True North OS is led by Dr. Mike Patterson and Dr. Andy Garrett, two experienced practitioners whose complementary backgrounds bring a distinctive perspective to leadership, resilience, human behavior, and organizational performance.
Dr. Andy Garrett is a clinical psychologist whose work focuses on identity, values, purpose, resilience, and human behavior under pressure. His doctoral training emphasized systems theory, and his work has explored how individuals and organizations become more resilient by developing a clear sense of identity and remaining anchored to what matters most, particularly amid uncertainty and change. These insights became foundational to the True North methodology and its emphasis on values-centered, sustainable performance. (True North Culture)
Dr. Mike Patterson brings a complementary perspective shaped by decades of leadership, organizational development, consulting, coaching, and education. Beginning his career as an Army officer, he later served in progressively responsible corporate roles before moving into leadership development and organizational consulting. His work across industries and sectors has given him a unique vantage point from which to observe the subtle dynamics that allow some teams to flourish while others struggle.
Those observations ultimately became the foundation for his newest book, Six Signals: The Dynamics That Shape Team Performance, which identifies six recurring organizational signals—Alignment, Trust, Progress, Fit, Sustainability, and Lived Experience—that help leaders understand what may be happening beneath visible performance. The book extends a body of work that includes two previous leadership-focused books, Have a Nice Conflict: How to Find Success and Satisfaction in the Most Unlikely Places and Mission First, People Always: The Definitive Guide to Balancing People and Performance. Together, his writing reflects a longstanding interest in the intersection of relationships, leadership, organizational systems, and results. His published materials describe both earlier books as practical explorations of relationships, conflict, people, and performance. (Dr. Mike Patterson)
Together, Garrett and Patterson bring two important lenses to Signal-Aware and the broader work of True North OS: the psychological forces shaping how people understand themselves and respond under pressure, and the organizational dynamics shaping the environments in which they work. That intersection matters because the Six Signals do not exist apart from people; they emerge through the continual interaction of human behavior, leadership choices, relationships, culture, and organizational systems.
Their combined approach therefore moves beyond conventional leadership training. It helps leaders become more grounded in who they are, more resilient under pressure, and more perceptive about what is happening around them. Signal-Aware brings those perspectives into daily practice, helping leaders recognize subtle patterns, investigate them with curiosity rather than defensiveness, and respond with greater wisdom before emerging conditions become significant problems.
Dr. Andy Garrett helps leaders understand the forces shaping them. Dr. Mike Patterson helps leaders understand the forces shaping their teams and organizations. Together, their work helps leaders become grounded enough to lead themselves, perceptive enough to understand what is happening around them, and wise enough to know what to do next.
