5/16/1990
WERNER ERHARD AND ASSOCIATES
Werner Erhard
RE: My recent trip to Moscow
At the beginning of this year, we had an opportunity to look at our work in the context of the beginning of a new decade. We saw that on the one hand, it’s true that this a year like any other year, and on the other, we also had and continue to have an opportunity to generate this year, and this decade, as a powerful springboard into the next century for both our individual intentions and as the conversation we are engaged in together, standing for a new possibility for what it is to be human. In creating this future for ourselves, we allowed ourselves to be inspired by the unprecedented changes which took place in the world, particularly in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe.
As these changes continue to develop, we might want to look at the most powerful way we can relate to them. One relationship we could have to the changes is what we might call “ethnocentric”. It is, of course, valid to see ourselves as Americans, or Germans, or Australians, or Mexicans, or Japanese, and look out at the changes in the world with a lot of good-will, and hope very intensely that they turn out. We might even see some personal benefit, in that we can clearly see that we and our children are more secure.
There is another way we can look at the changes, which is based on our common commitment to generating a new possibility for what it is to be human. In that context, the changes that are taking place are not Soviet changes, or Eastern European changes. We might consider that humanity is working on something, and where it is working on that “something” is in Eastern Europe. From that perspective, it might be useful for us to be engaged in an inquiry caned ”what is it that humanity is working on?” and ”what is the possibility of that work for generating a new possibility for being for human beings?” This, as well, opens up a way for us to relate to what humanity is working on in other locations in the world.
As you know, we have been engaged in an exchange with organizations in the USSR for the past ten years, both through Werner Erhard and Associates (which funded our initial work in the USSR), the US/USSR Project of the Werner Erhard Foundation, and more recently, Transformational Technologies, Inc. In April, I traveled to Moscow with Nadja Krylov, the person responsible for coordinating our work in the USSR. Bob Chapman, Partner and President of King Chapman and Broussard (an affiliate of Tn) and Doug and Peg Rowen of Bain and Co. (the largest business strategy consulting firm in the world) also made the trip at their own expense and Doug provided expertise and advice in the area of management training and consulting.
The USSR that we found on this visit is palpably at an historical crossroads. While many people are disturbed by the changes that are taking place because of the basic disruption they represent, there are many people who are taking the opportunity, and the sudden lack of guidelines for action, as a window to create and generate a new and unpredictable future. They are thirsty for new ways of looking at life, and at the same time discriminating about what they are going to take on, with an intelligent wariness about engaging in the sweeping experiments as they had over 70 years ago. There is a very courageous reassessment of the past going on, in which people are coming to grips with both the enormous costs of their experiment, which resulted in the deaths and the destruction of the lives of millions of people, while at the same time acknowledging the courage that it took to engage in that experiment and the original intention of that experiment, which was to make life more humane for ordinary people. It is in that context that people are looking at the work that you and I are engaged in, and there seems to be a great deal of interest in exploring this work as a possibility for supporting the process that the Soviet Union is going through.
Our trip was made in response to invitations to lead courses from eight Soviet organizations, including the Academy of the National Economy, the Center for Management Consulting, the Academy of Social Sciences, the International Business School, and the Soviet Philosophical Society, as well as our ongoing exchange partners, the Znaniye Society and the All Union Council of Scientific and Technical Societies. I had the privilege of leading four full courses, as well as several shorter seminars with hundreds of managers and individuals.
RESULTS OF THE TRIP:
THE FORUM IN MOSCOW
By either the end of this year or early in 1991, I will be leading our first and second Forum in Moscow, to be sponsored by the new Academy of Creative Pursuits, established with the support of President Gorbachev. The first group that the Academy of Creative Pursuits will invite into the Forum will include up to 100 Soviet journalists of national stature. A second Forum will consist of about 100 members of the Soviet parliament.
While the Soviet participants will be paying for their Forums in the same way that people do allover the world, the Soviet currency is not convertible and therefore is not usable to cover the expense of producing it We will therefore be doing these initial Forums on a charitable basis by covering hard currency costs through other means.
COURSES CONDUCTED IN APRIL IN MOSCOW
The Academy of the National Economy trains the top executives of the Soviet economy at the level of minister, deputy minister and general director of an enterprise. It is now headed by Academician Abel Agenbegyan, one of the original architects of perestroika. My course included 130 top-level managers. At the end of the course, Dr. Agenbegyan asked about the best way to speed and intensify the delivery of our work in the U.S.S.R., and we are working out a plan for this process.
