I was emptying out some old emails today and found an email from Landmark from back in April. It said that they are in the process of completely redesigning Landmark Education and that they wanted me to complete a survey.

Has anyone else heard about this? If so, do you know what they are up to? Guess they are getting too much bad publicity?

It sounds like you may have hit the nail on the head, Zorro. Amway changes it's name (I forget to what) and I remember others doing the same (I forget specifically who). Landmark needs to "restructure" to deflect the negative critism. Zorro and Lars, can you imagine that any REAL changes will be made? Seems to me the leadership will be untouched and the techniques to screw with a person's head and life will also remain. Change to "The New and Improved Landmark Humanity and Life Science Center" to get the buzz going in the press, raise your course fees and still get people to sign waivers. No thank you.

Landmark says that "change causes persistence" ... so the more they change the worse it gets for them.

So they have to say REDESIGN or TRANSFORMATION .... they simply cannot use the word CHANGE

Their redesign will fail unless they take away the mind control - since the leaders are victims of mind control themselves they cannot do that.

But I wish them well - since they are victims themselves - I do not want any leaders in landmark any harm - I just want them to take responsibility for their actions. That means coming out with their history and make amends.

Lars

they definately limit the language to their victims. they have in the past made such icomments as everything else
limiting the language when in fact is it them that do it.

its a shame how people will do anything to others for money.

they no longer have change.

I guess another name change is in the works.

I guess it took 5 years, because if you check out their Wikipedia page you'll see they've just changed their name to be Landmark Worldwide. I don't know the exact date they did it, but they were still Landmark Education last year, during which time I was still oh-so-regularly attending their events. One special event I attended was held by my seminar leader and was all about their "new marketing", and addressed new "ways of being" that they were in the process of rolling out for the whole organization, but from location to location as they could.

A couple of major new "ways of being" discussed were: less pressure being put on participants (worded extremely loosely though, for all the wiggle room they actually want their leaders and staff and "technology" to make use of), and new standards for not "letting" the volunteers overwork themselves as much. To me this is all facade though; much like the name change. I personally call them est/Landmark, because the only thing that's ever really changed, from what I've seen, is the jargon, as they've continued to re-package the same old devices, as something new. All the while pulling the same old tricks. With new names.

Nonetheless, what was especially interesting to me, was the way in which each person's time in the organization, and with some even dating back to the est days, related directly to how much more intensely resistant they were in expressing themselves about those changes.

Like hazing: the more ringer they'd been through, the more they wanted everyone else to have to endure it.

Without calling it manipulation, they are all so keenly aware of how core it is to the organization's practices.

It puts the organization in a bit of a pickle, even if they did really and truly want to improve the organization's behaviors, because they have to keep bringing all those folks with all their different degrees of Stockholm syndrome with them. The est/Landmark that all those folks are loyal to, is the one that has behaved the same old terrible way all this time, and to change that is to devalue the terrible price each of them has already paid. In my opinion (and humility's got nothing to do with it), the only way that the organization can actually change is via their complete self-immolation (which I'm a proponent of, but that's outside of it being my honest opinion). I just don't think an evolution is at all viable for them. Again, even if it really did want to become a non-manipulative, genuine, altruistic/for profit operation. (Is there even such a thing? ~Rhetorical.~)

I was around landmark during the time when they were talking a lot about this 'reinvention of the enterprise' as they called it. I also sat in on some experimental courses where they were testing out new structures, formats and new ideas to introduce into the courses (unfortunately I was a landmark guinea pig). I actually have some of the redesign documents on my person.

The impression I got was that every so often landmark changes its marketing spiel and also softens up/changes some of the things that they have heard make people not want to be part of it or that put people off.

They are constantly morphing to ensure that their internal and external marketing/communications reflects current trends/themes that are at play in the wider public domain. So, essentially, they look at what's going on in the world and listen to the criticisms of people who have done the courses or are involved in them and then tailor themselves to that.

The 'reinvention' came about because they believed that landmark needs to 'get to nothing' and 'reinvent' itself to reflect the current marketplace. This is what they have been working on for a few years, hence the new name "landmark worldwide". "Worldwide" reflects the globalized world that we are now living in and is thus more attractive than 'education'.

For example, when I was involved, they stopped having guests go off into other rooms during the graduations. Instead, guests stayed in the main room with their friends/family who'd completed the courses and also got to do an exercise with the landmark forum leader. Landmark did this because they'd heard over time that guests get put off when they have to go and do mini-introductions in other rooms. In other words, they keep on refining themselves to ensure that they can get more people signed up to their courses. In my opinion, it is this constant refinement that has kept landmark in business. In fact, I would say that it is the only thing that has kept landmark in business. They adapt to be better at manipulating public and internal perception.

