Influence

"Erhard’s influence extends far beyond the couple of million people
who have done his courses: there is hardly a self-help book or a management training programme that does not borrow
some of his principles." - Financial Times

Werner Erhard, creator of est (Erhard Seminars Training) became a cultural icon, a force for change that has shaped human consciousness since the early 1970’s. In 1971, Erhard introduced the breakthrough notion of "transformation" to the American public – a notion that redefined how people saw their lives and continues to be seen as a powerful, practical, and relevant resource in contemporary society. To this day, people report remarkable, sustainable benefits in their personal and professional lives – in their families, careers, organizations, and communities.

Millions of people have been influenced by Werner Erhard's ideas through direct participation in programs he developed, the consulting he has personally done for hundreds of corporations and non-profits, and the approximately one hundred management consulting firms that license his approach to management and organizational development. Thought leaders in universities, training organizations, governmental entities, and non-governmental-organizations have used and built on his ideas, and have drawn on them in their programs, books and other publications.

Werner Erhard is acknowledged in the following publications:

Harvard Business Review on Change:
"We are indebted to numerous philosophers, scholars, and thinkers who have inquired into the nature of being, especially Werner Erhard." 

Inventing Reality, Physics as Language, by Bruce Gregory:
"I owe my appreciation of the immense power of the myth of 'is' to Werner Erhard's relentless commitment to making a difference in my life. Absent his unremitting efforts to uncover the role of speaking shaping experience, this book never would have been written."

Community: The Structure of Belonging, Peter Block:
"For over 30 years, Werner Erhard has created thinking and learning experiences that have affected millions of people's lives. Many of the ideas he has worked with derive from the work of others, but Werner has named and integrated them into something more powerful than where the thinking began."

True Partnership: Revolutionary Thinking About Relating To Others, by Carl Zeiss: "From Werner Erhard's work I learned the power of context that we bring to the table in each and every interaction we have with others."

Tribal Leadership, by Dave Logan, Associate Dean and Executive Director of Executive Development, USC, Marshall School of Business:
"You can’t have a Master’s Degree in organizational development or human resources without picking up some of Werner Erhard’s ideas… his stuff is just out there in the world." - from Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard. In the acknowledgment section of his book, Tribal Leadership, Logan says, "Special thanks goes to Werner Erhard for his friendship, listening, outside-the-box-thinking, and encouragement."

Trimtabs Investing: Using Liquidity to Beat the Stock Market, by Charles Biderman:
"After obtaining everything I ever thought I wanted by the age of 30, I realized I knew less than nothing about life.  I owe a great deal to the people who taught me, including Ole Larsen, Robert Monroe, Jack Schwartz, Buckminster Fuller, Michael Murphy, and Werner Erhard.  I volunteered at Werner Erhard and Associates, where I learned about the being part of human being."

Handbook of Strategic Management, Second Edition, (Public Administration and Public Policy), by Jack Rabin and Gerald J. Miller:
"According to Werner Erhard (Pascarella, 1987), once management has created a future through 'conversation for possibility,' action and creative resource allocation will follow. That is to say, the later stages of strategic management take care of themselves once a vision is embedded in the minds of the employees."

The Age of Miracles: Embracing the New Midlife, by Marianne Williamson:
"According to Werner Erhard, founder of the est organization,  we can live our lives either acting out of circumstances or acting out of a vision.  And when it comes to midlife, we can forge a new vision, a new conversation, to take us beyond the limited thought-forms that have defined its parameters for generations.  The circumstances are fixed, but our experience of them is not. Every situation is experienced within the context of the conversation surrounding it, both in our heads and in our culture."

Handbook for Humans: A Comprehensive Synthesis of Paths to Personal Growth, by James Sloman:
"Werner Erhard - A courageous pioneer who has contributed greatly to the lives of many." 

Re-create Your Life : Transforming Yourself and Your World With the Decision Maker Process, by Morty Lefkoe: "Werner Erhard - thanks for my first exposure to transformation, for assisting me to shift my life from a focus on "what's in it for me" to a focus on contributing to others, and for the immeasurable difference you have made in the lives of hundreds of thousands of people through the est training and the Hunger Project."

I Know Something and So Do You, by J. Diane Bechtle: "I honor and acknowledge Werner Erhard for the dedication and service he has given to me and to humanity. Werner is one of this generation's great and unacknowledged thinkers. He was the creator of EST (The Erhard Seminar Training) a powerful weekend training and a seminar series which transformed the lives of thousands of people who perhaps would never have come to know and respect their inner being."

Masterful Coaching, by Robert Hargrove: "I observed Werner Erhard, a leader in personal transformation, engage people in a dialogue that resulted in people experiencing the freedom to be and finding new openings for action.

The Handbook of Knowledge-Based Coaching: From Theory to Practice, by Leni Wildflower and Diane Brennan: "Of the many disciplines that have influenced the development of coaching, the teachings found in Werner Erhard's est training and later Landmark Education may be the most influential. These programs are based on the premise that transforming one's life is possible and that what is crucial to this transformation is to take responsibility for one's life."

The Practice of Acknowledgements: by Peter Anthony Gales: I would like to acknowledge the work of Werner Erhard... A world that works for everyone is built on trust, commitment, and acceptance of differences and what is. A practice of acknowledgement is necessary for these values to thrive.

