Creating
a Quantum
Organization

My most far-reaching and most comprehensive book in the past was initially published in 2001: Quantum Organizations: A New Paradigm for Achieving Organizational Success and Personal Meaning. That 2001 book integrated all my previous 20 books and 100-plus articles on change management and corporate transformation. In fact, my journey into this professional field began more than 50 years ago, way back in 1968, when I was first exposed to organizational theory and organizational development while I was a graduate student at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

I now see that my 2001 book, Quantum Organizations, turned out to be much more intellectually challenging to read (and to thus comprehend) than I had planned, since that book integrated the streams of knowledge for organizational development from such diverse fields as quantum physics, relativity theory, philosophy, evolutionary theory, cosmology, psychology, sociology, neuroscience, and consciousness research.

During the next twenty years since Quantum Organizations was published, I’ve had the opportunity (1) to present my integrative theories and change methodologies to many senior management groups, (2) to coach scores of consultants on how to implement the sequence of eight tracks in their client organizations, and (3) to create a series of recorded online courses that were purposely designed to present my material on quantum organizations to a much larger audience in the most convenient format possible. As such, during the past decades since I wrote Quantum Organizations, I have acquired a much better understanding of my own work and thus I am now better able to explain it to others in a more “down to earth” and pragmatic manner.

To make a long story much shorter, my 2021 book, Creating a Quantum Organization, is my official answer to the literally hundreds of requests I’ve received that asked me to simplify — as well as update — all my knowledge and experience in bringing a quantum organization to life. If you know me and/or my work, you also know that in no way would I ever provide a simplistic discussion about a very complex problem, as in “the guaranteed formula for success or satisfaction,” which could result in a major disservice to the challenging nature of quantum transformation.

But there’s a large gray area that exists between the one extreme of oversimplifying (“dumbing down”) a highly complex subject into some doomed quick fix — and the other extreme of offering abstract theories and concepts that are much too vague to grasp and thus much too obtuse for immediate action.

As a result, for this new book, I have deliberately chosen the “middle path” that attempts to appropriately respect the complex nature of transformational change, but does so in a manner that allows many more people to deeply appreciate — and effectively use — my theories and methods without having to know all the scientific research and knowledge across many disciplines. Yes, in this book, I still refer to a few concepts from quantum physics and other scientific fields, but I only provide the bare essentials to make an important point. That’s it.

Essentially, my new 2021 book, Creating a Quantum Organization, presents everything that I have created — and integrated — on the four timeless subjects that will always shape humanity’s struggle with its destiny: conflict management, change management, consciousness, and transformation.

This book is organized into 12 chapters that include many illustrations to take full advantage of the old adage: “a picture is worth a thousand words.” Although my previous book, Quantum Organizations, presented its 104 illustrations in full color, this 2021 book includes many more elegant figures (167 in total), but they are shown in shades of gray. I chose this Black & White scheme in order to keep the price of this book as low as possible — again, with the deliberate intention of reaching many more people and their organizations.

In this Preface and in every chapter that follows, you’ll see that I use bold-italic text to highlight key words, phrases, and sentences. Why? Decades ago, various students would borrow one or more of my books. Upon returning them to me, they’d often comment that it was exceedingly valuable in their learning process to see the particular sentences that I had previously highlighted with a permanent yellow marker. Given those prior conversations with my MBA and Ph.D. students, for this “legacy book,” I decided to provide you with that same learning experience by revealing to you — this time, using bold-italic text — precisely what I regard as the most vital points, principles, and practices during the process of creating a quantum organization.

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.

In particular, discover how organizational members can resolve their ongoing culture conflicts between their actual (usually dysfunctional) cultural norms and more desirable (healthier) cultural norms that profoundly influence how members behave in the workplace; the skills conflicts that arise whenever members attempt to manage their recurring problems while each member is habitually making vastly different assumptions about what key stakeholders want and need; various team conflicts that typically disrupt group meetings, which then significantly sidetrack the team’s problem-solving discussions and can thus lead to all kinds of problem management errors; debilitating strategy-structure conflicts that emerge when considering whether to revitalize and then implement significant strategic and/or structural change; numerous reward system conflicts regarding how to design and administer a more effective performance appraisal system; and ongoing process conflicts in choosing which particular value-added business processes — if explicitly described, statistically controlled, and continually improved — will most likely enable the organization to achieve long-term success.

Essentially, besides the traditional use of the TKI instrument for resolving interpersonal conflicts in a variety of social situations, the TKI Conflict Model can also illuminate the great variety of organizational conflicts that members regularly experience with their surrounding systems and business processes.

Lastly, when considering how to resolve the four INNER conflicts that plague all human beings (which then determines how all their OUTER conflicts are likely to be approached and resolved), we can again apply the TKI Conflict Model for helping members determine: (1) whether they are a physical body OR an energy body; (2) whether they are governed by their ego OR their soul; (3) whether their surrounding systems are separate from who they are OR if their systems and processes are an integral part of their ego and soul; and (4) whether members have resolved their primal relationships from the past OR if they continue to project their unresolved wounds on their colleagues in the present — whenever they’re attempting to resolve challenging problems and emotional conflicts. By using the TKI Conflict Model to help members resolve such nagging INNER conflicts, organizations will then be able to make full use of all their members’ wisdom, talent, energy, and passion for achieving long-term success.