This is also why landmark is less harsh these days than it was in EST days - they know that people have complained about things like not being able to go to the bathroom and being cornered by the course supervisors who are in the back of the rooms during all courses, so they have tried to reduce that.

When I was there, one course supervisor who'd been involved in landmark during the EST days kept on complaining that nowadays landmark was too soft - she longed for the old school harsh days. But landmark has adapted itself to the current climate and knows that those things don't work as well with people anymore.


This is the new Landmark spiel: "The Reason For The Existence of Our Enterprise"
"As an enterprise, we exist to empower and enable people in fulfilling those matters that are of interest or importance to them, and in the process leave them transformed with more power, freedom, self expression and peace of mind". There is a whole reinvention document that spells out for people internally what landmark believes itself to be about etc etc.

This has been incorporated into every course and anyone in a 'leadership' role has to learn that paragraph (and the entire document), so you will hear everyone involved in landmark spout that stuff off if you ask them what landmark is about/stands for.

When I was involved in the introduction leaders program (which is supposed to train you to be a landmark leader), we had to memorize the reinvention document and that paragraph and say it every single time we went to the center to do our sales telephone calls.

They have also tried to incorporate things that they think will appeal to people now e.g. creating courses which use the word 'neuroscience' as they know this is a modern buzzword. And they try to be more up to date by using powerpoint and slides and more modern orientated materials (rather than just the whiteboards/chalk boards etc).

Anyway, here is an email sent from landmark leadership in 2008 to the introduction leaders program participants...

Dear Landmark Graduate,

I am about to share with you something historic in terms of what Landmark Education has been out to fulfill in the world.

You may be someone who has participated in this work for several years and have a great deal at stake for yourself in the fulfillment of this work, "the transformation of what it means to be a human being". Or maybe you have just recently completed the Landmark Forum and are not really looking in the direction of what Landmark Education is out to fulfill in the world – in fact, what's right there in front of you, is getting your life trued up to what you know is possible out of participating in the Landmark Forum. Or who knows, maybe you are somewhere in between those two places in terms of your relationship to the work of Landmark Education and to what Landmark, its work and what a number of its graduates are out to fulfill in the world.


In any case and wherever you may be in terms of your participation with the work, and your relationship to this enterprise, I'd like to personally invite you to participate in The Reinventing of An Enterprise – Landmark Education Event happening at Bangalore. This for many of you may be a very unique opportunity.
As you may or may not have heard, over the course of the last two years, Landmark Education has been in the process of reinventing itself as an enterprise.
In doing so, a group of 36 people from throughout the world, who embody the voice, listening and concerns of the different constituencies that constitute Landmark Education, came together on a mission to reinvent what you and I know to be Landmark Education.

These different voices have been out to reinvent what this enterprise exists to fulfill in the world; to create a future for this enterprise, its work, and what it is out to fulfill that is extraordinary. So extraordinary, that it will create new realms of possibility for this enterprise and its work that have never existed before – dramatically expanding the scope, reach, possibility and relevance of this work and its impact in the world.

Now let's get to the point, which is you.

In October, Landmark Education will be hosting a series of regional events, called "The Reinvention Of An Enterprise: Landmark Education". Attending these events will be all of the Staff, Program Leaders and People Who Assist throughout the world.

The events will be held in Newport Beach, California; Chicago, Illinois; New York City; London, England; Sydney, Australia; Bangalore, India; and Tokyo, Japan.
The events will be led by selected Landmark Forum Leaders and Landmark Education Executives.

At these events, which will be historical in Landmark's evolution, we will be dealing with and walking through each of the aspects that have gone into the reinventing of Landmark Education, as well as un-concealing what we have gotten to in terms of Landmark's Future, and what Landmark and this work will now be out to fulfill in the world.

The event leaders will be working actively with the people participating in these events, particularly the Staff and Program Leaders (including myself), inside of a unique methodology. A methodology that will give all the people attending these events the opportunity to experience evolving through the spaces that were moved through by the people working in the process, leaving everyone at the very genesis of what will be available and possible for ourselves and our lives out of our participation in this work, now and in the future.

This event will be the likes of nothing you have ever participated in.
Not only will this event give you a powerful new perspective of this work and what goes into the making of an enterprise like ours, but it will also give you insights into the world of what it actually takes, and the kind of integrity and responsibility that goes into, authentically completing the past and reinventing oneself at the level of enterprise, community, society and who knows, maybe the world.

And given who you are for Landmark Education, and the incredible opportunity that these events will make available, we have opened them up to you, to participate at no cost.