Just a bit of research here but i'm curious as to the Landmark organisational structure. I need to know this to know how to go about my "activities" shall we say.

As I understand it at each center there the following structure -

Center Manager
Manager Layer (Consisting of Course Managers)

Then I'm not sure how the unpaid drones fit in (Head Coaches etc). I'm also not sure what the structure is above Center Manager but i'm guessing its something like -

Regional Manager and Forum Leaders
Director of some form
Rosenberg

The second part of my question is more tricky. At what level are the participants let in "on the game" as I call it. The game being that the whole thing is really about control, domination and $$$$'s and more $$$$'s or £££££'s whatever! I have this image in my head of when the Forum Leaders are appointed there is probably some weird ceremony where "the Truth" is finally revealed. This being the case, the trainees must be very closely screened to ensure that this will not provoke a negative reaction.

I'm pretty sure the drones at the center level (paid and unpaid) are blissfully unaware of the system they are really part of (just like Neo in the Matrix). Most of the ones I met came across as pretty genuine in their desire to help out others, albeit using the twisted and warped LM doctrines (which they have been brainwashed to believe are totally benign). Of course they are all given their little mantra's to bleat out when doubt or criticism is voiced -

"No one is here to get rich"

(um, yes, well not at your level no because you are being conned)

"You can see the accounts if you want - there is nothing corrupt going on"

(Um, well you think they would show you a balance sheet with "Werner Erhart's cut $zillion,000,000,000 on it then if it was? Ever heard of Enron? No but of course LE could never do that now could they.)

"The forum Leaders are just on very basic salaries"

(Plus of course the bonus system which makes them bully everyone into submission in bringing as many potential suckers to the Tuesday evening as possible)

"Landmark offer the Forum for free in emerging and poor countries"

(How big of them!, its called Loss Leading my poor little Lekkie, its a technique used all over the world by other corrupt or even non corrupt organisations to get their product known about. LM do this because they know its the way to get it to take hold and build the marketing momentum - such as China, which is government backed BTW (scary). Once the drug is known about and craved for just watch how quickly the charging will start.)

This has intrigued me for a while now. I hope some of the message board members who have escaped their clutches might have some insights on this.

In London the staff members were:

Center Manager - who managed a team consisting of people responsible for:

Registrations - responsible for registrations into the Forum, works closely with the introduction leaders and people on the ILP (this is viewed as a stepping stone for becoming a forum leader)
Forum Reg. Fulfillment Manager & Assistant Reg. Fulfillment Manager - responsible for doing all the paperwork for people doing the Forum and entering them into the system
Advanced Course Reg. Fulfillment Manager - same as above but for the Forum
Home Introductions - generating/scheduling introductions at someone's home
Courses - generate and manage registration and delivery of communications courses inc. TMPL
Finance manager
Kids & Teens manager - manages registrations and production of the kids forums

Can't remember more but there were about 10 paid positions in London a few years ago and they were all pretty much admin.

The general structure of the longer term courses (i.e. ILP, TMLP etc) are that each group of 5 or so participants has a coach, and each group of 4 or 5 coaches has an assistant head coach and they're managed by the head coach who reports to the course leader. However I heard that the ILP assistant head coaches in London were recently fired by the megalomaniac course leader (also a staff member) because she thought she could do a better job... Anyway, in these pyramids, only the participants are paying - all other positions are filled by volunteers, including often the course leader.

Having made it to introduction leader level, I never saw any evidence that anyone had been 'let in' on anything and my experience was as you described - we were putting up with the nonsense because we had a "desire to help out others". It was only as time went on and it became obvious that it was all based on dictatorial bullshit that the scales dropped from my eyes.

They never allowed us drones to see the accounts though - I believe that was revealed only to staff members. I think that it's been mentioned in a previous post on this board that this privilidge came with far reaching legal restrictions that forbade reproducing the information.

Interesting stuff. Check your PM

While most of the centres follow a basic structure there are some differences on the roles of paid staff depending on how many paid staff there are ine centre.

