Date: Wed, 27 Dec 1995 00:07:27 -0500
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On 16 Dec 1995, Reality is a point of view wrote:
> +---- jonoman@primenet.com wrote:
> | bottom line of the work of Landmark
> +----
> Sorry to take this quote so far out of context, but it hits on
> something I have been wondering about.
>
> The bottom line at Landmark. Anyone feel like revealing how
> much money they spend on Landmark related activities? Say for
> the weekend intro, the next step (I think it is/was a week long
> thing), sundry workshops and maybe a Forum leader wannabe course
> or two?
I've probably done more Landmark work than almost anybody not currently
in the Leader Bodies.
A simple tally:
Forum $290 |
Advanced Course $600 |
Self Expression and Leadership Program $150 | 1040
Seminars (many) $500
Introduction to the Forum Leaders Program $400
Communications - Access to Power $400
Communicaitons - Performance and Power $700
Team Management and Leadership Program $700
Total $3340
Hotels, food, expenses, air-travel... $1000
Add to that 3000 hours of assisting agreements.
What did I get for that? I'm living a life I love powerfully and
effectivly. I have literally been able to fulfill on almost every
worthwhile goal, dream, ambition I've declared. I've had my ex-wife
apologize for divorcing me, she even admitted that it "Might not have
been such a bright idea to divorce you to marry Jerry". (We had been
divorce for over a year before I did the Forum, had I done it when I
first heard about it, it would have saved the marriage).
I haven't remarried yet, but I have had some incredible love/romance
relationships with amazing women, none of whom have done the forum (they
chose not to).
I have made several career changes including causing the
commercialization of the Internet. I enrolled MCI into carrying the NSF
traffic on the same links as businesses, and enrolled them into making
TCP/IP services available to businesses (they were originally trying to
sell proprietary protocol all the way up to the adapter card.
When everyone else was convinced that the "Internet" could not meet the
needs of the "Information Superhighway", I was enrolling 4500 publishers
into adopting internet technology.
I have been able to make a difference in the lives of thousands of people. I
have watched couples - on the verge of divorce - end up in wonderful
marriages, without ever getting divorced (the spouse they were ready to kill
is now their best friend).
I have been able to make a difference in 12 step organizations (I was 11
years clean and sober when one of my sponsees introduced me to the Forum).
I have been able to accomplish many personal goals as well. I've been
able to live in any city I wanted, do work I loved, and do things I've
always wanted to do "someday". In fact, I have to be careful about what
I think I want. I wanted to live close to New York City, but I didn't
want to get rid of my Sports Car, so I ended up in Princeton, New Jersey.
I could be in NYC in less than an hour. I also got lot's of time to play
with my "toy" (driving about 100 miles/day).
> The reason I ask is that I am always suspicious of things that
> cost money and turn people into happy pushy recruiters. I've
> been to a few Forum introduction nights and like what I hear,
> until the dollar acquisition memes are cut loose.
Remember, not only are these people untrained "recruits" (the fact is you
have to apply, the staff has to be convinced that you aren't going to offend
people, and you can't be a sales "pitch-man", my application was declined
twice). They don't get trained in how to enroll people into the Forum until
the 3rd month of a 6 month program.
They want to share the Forum because they love it. They are often
clumsy. They use the same tactics that worked on their friends, but that
doesn't mean much with strangers.
> The high pressure sales tactics, my favorite being the always
> transparent "What problem do you have? What is the one thing
> stopping you from signing up right now?", being the most
> obnoxious. The 'get 20 new recruits signed up before you can
> enroll in the Forum leadership course' hurdle is a close second.
One of the primary distinctions of Landmark Education is the distinction
"Enrolment" which means:
Creating possibility in another person's world such that they step
into it and take committed action.
Enrollment is a powerful thing. Being enrolled is a powerful thing. I
can be enrolled into making a strategic career move, I can enroll someone
into setting up a Web server on the internet. Of course, I can also
enroll someone into signing up for the Forum. But I can only do this if
I can enroll them into a possibility in their lives, big enough to
warrant leaping into the unkown.
One of the interesting things is discovering what happens immediately
after I take that "Leap of Faith". The same stuff that came up when I
registered for the Forum showed up when I took a new job. The same
desire to "drop out" showed up at the same stages. Instead of letting my
feelings run the show, I played the hunch full out. Sometimes I lost
big, sometimes I won. At least I put myself in the game.
