Ralph H. Kilmann, Ph.D., is an independent author/consultant who resides in Newport Coast, California. During 2002 and 2003, he served as the Visiting Scholar for the College of Business Administration, California State University at Long Beach. Formerly, he was the George H. Love Professor of Organization and Management at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, University of Pittsburgh—which was his professional home for thirty years. He earned both his B.S. degree and M.S. degree in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University in 1970 and a Ph.D. degree in management from the University of California at Los Angeles in 1972. Since 1975, he has been president of Organizational Design Consultants, specializing in quantum transformations. In 2009, he formed a new firm, Kilmann Diagnostics, which is dedicated to resolving conflict throughout the world.

Kilmann is an internationally recognized authority on diagnosing complex problems and systems change. He has consulted for numerous corporations throughout the United States and Europe, including AT&T, Kodak, IBM, Ford, General Electric, Lockheed, Olivetti, Philips, TRW, Westinghouse, 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 President. He is profiled in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in the World.

Kilmann has published more than fifteen books and one hundred articles on such subjects as organizational design and conflict management. He is the developer of the MAPS Design Technology and coauthor of several diagnostic instruments, including the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument.

Kilmann's hobbies include yoga, swimming, mountain biking, running, scuba diving, golf, photography, fine art, enjoying many types of music (by attending opera, symphony, and rock concerts), and fine dining. He has a passion for home theater—a setting that integrates science, art, music, and intimacy.

"A person's struggle for self-aware consciousness is universal—if it hasn't been shattered by dysfunctional families, communities, organizations, and nations. Learning to see, think, and behave in increasingly adaptive ways is the essential path to survival, success, and evolution. The sooner people get in touch with their inner selves and their genuine desires, the more time they will have left to make better choices and live fuller lives."

"What were once simple problems that could be solved by extreme specialization have become complex problems that challenge fragmented categories. To succeed in the new millennium, accordingly, requires holistic categories that will enable members and their organizations to (1) clearly see the flowing interconnections surrounding the globe, (2) consciously think about interconnected problems in comprehensive ways, and (3) purposely behave in a manner that stimulates the meaningfulness and coevolution of life and nature throughout the world and the expanding universe. Seeing, thinking, and behaving with new—holistic—categories requires a mental revolution in self-aware consciousness."