OUR STORY
Fifty years of learning how people actually work together.
Working Together wasn't built in a boardroom. It was built in the field — in clinics and classrooms and corporate training rooms — by people who believed you could teach human beings to communicate with precision, care, and skill.
THE ORIGIN
The frameworks behind Working Together
have a story worth knowing.
Dr. Sherod Miller didn't set out to build a communication system for organizations. He set out to give ordinary people tools to become their own best problem solvers. That instinct — to equip rather than treat, to prevent rather than repair — is still the DNA of everything in Working Together today.
A Doctoral Research Area Is Different Question
At the University of Minnesota, Steve Miller and his colleagues were asking a different kind of question: not what people did once conflict had already broken trust, but what made productive conversations possible in the first place. That question became the root of a framework built around understanding how people think, listen, and work through hard situations before they collapse.
The Awareness Wheel Takes Shape
The Awareness Wheel gave people a practical way to understand their own experience before acting on it. It wasn’t abstract theory. It was a structure for surfacing the full picture — what people notice, feel, want, and intend — so conversations could move forward with more clarity and less distortion.
First Research Award. First Published Book.
As the work developed, it began attracting attention outside the university. Research was recognized, the model was published, and the practical value of the framework became clearer: these tools helped people navigate difficult conversations with more precision, ownership, and trust.
The Frameworks Move into the Workplace
Organizations began using the same structures in executive coaching, leadership development, and team communication. What held in counseling rooms held in boardrooms too: when people learned how to see clearly, speak directly, and stay connected under pressure, they could resolve hard issues faster and with less damage.
Still the Same System. Still Getting Stronger.
The core of what became Working Together is still intact: a practical framework for how people understand each other, work through tension, and build agreements that last. What changed is where it now lives — in organizations, under pressure, where communication quality determines whether teams stall or move.
The tools we built weren't for therapists. They were built for people. The goal was always to give the magic to the client — so they could be their own best problem solvers.
PROGRAM HISTORY
From couples' counseling to boardrooms — the same system, applied everywhere it matters.
Working Together has one origin: the belief that communication is a learnable skill, not a personality trait. Every organization that has used these frameworks has benefited from 50 years of research and refinement that started long before they walked in the door.
The frameworks have never required crisis to work. They were built for everyday organizational life — for the meetings, the difficult conversations, the decisions, and the relationships that shape everything else.
MEET DAVID WILSON
The person who brings it to your organization.
David spent decades in the C-suite before becoming a coach. He's lived everything he teaches — the culture problems, the leadership pressure, the cost of teams that can't find a common language. That experience is what he brings to every engagement.
David E. Wilson
Experience that lives where you live.
David Wilson has worked at the C-level in Fortune 500 companies and fast-moving entrepreneurial businesses. He knows what it feels like to be overwhelmed with day-to-day problems while trying to stay focused on long-term strategy. He's worked inside cultures plagued by infighting and politics — and he's seen what happens when those cultures shift.
That experience is why he came to coaching. Not to teach theory, but to give leaders what he'd spent a career looking for: a systematic approach to building organizations where people actually work well together.
David's coaching draws on the Working Together framework alongside deep business experience, executive assessment tools, and a genuine commitment to the leaders he works with. He works with CEOs, entrepreneurs, and senior leaders who are ready to build something that lasts.
He lives outside San Antonio, Texas, with his wife Tenley. He's a husband, father, and grandfather — and a man of faith whose work has always been about helping people show up at their best.
Certified Executive, Career & Life Coach
C-level experience in Fortune 500 and entrepreneurial businesses
Certified in communication, conflict resolution, and self-discovery instruments
Founder, High Order Group, LLC — San Antonio, Texas
KEEP EXPLORING
Ready to see what this looks like in practice?
The history and the people matter. So does understanding exactly what Working Together does — and whether it's the right fit for your organization.