In Landmark's programs, leaders will enroll people into taking committed
actions - like calling the parents you've been making wrong for 20 years
to thank them and let them know you love them. Sometimes it means having
someone call their ex-husband to let him see the kids. Sometimes it
means telling someone to apologize to their boss for an attitude problem.
When you consider what the Forum leader is asking them to do, it seems
kind of silly to let someone who sees the possiblity of reconsiliation
with their husband, be stopped by $290 and reluctance to ask for Friday
off from work.
When people walk into an introduction to the Forum, they have something
at stake. Maybe they've just seen that their friend is happier and isn't
complaining as much. (Sharing the Forum almost requires you to "change
your attitude to gratitude").
> I have heard that there was a recent revamp on the concept of
> Forum success that wasn't as focused on the bottom line.
There has been a major shift in most courses from "easy on the phone
calls" then "push for the enrollments", to "get them on the phones,
cleaning up damanged relationships, let the enrollments happen". When
the leader invites them to sign up for the next course, they are chomping
at the bit. Many times they come to the registration table with their
card filled out, the check written, and their big questions are "can I do
it the following week in Philidelphia?".
If someone in your life, who you loved, but you knew had been making you
wrong for 10-20 years called you up at midnight to tell you that they
loved you, wouldn't you want to know what's up? If someone died, would
you call their parents at 2:00 A.M.? If someone just became present to
their parent's love after 20 years, would they call? Which call would
you rather get?
In the Forum Evening Session, guests often come, almost bewildered. They
want to know who put love juice in their Daughter's water bottle. They
walk in and see people who are disgustingly happy, and they wonder why
they didn't get the joke. Often they are told they are coming to a
"Graduation", or some sort of ceremony. Then they end up being herded
into a room where an Introduction leader and 5 or 6 undertrained
enrollment assistants want to know "where would you like to have a
breakthrough?". Of course, with 35 people in the room, and assistants
going through different levels as a team, it is possible to have to say
"No thank you I'm not interested" to 6 or 7 people.
I enrolled almost 80 people into the Forum. I was great at creating
rappor with complete strangers. I wasn't candidated because I couldn't
cause people in my own life to take consistant, committed action (like
showing up when they said they would). I later discovered that this was
something that occurred in various areas of my life. When a man is about
to go to jail because he keeps making his ex-wife wrong, and he isn't
willing to spend 3 hours to see if he might be able to alter that
relationship (I know for a fact that it can make that difference), then
what makes me think I would be effective at having people engage in their
own lives for 3 days.
If you don't have something important at stake in the Forum, they won't
let you take it. I knew one person who was "just curious". They wanted
to watch it, like a movie. The enrollment manager offered to give him a
full refund, since he probably would get anything out of it. Eventually
(after getting his money back) he came in wanting a major breakthrough in
an important relationship. People who don't get value out of the Forum
usually don't have enough at stake.
> A focus that originated from the corporate head driving the Forum
> direction. Maybe things have changed since, any comments on
> that would be appreciated as well.
Actually, this was something that the staff - about 600 people, examined
as a group, in conference calls, group meetings, and eventually a
convention in California. The CEO has very little authority, he almost
never "tells them what to do". Having been a participant in similar
decision making processes at Landmark, I have often been amazed at how
quickly an incredibly large number of people can create complete consesus.
The assistants had a similar series of meetings (staff was not even
allowed to participate). They came up with their own charter and goals,
along with how to fulfill those goals by taking actions consistant with
those goals. Again, the focus has been on how to make the experience in
guest rooms be more consistant with the nature of enrollment.
There is something very powerful in being able to take an uncertain schedule,
uncertain finances, and uncertain logistics, and commit to the fulfillment of
a possiblity by being in the Forum on a Friday one month from now and not
knowing how you are going to make it happen. "The Reasonable man fits his
life to his circumstances. The unreaonable man fits the circumstances to is
life, all human progress depends on the unreasonable man" (G.B. Shaw).
As an enrollment assistant, it took me about 2 months to realize that now
one cared about a "darn course". What they wanted was, to have love be
present, to be able to make powerful choices, to be more effective in
areas where they had previously been stopped, to take risks and go for
the goals they've wanted to pursue "someday" today.
Everybody knows how to loose weight. To loose 100 lbs, you have to take
action consistant with that knowledge (from someone who knows).
> Gary Johnson "The numbers themselves may be our best tools."
> gjohnson@season.com Fed flip?
Rex Ballard
Standard & Poor's/McGraw-Hill
Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect
the Management of the McGraw-Hill Companies.
From rballard@cnj.digex.net Wed Dec 27 01:51:38 1995
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