True Leadership: The Source of Success: by Lisa Rubenstein: Congruent leaders are deeply grounded in personal and professional integrity as the principle context for their thinking, words and actions, and are uncompromising in upholding their principles to the highest degree. This is the source of their tremendous inner strength, outer power and influence.

What do I mean by integrity? The dictionary defines it as a "soundness of moral principle and character. The state of being whole, entire or undiminished. Sound, unimpaired or perfect condition."

If we build on that definition and remove the cultural assumptions of morality surrounding our idea of integrity, we can then evaluate it in terms of being "whole and complete" and a way of bringing more power and effectiveness to our lives. As developed by Werner Erhard, who founded the est Training personal development seminars, this concept of integrity is an opportunity to become at peace with oneself and have confidence with the decisions you make, thus enriching the quality of your life.

Werner Erhard: The Source of Executive Coaching: In this article by Tony Mayo about the book, "Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man," he writes, "This is the only book I ever found so useful, inspiring, and compelling that, immediately upon completing it, I turned back to page one and read it again. That happened fifteen years ago. I just finished reading it a third time and got just as much benefit again. ...Werner Erhard founded est in 1971 and “The Training” became a major cultural phenomenon of the 1970s, with hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic graduates around the world, including leading academics like Harvard Business School’s Michael Jensen and MIT’s Warren Bennis.

Ten Commitments of Networking: Creative Ways to Maximize Your Personal Connections, by Larry James: Professional speaker, author, and relationship and networking coach, Larry James has appeared on ABC TV's The View with Barbara Walters and on more than 600 radio talk shows. He leads seminars and gives inspirational speeches focusing on developing closer relationships. In the acknowldgment section of his book he says, "A special acknowledgment to Werner Erhard. His work has truly inspired my life."

The Most Effective Ways To Live Longer, by Jonny Bowden, Ph.D. "Werner Erhard wherever you are, my greatest wish is for you to know how much you mean to me and how deeply and profoundly you have altered my life (and a deep thanks to the film director Robyn Symon for rescuing the reputation of this great man in her film Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard)"

Beauty Bites Beast: Awakening the Warrior Within Women and Girls, by Ellen B. Snortland, J.D, and Gavin de Becker, I want to acknowledge Werner Erhard and everyone at Landmark Education for the continued vision of a world that works for everyone.

Eranos Yearbook 2006, 2007, 2008 edited by edited by John Van Praag, Riccardo Bernardini, published by the Eranos Foundation. This Eranos Yearbook covers the events of the first three years since the re-launching of the Eranos Foundation in 2006. The themes of the conferences and reflect both the long and prestigious tradition of the Eranos Foundation and the relevance of Eranos to the present. The prominent international speakers succeeded in making fruitful contributions in addressing some of the most pressing questions of our times. Papers published in the yearbook include Werner Erhard : A Breakthrough in lndividual & SociaI Transformation

Suicide: Living With the Question, by Ruth Maxwell: "I could not have completed this project without the help of many... A special thank you to Werner Erhard for the est training."

The Mastery Foundation: The Mastery Foundation grew out of a series of conversations in the late 1970s and early 1980s among Christian and Jewish clergy who had experienced a personal transformation when they participated in The est Training. Their interest was in finding a way to make that kind of transformation widely available to others in religious ministry and to the institutions of religion....The group requested that Werner Erhard, the creator of The est Training, develop a program designed specifically for this constituency, and Werner agreed. ...As part of the design work, Werner requested that the Founders of the new Mastery Foundation enlist experts on clergy development and practice who could represent the Catholic, Protestant, and Jewish faiths...From the beginning, the Founders also believed that the Mastery Foundation had something useful to offer in those places in the world where religion was a source of division and conflict. Over time, this led The Mastery Foundation to Ireland, then Northern Ireland, and then Israel, and to the development of programs focused on empowering grassroots religious and community leaders...Throughout its existence, Werner Erhard has continued to generously donate his expertise and services to the Mastery Foundation, at times developing new program material and leading courses. The distinctions and tools he has created continue to be at the heart of the Mastery Foundation's programs and courses.

Werner Erhard: The Transformation of a Man
by William Warren Bartley III:
"Werner Erhard is at once a thoughtful student of, and important contributor to, the continuing philosophical dialogue that has crafted the world civilization in which we all dwell today. Unlike many philosophers and students of philosophy, he not only originates and develops ideas, but also profoundly touches people with them – thereby transforming people’s experience of what is possible for human beings and their ability to act on that possibility." Professor W.W. Bartley, III, was a Professor of Philosophy at California State University, Senior Research Fellow at Harvard University, and biographer of Ludwig Wittgenstein and Werner Erhard.

Transformation: The Life and Legacy of Werner Erhard
Everyone should see this documentary created by the independent filmmaker and two-time Emmy Award Winning Producer for PBS, Robyn Simon.  The film is about Werner Erhard and the impact of his ideas through transformational thinking.  The documentary features numerous professional and academic experts who discuss the ideas of Werner Erhard and how they continue to dramatically impact society today.

Werner Erhard's Ideas at Work in Business