Creating a Quantum Organization: The Whys and Hows of Implementing Eight Tracks for Long-Term Success

Creating a Quantum Organization presents everything that I have ever created - and integrated - during the past 50 years on those four timeless topics: conflict management, change management, expanding consciousness, and quantum transformation. Essentially, in my "legacy book," I address how managers and members can transform their outdated, sluggish, ineffective, and unfulfilling Newtonian organizations into vibrant, effective, and meaningful quantum organizations. I name this mega challenge: Quantum Transformation.

Creating a Quantum Organization is organized into 12 chapters that include a total of 167 elegant illustrations - which take full advantage of the old adage: "A picture is worth a thousand words."

In Chapter 1, I present several "Big Pictures," also known as the Complex Hologram and the Quantum Wheel, which dramatically reveal all the interrelationships among systems, processes, and people - both inside and outside an organization.

Chapter 2 and 3 investigate the essence of conflict management and change management - since conflict and change comprise two sides of the same coin. You can't have one without the other: Change creates conflict and resolving conflict creates change. The material on the Thomas-Kilmann Instrument (TKI) along with the Kilmann Organizational Conflict Instrument (KOCI) allows us to assess the self-defeating conflicts that members have with their surrounding systems and processes. Examining such "systems conflicts" will enable us to pinpoint the barriers to long-term success before attempting to implement a completely integrated program of eight tracks that's intended to transform those Newtonian "barriers to success" into quantum "channels for success."

Chapter by chapter, I then present the most relevant and practical material for each of the eight tracks: culture, skills, teams, strategy-structures, reward systems, and the three process improvement tracks. Indeed, any program of change or set of change initiatives that implements these eight tracks out of sequence, or fails to address all eight tracks in their entirety, will inadvertently prevent people and their organizations from realizing their dreams.

In Chapter 11, I address the future of organizational development and quantum transformation by exploring how to expand the mind/body/spirit consciousness of all members - and then bring that expanded consciousness into the workplace.

For the millions of dedicated fans of the renowned Thomas-Kilmann Instrument (TKI), Creating a Quantum Organization makes explicit - and extensive - use of the TKI Conflict Model in virtually every chapter in the book. As a result, you're bound to learn many more illuminating applications of the TKI Conflict Model than you ever thought possible. In addition, you'll develop a deeper appreciation for when to use each of the five conflict modes and how the three diagonal dimensions on the TKI Conflict Model (i.e., the protective, distributive, and the integrative dimensions) can shed additional light on the various short-term and long-term consequences of using one or more of the five conflict modes in any given situation.

Ralph H. Kilmann, Ph.D., is CEO and Senior Consultant at Kilmann Diagnostics (KD) in Newport Coast, California. In this position, he has created as well as produced all of KD's online courses and assessment tools on conflict management, change management, expanding consciousness, and quantum transformation. Ralph's online products are used by such high-profile organizations as Amazon, Bank of America, DuPont, Exxon Mobil, FedEx, GE, Google, Harvard University, JP Morgan Chase, Microsoft, NASA, Siemens, Twitter, the U.S. Army, and the World Health Organization. Ralph earned both his B.S. in graphic arts management and M.S. in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University in 1970, and a Ph.D. degree in the behavioral sciences in management and social systems design from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1972. After Ralph left UCLA, he immediately began his professional career as an Assistant Professor at the Katz School of Business, University of Pittsburgh. In 1991, the faculty awarded him the George H. Love Professorship of Organization and Management, which he held until 2002, when he moved to the West Coast, which eventually led to the creation of Kilmann Diagnostics. Ralph is an internationally recognized authority on systems change. He has consulted for numerous corporations throughout the United States and Europe, including AT&T, IBM, Ford, General Electric, Lockheed, Olivetti, Philips, TRW, and Xerox. He has also consulted for numerous health-care, financial, and government organizations, including the U.S. Bureau of the Census and the Office of the U.S. President. Ralph has published more than twenty books and one hundred articles on such subjects as conflict management, organizational design, problem management, change management, and quantum organizations. Ralph is also the coauthor of more than ten assessment tools, including the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI), the Kilmann-Saxton Culture-Gap(R) Survey, and the Kilmann Organizational Conflict Instrument (KOCI). Since 1985, Ralph's professional biography has been profiled in Who's Who in the World. And then, in 2017, Marquis Who's Who distinguished him as a "Lifetime Achiever" and featured his profile in Sciences.