In this dialogue, CCARE’s founder and director, Dr. James Doty, will ask Werner Erhard about his life’s work and how compassion has played a role.
Werner Erhard is an original thinker whose ideas have transformed the effectiveness and quality of life for millions of people and thousands of organizations around the world. For nearly 50 years he has been the creator of innovative ideas and models of individual, organizational, and social transformation. His work has been the source of new perspectives for thinkers and practitioners in fields as diverse as business, education, philosophy, medicine, psychotherapy, developing countries, leadership, conflict resolution, and community building. Erhard has created new ways of seeing things in areas where progress has stalled or where breakthroughs would make a significant difference. A majority of the Fortune 100 companies and many foundations and governmental entities have used his ideas and models. Fortune magazine’s 40th anniversary issue (5/15/95), in examining the major contributions to management thinking, recognized Erhard’s ideas as one of the major innovations of the last few decades. In recognition of his humanitarian work in the U.S. and around the world, in 1988 Erhard was awarded the Mahatma Gandhi Humanitarian Award.
Since 2002 Erhard has committed his time and intellectual effort almost exclusively to the academic world. Some of his recent research, writings, lectures, and courses can be accessed from his author page in the Social Sciences Research Network (SSRN). Most recently in Capitalism and Society, (The Center on Capitalism and Society, Columbia University).
More than three million people around the world have participated in the public, corporate, charitable, and academic programs and courses he has created.
Erhard’s ideas were first introduced to the public through programs derived from his models, which programs included The est Training and The Forum of the 1970s and 1980s. Social scientist Daniel Yankelovich said of a large-scale study he conducted of participants of The Forum: “Several of the study’s findings surprised me quite a bit, especially the large number of participants for whom The Forum proved to be ‘one of the most valued experiences of my life’. This is not a sentiment that people, especially successful, well-educated people, express lightly.”
Erhard is largely self-educated, albeit with tutoring from some important thinkers of his time, including: Gregory Bateson, Warren Bennis, Isaiah Berlin, Hubert Dreyfus, David Eagleman, Heinz von Foerster, Richard Feynman, Fernando Flores, Ronald Heifetz, Michel Foucault, Milton Friedman, Humberto Maturana, James Grier Miller, Sir Karl Popper, Karl H. Pribram and Hilary Putnam (Erhard says any of his errors are his sole responsibility). One of his tutors, Professor of Philosophy, Michael E. Zimmerman, said of Erhard “He had no particular formal training in anything, but he understood things as well as anyone I’d ever seen; and I’ve been around a lot of smart people in academia. This is an extraordinary intellect I saw at work”.
Glad this was finally edited and uploaded for viewing. I took the training in 1975 and was not long after that I started volunteering (“assisting”) in the design dept at est Central in SF. Considering the years I volunteered there on the Design Team, the Hunger Project and the est Physics Conference (which took place in Werner’s home on Franklin Street…in his attic office), I had only one closeup interaction with him, which rated me a 3 am call from Laurel Sheaf to come over to Werner’s house right away… They are still up meeting at 3 am!!?? and he remembered our interaction enough to find out who I was and what my phone number was??!
So what he did was dump another woman’s project on me (that took her months to do?) and I had two days to rethink it and get it complete in time to give to the physicists as their going away present. Actually, I was involved at the font end of this project, arranging to have a perfect Japanese Enso (or Enzo) with a saying by Werner…printed at a fine printer.
Okay, so this is a story about Werner, being of service, and so to continue, I was then told 9 am would be okay to get back to Werner’s. To do this project quickly, “they” got me a team of possible assistants, key of which was an artisan paper “folder’… Japanese of course. I was given a large room with tables and we set about covering tables and shelves in white paper from rolls. People wore white cotton gloves.
We changed the overall design from an 11×14 framed print to a narrow more scroll like design mounted on nice framing cardboard with a specially designed thick paper envelope that closed with a slot/flap and held closed with a rafia straw tie. It was the essence of precise functionality.
My special directorial touch was that there be a “clean room” with box of two dozen donuts and hot coffee. And that my assistants be allowed to use the restroom wherever they needed to. (ok some of you are laughing)… since we knew we would not be able to see the physicists receive the gifts we had a little ceremonial reading of their names as each piece was assembled … yes Hawking and Feynman among them… and the stack of them was transported to Werner’s house. And then we went home. … HA HA HA
No we didn’t go home, We went to where our other assigned job was for the conference, some at the physicists hotel (“we” took over a whole floor of a nice classic SF hotel). Okay, another detail. The attic of Werner’s home was designed as small conference “theatre” for the physicists with a specially designed and constructed chalk board…curved for perfect viewing. Small seat-high fine wood box pedestals were beside each physicist’s chair. At the end of the day, the chalkboard equations were copied down and transferred to blackboards in a large conference room on the physicists’ floor at the hotel. I heard rumor that some of them indeed kept working late into the night…some in their pjs. (That was rumor, and I hope it was true.)
Ok, so this is a relic from the 1979-80 conference, a present I made up for Werner to give to the assistants that year at a thank you party, that I myself could not attend, as I worked nights. It is from the Color of Quarks themed conference. I remember that because the color image on the little poster was design of one of the hand painted linen napkins from the specially designed dinner decor…of the same attic space. Down with the chalkboard and chairs and pedestals … handed down the back fire escape…and up with the specially designed long table, lights, etc.
So Werner’s office gave me this as the text to put beneath the square napkin design… which was then signed in his familiar broad tipped ink signature.
“Contributing is indelicate. You take a risk when you are willing to play as if you make a difference, as if your life makes a difference, as if life itself makes a difference. At that level, the game gets fast, difficult and even a little dangerous.
“In the world, almost nothing is known about the quality that takes. It’s a natural expression of being human; and it’s not normal. I know the quality of your work is an expression of your magnanimity — of how big you are. Thank you for being willing to make a difference.”
I love you,
Werner