Anthroposophical Impulse in Training at Citigroup

No matter what I am teaching or facilitating, it is a dance. A dance with participant and teacher, participant and participant, or solo. In the movement, in the stillness, in the journey, there comes a freedom. In the freedom comes the knowing.

Anthroposophy has inspired and influenced my life for the past twenty-five years and continues to do so. The threads in my life have been interwoven with studies and work in dance, shiatsu, theater, finance, and teaching. The past nineteen years of my life have been devoted to the development of myself and of others at Citigroup, the parent company of Citibank. As a member of the Training and Development team, I am fortunate to give my time and efforts to creating a safe environment for participants to explore their human nature.

I facilitate a number of classes ranging from “Presentation Skills” and “Team Building” to “Sales and Orientation” to the culture here at Citi. The facilitation is where my connection to anthroposophy has given me the possibility to create and offer to people in a collaborative atmosphere the impulse to look within and outwardly and to work with their capacities for thinking, willing, and feeling.

Many of the exercises in the classes allow individuals to find their own answers, rather than being given solutions directly. In the class participants are usually very willing to explore and share their experiences, and later with their colleagues to relate their struggles and accomplishments with the work.

Often when working in separate team groupings, I ask that the groups work together according to astrological signs and this usually creates a dynamic dialogue around this topic. Movement is also one of the tools I use in bringing freedom into the space. Participants are encouraged to move about the room, to explore both the space and their own physical posture and uprightness.

Based on my studies in the Michael Chekhov acting techniques, I often work with the “four elements”—earth, air, water, fire. I have worked with groups doing some of the Chekhov physical exercises, exploring the space with their bodies, with the imagination of molding their physical being in the clay of the earth—and then interacting with one another while keeping the atmosphere that has been created. Then we continue with air, fire, and water, experiencing the difference in the qualities of movement and atmosphere created.

When put into a role play situation here in bankerclient interactions, participants are able to discuss and share the differences in the atmospheres they can create through imagination. This helps people understand the connection to Citi’s “Client Principles” and to values we cultivate regarding one another and clients. The elements also come into focus working with the team building classes, which are based on Carl Jung’s theory of the dichotomies of personality preferences.

The work is also very productive sometimes when we work with different centers of the body as a focus: the heart as the center, for example, or the nose as the center, and so forth. Discussions are encouraged to share experiences both in and out of the class and both in and out of the world of finance. The dialogues these exercises inspire are often profound for the participants.

What is most profound to me is the heart connection that people make when they are in an environment of collaborative and safe exploration. It shows up in their relation to one another and their willingness to truly care about one another’s development and well-being. In a world of finance where much of the time is spent in the realm of the head, I find anthroposophy has helped me share the impulse to enliven our connection with the heart and to have access to what could be truly human.

Rudolf Steiner:

Vincent Roppolo was a business trainer and Vice President with Citi Learning-North America Consumer who has also spent many years in theater and dance. He served on the council of Anthroposophy NYC, the New York Branch of the Anthroposophical Society, and now works with the Association for Anthroposophic Psychology.