The centre I worked in was small so we all had multiple roles.

Here is what I know about the staff structure

Each centre has a centre manager who may or may not have other accountabilities, primarily they are responsible for causing the results in their centrhe. In our centre, the manager was also the Landmark forum registration manager which meant they were responsible for meeting the centres weekly landmark forum registration targets. some offices may have a home introductions manager who works with the registration manager plus other roles all about meeting the weekly landmark forum targets

you then have your paid office staff who will have some of the following roles

Participation manager - this person is responsible for getting people into seminars and making sure they stay. This person also has to fill the volunteers needed to run each seminar

Registration manager - advanced course and or SELP - same as the landmark registration manager does but for the advanced course and/or SELP

Registration fulfillment manager - this can be one person or multiple - with each person looking after a particular course. This person does all the pre-calls before the course to "prepare" the participant, they also have to get payments and make sure people don't pull out of the course. they have to have teams of 5 - 11 volunteers to do all the calling etc

communications manager - manager both registrations and registration fulfillment of the communication courses. Also manages the global team management and leadership programme for the centre they are based in (this role may be more then one person)

finance manager and team - basically do all the fiance side of it, make sure all payments are banked, pay the staff all that fun kind of stuff.

then there are all the volunteers from seminar leader, selp leader, tmlp leader, couse supervisors, introduction leaders and all the people who sit at th back of the rooms etc

Each region has a regional manager and this person manages the centre managers. they have daily calls from where ever they are and also vist the centres they are responsible for a couple of times a year.

Forum leaders are a different kettle of fish while there is a landmark forum leader who is in charge of a region, they pretty much come and go when they do a course

You also have world head quarters in san francisco which is where all the big cheeses are.

If you were to go to a larger centre you would find 20 to 30 paid staff go to a smaller centre and you may find three staff doing all the work.

When I was on staff I was registraton fulfillment manager for the curriculum for living (forum, advance course and SELP) registration manager for advanced course, participation manager, communication manager, assisting programme manager and a few other roles I can't quite recall.

Its a big job and while you are warned about hours when you take up the role you don't expect anything like what actually occurs. They really do use your desire to make a difference to their benefit. I know I generally turned up at 8am and worked without a break to 11 or 12 pm each night. Longer on the nights we had a "graduation evening" or special introduction.

Quote
sonnie_dee
While most of the centres follow a basic structure there are some differences on the roles of paid staff depending on how many paid staff there are ine centre.

The centre I worked in was small so we all had multiple roles.

Here is what I know about the staff structure

Each centre has a centre manager who may or may not have other accountabilities, primarily they are responsible for causing the results in their centrhe. In our centre, the manager was also the Landmark forum registration manager which meant they were responsible for meeting the centres weekly landmark forum registration targets. some offices may have a home introductions manager who works with the registration manager plus other roles all about meeting the weekly landmark forum targets

you then have your paid office staff who will have some of the following roles

Participation manager - this person is responsible for getting people into seminars and making sure they stay. This person also has to fill the volunteers needed to run each seminar

Registration manager - advanced course and or SELP - same as the landmark registration manager does but for the advanced course and/or SELP

Registration fulfillment manager - this can be one person or multiple - with each person looking after a particular course. This person does all the pre-calls before the course to "prepare" the participant, they also have to get payments and make sure people don't pull out of the course. they have to have teams of 5 - 11 volunteers to do all the calling etc

communications manager - manager both registrations and registration fulfillment of the communication courses. Also manages the global team management and leadership programme for the centre they are based in (this role may be more then one person)

finance manager and team - basically do all the fiance side of it, make sure all payments are banked, pay the staff all that fun kind of stuff.

then there are all the volunteers from seminar leader, selp leader, tmlp leader, couse supervisors, introduction leaders and all the people who sit at th back of the rooms etc

Each region has a regional manager and this person manages the centre managers. they have daily calls from where ever they are and also vist the centres they are responsible for a couple of times a year.

