About the Book : Authors Jim Tamm & Ronald Luyet

Jim Tamm
Jim Tamm is a former judge and adjunct law professor, an author and an expert in building collaborative workplace environments. He has worked in the field of alliance building and conflict resolution for over 35 years, most of that time as a third-party neutral. He has worked in private industry (General Electric Company), the public sector (the National Labor Relations Board and the California Public Employment Relations Board), and higher education (the Institute of Industrial Relations, San Jose State University, and visiting faculty at Santa Clara University School of Law). 

His undergraduate work at San Jose State University was in the field of industrial management. Jim received his law degree from Santa Clara University in 1975, and was the San Francisco Regional Director and a Senior Administrative Law Judge for California's Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) for 25 years. He has mediated over 1,500 employment disputes, including more school labor strikes than any other individual in the nation. His legal decisions have received national attention and have impacted national labor policy.

The California Senate, the California Assembly and the California PERB have all honored Jim for his work in the field of building collaborative employment environments. In addition to Radical Collaboration, Jim is a contributing author of California Public Sector Labor Relations, a book sponsored by the California State Bar Association which is widely seen as the foremost authority of public sector labor law in California, and The Human Element @ Work, a fieldbook of projects transforming organizations around the world. He has authored training materials that have been translated into eight languages.

As a professional member of the National Speakers Association, he has been a frequent speaker at national and international conferences such as the American Society of Training and Development, the Society for Human Resource Management, the National School Boards Association, the National Conference of State Legislatures, the National Foundation for Women Legislators, the Mexican National Businesswomen’s Conference, the China Ministry of Information Industry Conference, and the International Organizational Development Network Conference. He is also a regular presenter on collaborative skills in the NASA Management Education Program.

Jim is one of the designers and original faculty members of a highly successful training program designed to enhance collaborative work environments in California school systems, a program that was underwritten by the Hewlett and Stuart Foundations. Jim is currently vice president of the international consulting firm Business Consultants Network, Inc. and specializes in large-scale change efforts aimed at building a culture of collaboration within organizations. 

Ronald Luyet
Ron Luyet is a vice president of the international consulting firm Business Consultants Network. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies for over 30 years, focusing in the areas of emotional intelligence for executives, dynamics of high performance work teams, leadership, and conflict resolution & partnership building. He is a master group facilitator whose classic instruction came from such group dynamics pioneers as Carl Rogers and Will Schutz. Ron knew Dr. Schutz for over thirty years, and worked closely with him in the design of The Human Element®, an integrated series of modules which focus on creating climates of trust and collaboration within the workplace.

Ron has consulted with many premier companies seeking to understand the personal and interpersonal dynamics that drive business success. These companies include Eli Lilly, Seagram, NASA, Boeing, Chubb Insurance, Lend Lease, Fort James Paper Company, Amdahl Corporation, Procter & Gamble, Raychem, U.S. Army, IBM, AT&T and Idaho Power.

Ron has also worked as a consultant to a wide variety of organizations in the public sector; among these are the California State Department of Education, the San Francisco Health Department, Life on the Water Theater, Planned Parenthood, the California Probation Department and a number of California school districts.

Ron directs the international advanced training program for internal and external consultants seeking to be certified in The Human Element® program. He has been a guest lecturer in many local university programs, and for many years lectured in the leadership-training program for Owens Corning Company.

Ron co-founded The Institute for Personal Change in San Francisco, which provides a structured, intensive therapeutic program for personal growth. Ron’s work is described in his book Where Freedom Begins, co-authored by Marion Pastor, Ph.D. His popular lecture series exploring the effects of childhood on adult behavior and self-esteem are in demand and regularly take him throughout the country. This lecture series also served as the inspiration for the off-off-Broadway play “I Do, I Do”.

Ron’s early career was in drug education and prevention. He was once Director of Prevention Services for the Palo Alto United School District, and was Chairman of the Palo Alto Community Drug Abuse Prevention Program.