The Center for Management consulting is a new organization founded by Dr. Gavril Popov, editor in chief of the largest journal on the economy, “Issues in Economics”. Dr. Popov is a member of the Soviet parliament and is also the new mayor of Moscow. My course included more than 100 CEOs and was followed by a request for us to form a partnership for the delivery of intensive training for managers as well as work inside Soviet enterprises.
The Academy of Social Sciences has for many years been one of the most powerful learning institutions in the USSR, reporting directly to the Central Committee. It is concerned with the training and retraining of managers in the entire non-industrial sphere, i.e., mass communications, education, cultural institutions, as well as being influential in the industrial sphere. My course included more than 60 faculty and CEO-level managers. It was followed by a request for a series of courses as well as an invitation for us to base our work in the U.S.S.R. in this academy.
The International Business School of the Moscow Institute of Foreign Relations is a new school dedicated to teaching Soviet managers how to do business in a free market economy. This seminar was followed by an invitation from one of the course participants to form a partnership with a new association of more than 150 enterprises to deliver training and consulting to their member enterprises.
The Soviet Philosophical Society is chaired by Dr. Ivan Frolov who was recently appointed to bring glasnost to the Soviet newspaper Pravda as editor-in-chief. I led a seminar for more than 300 members of the Society as well as members of the Institute of Philosophy, which co-sponsored the event. Following the seminar, we were invited to jointly sponsor a conference for Soviet and American philosophers that would be an occasion for new thinking. We are examining that possibility.
In addition to leading courses, I had meetings with Soviet leaders, US Ambassador Jack Matlock, as well as extensive television, radio, newspaper and magazine interviews in the Soviet media. One interview was with “Arguments and Facts”, now in the Guiness Book of World records as the largest newspaper in the world, with a circulation of 32 million. Returning to the US, we found a great deal of interest in our work in the USSR, and I appeared on CNN, the Financial News Network and the CNBC cable network.
EXCERPTS FROM COMMENTS FROM PARTICIPANTS OF COURSES:
“Werner Erhard’s work is especially important for us because we are standing at the threshold of very big changes. Our harsh determinism is so deeply embedded in us that the thinking of Werner Erhard about, for example, the need to make mistakes we at first hear as a real heresy. But later it is possible to see this as luminously true and valid. This is a very empowering perspective.”
–U. E. Sushilov, general director, machine building factory
“What I heard reminded me not of some official presentation, but was more of an invitation to each of the participants to enter into a dialogue with themselves and each other, and to do so not afraid of turning things on their heads. It seemed like an invitation to get a draft of air moving through our heads — something that is very healthy. I had the impression that Mr. Erhard, in speaking about perestroika, expressed an authentic interest in what is going on with us. I think that Mr. Erhard will find a great number of allies.”
–M. N. Rubinskaya, correspondent, Capital News, Moscow
“I spoke to one general director of an enterprise this morning who said that Mr. Erhard reminds him of our great scientist Tsiolkovsky, the father of Soviet space science. The general director said that at the beginning, when Tsiolkovsky first spoke about the possibility of flights to the stars, people did not understand or believe him, but then he went on to found the whole space effort of the U.S.S.R. The general director thought that Mr. Erhard was this kind of person. I think that it will be important to make Mr. Erhard available for a special training of those who teach managers, because we ourselves aren’t going to reach every manager in the country since our country is so large. Mr. Erhard is not only a coach and is not only giving information, but is also showing people a possible way of relating to life. People in our country do not know how to relate either to themselves or to their lives. They say they want to change, but they really don’t, as I discovered when honestly looking at myself after Mr. Erhard’s course. What I found most useful for myself is the whole idea of our responsibility for creating our own future. We feel that there will be an endless demand for Mr. Erhard’s work, and we are committed to finding a way of creating conditions acceptable for him and his team to be able to continue his work here.”
–Dr. G.V. Badeeva, vice rector, Academy of the National Economy
“The work of Werner Erhard was particularly useful for me since I found that he was able to allow me to grasp ideas for which nothing has prepared us, and which we must grasp if our country is to make the shifts that are vital to make now. He was able to do this in a way that I actually feel that I am able to own these new ideas and think them through for myself rather than learn them and repeat them, and he has done this in a very short period of time. I am grateful for the opportunity we had and for the fact that it was organized for us.”
–N. Turpak, vice president and first deputy to the general director, Zaprozhye Company
See more about Werner Erhard visiting the Soviet Union in this video.