“We argue here that the four factors we identify as constituting the foundation for being a leader and the effective exercise of leadership can also be seen as the foundations not only for great leadership, but also for a high quality personal life and an extraordinary organization. One can see this as a “value free” approach to values because, 1) integrity as we define it (being whole and complete) is a purely positive proposition, 2) authenticity is also a purely positive proposition (being and acting consistent with who you hold yourself out to be for others and who you hold yourself to be for yourself), and 3) being committed to something bigger than oneself is also a purely positive proposition (that says nothing about what that commitment should be other than it be bigger than oneself). ” 1. Authenticity: Being and acting consistent with who you hold yourself out to be for others, and who you hold yourself out to be for yourself. When leading, being authentic leaves yuo grounded, and able to be straight without using force. 2. Being Cause In the Matter of Everything In Your Life: Being Cause in the Matter is a stand you take for yourself and life – and acting from that stand. It leaves yuo wil power. You are never a victim. 3. Being Committed to Something Bigger than Oneself: Source of the serene passion (charisma) required to lead and to develop others as leaders, and the source of persistence (joy in the labor of) when the path gets tough. 4. Integrity (in our model a positive phenomenon): Being whole and complete – achieved by “honoring one’s word” (creates workability, develops trust). from The Four Foundations of a Great Personal Life, Great Leadership and a Great Organization, by Werner Erhard and Michael C. Jensen, May 3, 2012; posted at SSRN
You Don’t Alter What You Know, You Alter The Way You Know It
A CONVERSATION WITH WERNER ERHARD about The est Training, philosophy, “enlightenment,” authoritarianism and legitimate authority, arrogance, leadership, and vision. The Network Review, Volume 1 Number 4, September 1983 From their base at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California, members of the Center for the Study of New Religious Movements have been exploring ways to evaluate the confusing array of activities they define as spiritual, self development, or consciousness oriented. A continuing seminar at the Center has worked on criteria which lay people and professionals can use to discriminate between harmful and helpful conditions in groups pursuing such activities. Werner Erhard and 17 members of the seminar met in April 1981 to discuss some of the distinctions between authoritarianism and legitimate authority. The conversation covered other topics as well, and the seminar leader, Dick Anthony, later commented that it was “one of the important turning points in our meetings.” An edited transcript of the interview is scheduled to appear in a book, Spiritual Standards for New Age Groups and Therapies, due to be published next spring. While The est Training is not a therapy or a religion, the conversation between Werner Erhard and members of the seminar clearly applies to the issues raised by the book, and to everyday living.
Handbook For Teaching Leadership
The Editors of the “Handbook for Teaching Leadership” say the following in their introductory chapter: “How does one teach leadership in a way that not only informs [students] about leadership but also transforms them into actually being leaders?” (p. XXIV) The sole objective of our ontological/phenomenological approach to creating leaders is to leave students actually being leaders and exercising leadership effectively as their natural self-expression. By “natural self-expression” we mean a way of being and acting in any leadership situation that is a spontaneous and intuitive effective response to what one is dealing with. In creating leaders we employ the ontological discipline (from the Latin ontologia “science of being”, see Heidegger (1927)). The ontological model of leader and leadership opens up and reveals the actual nature of being when one is being a leader and opens up and reveals the source of one’s actions when exercising leadership. And ontology’s associated phenomenological methodology (explained in (2) below) provides actionable access to what has been opened up. The being of being a leader and the actions of the effective exercise of leadership can be accessed, researched, and taught either: 1) as being and action are observed and commented on “from the stands”, specifically as these are observed by someone, and then described, interpreted and explained (third-person theory of), or 2) as being and action are actually experienced “on the court”, specifically as these are actually lived (real-time first-person experience of). As a formal discipline, the “on the court” method of accessing being and action (that is, as being and action are actually lived) is named phenomenology. In short, an epistemological mastery of a subject leaves one knowing. An ontological mastery of a subject leaves one being. Of course the students themselves do not need to study ontology; they only require the access to being and the source of action that is provided by the ontological perspective. And, they don’t need to study phenomenology; they only need to be provided with the actionable pathway to the being of being a leader and the actions of effective leadership made available by the phenomenological methodology. THE HANDBOOK FOR TEACHING LEADERSHIP, Chapter 16, Scott Snook, Nitin Nohria, Rakesh Khurana, eds., Sage Publications, 2011 Harvard Business School NOM Unit Working Paper 11-037 Barbados Group Working Paper No. 10-10 Simon School Working Paper Series No. FR 10-30
Werner Erhard Foundation
The Werner Erhard Foundation was established in 1973 to provide an opportunity for individuals to express their commitment to significantly altering what is possible for humanity. Its mission was to foster and support catalytic projects that would provide far-reaching breakthroughs in fields related to both personal and social development. The foundation brought together individuals from around the world to contribute to and participate in ground-breaking work in the area of human achievement and transformation. In the nearly 20 years of its operation, the Werner Erhard Foundation granted approximately $4 million for research, scholarly endeavors, and voluntary action. It was the foundation’s privilege to support more than 300 outstanding individuals and organizations from a variety of disciplines. Working in many diverse fields and surroundings, these recipients made a profound contribution to human thinking, growth, and achievement. The work of transformation and personal responsibility was brought to the former Soviet Union and the Werner Erhard Foundation launched projects such as The Hunger Project, The Mastery Foundation, and the Youth at Risk Program, which continue to be vital and active today. Werner Erhard is a critical thinker who has influenced the academic community worldwide with his revolutionary ideas first expressed in The est Training. He introduced the 20th Century notion of transformation and has had an enormous impact as a thought leader, humanitarian and business man. Currently retired from business, Werner Erhard devotes his time to speaking, publishing his ideas in academic papers and developing courses and other materials for Universities such as Harvard, Dartmouth, and Erasmus.
