Landmark Courses Are Making Participants Better Leaders
Parma Sun Post
Susanne M. Alexander, June 1999
Some extraordinary things are happening in a corner of Parma that are causing people to sit up and take notice.
"Students here at Landmark Education powerfully take out into their lives the tools they learn in the classroom," said Renate Tilgner, an evening seminar leader for the company in the Cleveland area and a management consultant and executive coach.
"They are learning to be more effective in personal relationships and communication, more productive and how to demonstrate leadership."
Neighborhood Unity
Last fall, Dale Molnar, owner-operator of Quality Home Maintenance in Parma, took the Landmark Self-Expression and Leadership course. The course coaches participants in the skills needed to be leaders in any situation where they see a need to make an idea happen with a group of people.
The training helps participants see what it takes to bring people together, work together and become leaders together. The theory taught in class shows up in the practical as each person develops a community-focused project.
Molnar's project was to create a block party for part of Brownfield Drive in Parma, an area that has become increasingly diverse. "I did this to promote unity and appreciation of who others are," says Molnar.
"I wanted to open up communications between the neighbors."
With only three weeks of planning, Molnar and his neighbors planned a party that drew almost 70 people from 3 p.m. to past midnight on September 26th, 1998. An Asian neighbor, who had never attended a block party before, made and contributed 100 eggrolls, and everyone brought dishes to share.
"It's important for neighbors to understand and respect each other, to learn to work with each other, to be able to truly be a family on one street,'' Molnar said.
"The Landmark courses have helped me see that life in not about me, it is about other people. The education and coaching have given me more confidence than I ever imagined. I listen to people as I never listened before and I see their magnificence."
Molnar is a coach in the current Self-Expression and Leadership course. He and his neighbors already have planning underway for a 1999 Brownfield Block Bash on July 31, with food, games, music, entertainment and support from city officials.
Landmark Education Corp.
Landmark Education Corp. is a global company, owned by its employees, which formed in 1991. Its headquarters are in San Francisco, and it has 55 offices worldwide.
More than 100,000 participate annually in the Landmark courses in more than 100 cities globally, including in Greater Cleveland. Cleveland is part of a region that has its central office in Cincinnati.
The satellite office for this area is at 1440 Snow Road, Suite 319, at the corner of Broadview.
"We chose Parma because it is so centrally located to meet the needs of northeast Ohio," Tilgner said.
Landmark offers what they term a "Curriculum for Living," which uses unique breakthrough technology to give people tools to understand themselves, build extraordinary relationships, increase personal confidence and productivity and make choices that empower them in their lives.
After The Landmark Forum, a 3 1/2-day course that includes a 10-session seminar, participants can take a
4 1/2-day advanced course and then complete the curriculum with a 4-month long Self-Expression and Leadership course.
Tilgner said that an independent survey of participants indicated that 95 percent of them reported that The Landmark Forum had specific, practical value for many aspects of their lives.
Daniel Yankelovich, chairman of DYG Inc. and the survey analyst, said, "More than seven out of 10 found The Landmark Forum to be one of their life's most rewarding experiences. This suggests that it addresses many of people's most profound concerns - how to improve their personal relationships, how to be a more effective person, how to think productively about their lives and goals."
Self-expression
"My job is to train already-capable people using Landmark technology so that they step into leadership, see their own power and the extraordinary becomes ordinary in their lives and the lives of others," Dave Bulter said.
Bulter is the Self-Expression and Leadership course leader and a marketing consultant.
Participants have coaches who assist them with developing their leadership and communication skills and support the progress of their community projects.
One key feature of the training is showing the participants how to involve other people in their projects and support others in taking on leadership roles.
"The biggest thing I got out of The Landmark Forum," Bulter said, "was how much I love people and how much the communities I live in have contributed to me. This is my way of giving it back, and there is joy in watching people produce extraordinary results in their lives. This is a powerful set of training tools that works every time."
"Kid's Act" Drama Club
Judy Keyser is a teacher in an intermediate multi-handicapped classroom in Echo Hills Elementary School in the Stow-Munroe Falls school system. She and Molnar were fellow students in the training last fall, and now are fellow coaches in the Parma office.
Her vision was to create an after-school drama club for students in her school, regardless of ability. She wanted it designed to encourage creativity, self-expression, and fun, with a side benefit of building self-confidence.
She soon discovered that her initial estimate of perhaps 30 students participating did not take into account her contagious enthusiasm. By the time the project took off and became "Kids Act" every Monday after school, there were 130 students, 12 parents and the PTA all involved. An additional 32 parents ended up participating during the fall.
All children have the opportunity to try acting, directing, making scenery, and developing plays. Kids Act put on a December talent show that drew 400 people. Kids Act II started in April with 70 children, 15 parents, seven plays, and seven Stow-Munroe Falls high school students doing hours of community service.
"I expected the children to have fun, and they do," Keyser said.
Rockin' Babies with Love.
Kathy Boomhower of Canton has been taking Landmark courses for a number of years and said they have given her a lot of benefit. "Still, I was not known as a leader in the community," she said.
Now that she is taking the Self-Expression and Leadership course, she said, "I'm now becoming known as a leader in all areas of my life."
Boomhower's project is just getting started, but she is already excited at the possibility it hold to make a difference. She is a registered nurse in the premature nursery, neonatal intensive care unit of Mercy Hospital in Canton.
Babies on this unit require a significant amount of holding and touch to thrive, gain weight and go home faster.
Boomhower is proposing expanding and changing the hospital's volunteer program to include more hands-on service, and has called the project, "Keep on Rockin'."
Contact Information
Anyone who is interested in learning more about the courses offered by Landmark Education Corp. is invited to free three-hour introductory seminar sessions held regularly at the office in Parma, or at area hotels when classes and sessions are too large for the center.
For more information, call Landmark Education at (216) 741-9511 or (513) 631-5100. Their Web site is www.landmarkeducation.com.
Reprinted from the PARMA SUN
TIMES, (USA) June 3, 1999.