Forum leaders are a different kettle of fish while there is a landmark forum leader who is in charge of a region, they pretty much come and go when they do a course

You also have world head quarters in san francisco which is where all the big cheeses are.

If you were to go to a larger centre you would find 20 to 30 paid staff go to a smaller centre and you may find three staff doing all the work.

When I was on staff I was registraton fulfillment manager for the curriculum for living (forum, advance course and SELP) registration manager for advanced course, participation manager, communication manager, assisting programme manager and a few other roles I can't quite recall.

Its a big job and while you are warned about hours when you take up the role you don't expect anything like what actually occurs. They really do use your desire to make a difference to their benefit. I know I generally turned up at 8am and worked without a break to 11 or 12 pm each night. Longer on the nights we had a "graduation evening" or special introduction.

Thanks for this info. Could you also confirm the following if possible -

Salaries for paid staff are all pathetic, usually in the £25k / $50k range

Unpaid staff do more than just the course related stuff. They do what could easily be proven to be work which would an "ordinary" organisation would have to recruit and pay salaried staff to do.

Employment contracts are either non existent or simple in nature for paid staff

Did you sign a waiver of any kind related to your rights in any way (Notice periods etc)?

Question to any EU residents - if employed, were you asked to sign a waiver of your rights in respect of working hours under the European Working Time directive?

Answers by PM please.

Quote
Blue Pill
Thanks for this info. Could you also confirm the following if possible -

Salaries for paid staff are all pathetic, usually in the £25k / $50k range

Unpaid staff do more than just the course related stuff. They do what could easily be proven to be work which would an "ordinary" organisation would have to recruit and pay salaried staff to do.

Employment contracts are either non existent or simple in nature for paid staff

Did you sign a waiver of any kind related to your rights in any way (Notice periods etc)?

Question to any EU residents - if employed, were you asked to sign a waiver of your rights in respect of working hours under the European Working Time directive?

Answers by PM please.

Blue Pill, I will answer what questions I can but I am not quite sure why you require them as PM and quite frankly I am not willing to do so

Salaries for paid staff are pathetic, I can't say what they are in other countries but they were very low over here and in fact at one stage we worked out that we were actually being paid below the countries legal minimum wage.

Most staff take a massive pay cut to work for landmark. the hours are excessively long. I worked six days a week 9am to late at night monday to Friday and 9am to 6pm saturdays plus I was expected to be at courses on sundays if they occured. I officially got one weekend off a month but this rarely occured. I was legally entitled to three weeks vacations and in the 18 months I worked for landmark I got one week off, during which time I was interupted by calls and faxed work from the centre manager numerous times (and to add insult to injury I had to pay to receive the faxes and to send them back)

The volunteers (called assistants in landmark speak) do a lot of varied roles, many around courses but there are also alot of roles that are what I would term office work, calling participants and financial stuff etc. Each staff member usually needs three or four teams of 10 to 12 people to get their job done. In most other companies I would say that these roles would be done by staff who were recruited and paid.

As for contracts, initially I signed a very basic contract which provided me with medical insurance which I never actually recevied. Later on there were more details agreements that we had to sign to keep our jobs. These were things like non compete agreements and other legal stuff, alot of which I still have to follow today.

As for agreeing to waiver any rights I am sure had it been legal for landmark to do this they would have however New Zealands employment laws supercede any employment contract either verbal or written. So as per NZ law I only had to give one pay period in notice.

Thanks for the reply. I try to use PM for this sort of thing since we have onlookers to this board which have other agendas.

If the pay and work conditions you describe are replicated in the UK and European countries they are basically illegal. Based on what I have heard I am pretty sure the same conditions apply in each centre, in other words, LE are abusing employees basic rights – this is criminal behavior and I intend to do notify the relevant authorities here as a first step.

As for the volunteers, that’s more tricky because you have no protection by law. Only if you are formally employed do you have any rights (at least in the UK).