Our History
Dr. Sylvia Lafair and Herb Kaufman initially founded Creative Energy Options, Inc. (CEO) in 1985 as a psychotherapy and wellness center to help individuals, couples and families learn new and more effective ways to communicate with each other and move toward optimum health. Throughout the years, they created many innovative programs in health care, education and business by bringing leading-edge teachers to share their wisdom at The Country Place, their retreat and conference center in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania. "Studies in the New Therapies", "The Future of Education" and the "Business of Business" series brought an array of highly respected leaders together including Deepak Chopra, Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, Bernie Siegel, David Whyte, Harrison Owen, Robert Bly, Marion Woodman and Willis Harman.
By the early 1990s they were asked to work with Fortune 100 Companies and family firms to teach their highly effective method for conflict resolution and creative collaboration. It works for families and it has proven to work at work!
This was an exciting time to research their important insights– that the communication styles learned as children were adopted into to the workplace and that at times of stress and anxiety there is a strong tendency to revert back to early modes of behavior that had once served as childhood survival mechanisms.
As the couple continued to engage with business teams, another fascinating and unexpected insight became clear- that patterns of reaction are passed from one generation to the next and that individuals unaware of these patterns tend to either repeat them or swing to the opposite extreme instead of designing new appropriate responses.
These insights helped predict the direction of future reactions regarding success, failure capacity to embrace change or create turmoil in the workplace. While families have a shared interest through genetics and businesses have a shared interest through economics, the behavioral reactions in either organization are similar.
Sylvia and Herb began to make headway in helping individuals and teams untie the “knots” of “cannot, am not and not good enough” by observing, understanding and transforming the hidden family patterns activated in their work settings.
Total Leadership Connections and other programs complimented by individual coaching have helped organizations prosper and individuals flourish. Participants report feeling clearer and more confident in their work life and are able to bring the learnings into their home relationships.
As one man put it:
“Instead of sitting through a program with a group of suits and skirts taking notes and making yet another ‘to do’ list that never made real change happen, I actually saw how the early training in my family had set me up to become a bully boss. While it was uncomfortable to recognize that I had turned into my father, barking orders and blaming others, it also offered me a sense of freedom. As my father and I began to make peace with our relationship the bully boss title began to disappear at work, relationships became stronger and now my action plans hit the target in warp speed.”
Today, CEO has a wide array of ongoing consulting services and programs designed to enhance professional and personal performance for individuals, teams and organizations striving for excellence to uncover inherent leadership genius and free organizations to create environments of trust. We know that helping business organizations become great places to work involves offering insights and skill training for everyone to reach full potential.
