Joe Williams
Joe is recognized as one of the leading thinkers, practitioners and teachers in organizational communication. His style is engaging, interactive and participative. He has won more than 100 national awards, including 12 Gold Quills from the International Association of Business Communicators–and an unprecedented four in one year and three in a row for communication planning. In 2009, Joe was named as an IABC Fellow, the highest honor given by IABC. The Ragan Report once named him one of the top five communication innovators in the country.
Joe started Joe Williams Communications, Inc. in 1985 to provide clients with tailored research, strategic planning and training services.
Joe has led strategic planning workshops for companies like MasterCard International, General Dynamics, The Sydney Conservatorium of Music (Australia), the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Sydney, the government of the Republic of South Africa, and nonprofit arts organizations. Before forming Joe Williams Communications, Inc. he was with TRW for 10 years as manager of corporate communications where he pioneered the use of strategic communications planning and research methods in organizational communications. Prior to that, he was with Star Manufacturing Co. and earlier served on the editorial staff of the Daily American newspaper in Rome, Italy.
Since 1985, some 2,000 managers have come to the Sonoran desert of Arizona where Joe shares his innovative tools and techniques for thinking, planning and leadership in his flagship workshop, “Dialogue in the Desert.” The Workshop continues to this day, making it the first and longest running strategic communications planning workshop in the world.
Joe has given presentations to organizations across the U.S. and Canada on strategic planning and management communication. He developed the first learning program devoted solely to giving managers research-based tools to improve their Face2Face Communication with employees as they go through change management and employee engagement. Today more than 6,000 managers and leaders are using the tools from this one-of-a-kind program.
His company is headquartered in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, which is home to major operations of ConocoPhillips and Frank Lloyd Wright’s only skyscraper, the Price Tower, which he views daily from his office window. Joe is on the Board of Directors of Jim Walton’s Arvest Bank and has been a Big Brother in the Big Brothers program. He has served on the Board of Directors of the College of Arts and Sciences at Oklahoma State University, the Board of Directors of the Bartlesville Chamber of Commerce, the YMCA, Boys Club and was the President of the Washington County United Fund. He is the recipient of the Allied Arts and Humanities Council award for civic and humanitarian service and was awarded the Mayor’s Award as the outstanding citizen of Bartlesville. He is on the Advisory Board of the School of Journalism and Broadcasting at Oklahoma State University.
Joe holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism and advertising management and a master’s degree in mass communications research from Oklahoma State University, where he was a Paul Miller Scholar and was named the outstanding graduate student in the School of Journalism and Broadcasting. In the late 1960s, he served as an officer in the U.S. Army (Armor).
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