Ralph H. Kilmann

Ralph H. Kilmann, Ph.D., is CEO and Senior Consultant at Kilmann Diagnostics (KD) in Newport Coast, California. In this capacity, 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 relinquished his tenured faculty position. Instead of staying in Pittsburgh, Ralph moved to the West Coast, since he wanted to fulfill his California Dream, 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, Wolseley, 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. He recently completed his LEGACY BOOK, which integrates everything he has created during the past five decades of his professional life: Creating a Quantum Organization: The Whys & Hows of Implementing Eight Tracks to Long-Term Success. Ralph is also the coauthor of more than ten assessment tools, including the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI), the Kilmann-Saxton Culture-Gap® 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.