Making A Difference
What does it mean to make a difference in the world? Most people think it means to leave behind a city with your name on it or some great organization. What makes a difference is to make a difference in people’s lives. We don’t allow ourselves to think that the world could work for all of us. That’s a radical kind of thinking. It’s been my experience that you can make a difference and in fact that you do make a difference. And we are always choosing.
Lunch With The FT: Werner Erhard
Excerpts from: Lunch With The FT: Werner Erhard “Erhard is the man who more or less invented the personal growth movement in California in the early 1970s and who coined the phrase, ‘Thank you for sharing’.” “Erhard’s influence extends far beyond the couple of million people who have done his courses: there is hardly a self-help book or a management training programme that does not borrow some of his principles.” “I’m not the first person to struggle to grasp his ideas. Erhard tells me that paramilitaries in Northern Ireland had a bit of trouble too, but when they did get it they disarmed as a result. He also worked with members of the first Russian parliament in 1993, who were apparently even slower getting the point than me.” “Erhard is an autodidact. Jensen is an emeritus professor at Harvard Business School. Together they are writing academic articles and touring the world’s best universities.” “What got the two started on this [integrity] was not the usual stuff about corporate scandals. It was reflecting on how their own “out-of-integrity behaviour” had stunted their own performance and damaged themselves and others around them. After seven years of research the upshot is a (somewhat impenetrable) model that links integrity, morality, ethics and legality into a single system that promises great benefits for everyone.” Lucy Kellaway is the FT’s management columnist Read the full article in the Financial Times
Financial Times on Werner Erhard and Michael Jensen
FINANCIAL TIMES, April 28, 2012 Excerpts from: The only way is ethics: Andrew Hill on where Erhard and Jensen are coming from “Werner Erhard and Michael Jensen look an unlikely pairing but their leadership teaching fits into a broad stream of business education and research about ethics and integrity. ” “In ‘A Positive Theory of the Normative Virtues’, the draft introduction to their forthcoming book, they write that their desire to confront their own “personal contributions to the mess generated by out-of-integrity behaviour” was one trigger for their research. But it was the Enron scandal of 2001 that prompted business schools to refocus attention on this area. The financial crisis of 2008-2009 gave this effort new impetus, as management schools realised they had to bear some responsibility for the bad corporate behavior of their alumni. ” “Jensen and Erhard’s latest work shifts the emphasis away from external incentives and structures to leaders’ internal motivation, encouraging self-examination and personal action. Whatever the strengths and weaknesses of this approach, managers seem to have an appetite for it. Another eminent Harvard professor, Clay Christensen – one of whose HBS classmates was the disgraced Enron chief executive Jeff Skilling – is about to publish a book, How Will You Measure Your Life?, offering advice on how to build a successful life and career that avoids ethical compromise. The 2010 Harvard Business Review article on which it is based is one of the best-read in the journal’s history.” Andrew Hill is the FT’s management editor Werner Erhard and Michael Jensen’s book on integrity is forthcoming from Cambridge University Press Read the full article in the Financial Times
The Work of Werner Erhard & Associates
“I am committed that there is something about which human beings are unaware, the awareness of which would transform life for human beings.” – Werner Erhard “In 1971 the first est training took place in San Francisco, by 1980 that had experience rippled out to 375,000 people living in 103 countries around the world and that is really what the work of Werner Erhard & Associates begins with.”
A Shot Heard Round The World
The Context for Creating a Transformed World: A World that Works for Everyone “Sometime around now – it may have happened five years ago or fifty years ago – but sometime around now, the rules for living successfully on this planet shifted. We can no longer hope to live meaningful, purposeful lives using the rules of a you or me world. It’s becoming clearer and clearer to those who will look that in order to live successfully on this planet, we must discover and live by the rules of you and me.” – Werner Erhard Thousands of people came together to participate with Werner Erhard in the birth of a context, to discover for themselves ways to take advantage of what was previously unthinkable: that we as individuals have the unique opportunity to make a difference in creating a world that works for everyone…