and our dog, solving the world’s problems over coffee or wine. I’m endlessly curious about how people think, work, and grow… which means I never really stop learning, I just change classrooms.

That’s how I help you, your teams, and your trusted advisors build workplaces that work.