Joyful Jubilant Learning

Going with Heart: The King of Hearts

One of my favorite movies of all time is the King of Hearts from 1966.

Here is the summary from a Wikipedia entry on the film:

This 1966 film, directed by Philippe de Broca, stars Alan Bates as Charles Plumpick, a kilt-wearing Scottish soldier who is sent by his commanding officer to disarm the bomb. When Plumpick enters the town, he unknowingly leaves the door to the insane asylum open while being chased by the Germans. When the Germans have left the town, all of the inmates leave the asylum and playfully take over the town. The adorable lunatics coronate Plumpick King of Hearts with surreal pageantry as he frantically tries to find the bomb before it goes off. The film ends with the question of who is more insane, those in the asylum or the soldiers on the battlefield.

I love the movie because it is romantic, charming, and carries a powerful message in a gentle and loving way.

I loved the blurring of the line between insanity and sanity and that things are not always as they seem. The movie resonates with findings from social cognitive psychology that mentally healthy people do not face reality.

Research from Dr. Shelley Taylor and others have found that mentally healthy people do not face reality! They buffer reality with 3 positive illusions: unrealistically positive views of the self, illusions of control, and unrealistic optimism.

I believe Dr. Phil is off base at times when he cajoles us to: Get Real!

Frequent readers of this blog will identify that this film fits with my signature story. Click here to read the post on signature stories and Don Quixote.

Keep both your heart and mind open and you might just find a very rich kingdom of living and loving both inside yourself and connected to your relationships.

If you get a chance, give yourself the royal treatment and watch the King of Hearts.
~ Post by David Zinger

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JJL Editorial Postscript:
David's own website (www.davidzinger.com) is devoted to work engagement and he is working hard to foster higher levels of authentic employee engagement that will be of benefit to all.

Click here to visit and join the exciting and growing network David founded for people interested, involved, or engaged in employee engagement.

Click here for more from David here at Joyful Jubilant Learning. His last article for us was on our April theme of Digital Learning: 4 Zingers in Digital Learning.

You can get published on Joyful Jubilant Learning too! ~~~ May Details here

4 Zingers in Digital Learning

Here are 4 sites that contribute to my digital learning:

TED is the quintessential site for eclectic and enthralling learning for me. This site focused on Technology, Education, and Design has the most outstanding speakers captured on video. I believe if you were to watch every video you would have the equivalent of a liberal arts education. You will be educated and inspired after viewing even just a couple of TED talks. You can embed a talk into your blog.

Slideshare is always worth a visit to see the latest slide shows that are up on the site. You can see them by a number of different categories and you can also embed this into your blog or website. In addition you can add your own slide show to the sight.

The Common Craft Show is a funky site to view some videos in Plain English. Visit this site if you need a simple explanation for: Twitter, RSS, Wikis, Blogs or even Zombies

Employee Engagement Network on Ning is a site I host. I decided one Saturday afternoon to see what I could do. In just over 2 months we have over 165 people on the network focused on employee engagement. I love the social network platform - each member has their own page, each member can blog, forums and special groups are easy to set up.

When it comes to digital learning the best way to learn is to do! Social networks are doing a fabulous job of transforming me to we in the connected world of Web 2.0.

David Zinger loves to learn and appreciates the wonderful methods offered in digital learning. Some of the digital tools David uses are: ning, netvibes, Google suite of tools, bloglines, wordpress, blogspot, twitter, drop.io, tumblr, flickr, creative commons, slideshare, you tube, animoto, wikipedia, etc.

Finding Our Way

How do you find your way as a leader?

Margaret J. Wheatley has taken her finest practice-oriented articles on leadership in the past 10 years and collected them into the book, Finding Our Way: Leadership For an Uncertain Time. Margaret did not just collect the material with cut and paste zeal, rather she updated, revised or substantially added to the original content of each article so that every article is up to date with her current views on the topic. I have always enjoyed reading Margaret's work and I love having so many of her fine articles under one cover.

When I conduct leadership education this book is now required reading. Although not meant as a textbook it makes a much finer textbook than most of the books currently used as leadership textbooks. But you don't have to take a course in leadership to apply this book, Margaret Wheatley will help you find your own way in these uncertain times.

The book is organized into 5 Sections and in total it includes about 30 different chapters. The sections are:

1. Organizing: There is a Simpler Way
2. Leadership: We Make the Road by Walking
3. Obstacles: Where the Road Gets Hard
4. Personal: Attending to Our Footsteps
5. My Own Footsteps

I encourage the reader to take their time with each chapter. Read it once. Reflect on what you have read. Find a few lines that stand out for you. Take more time to reflect on this. Determine how you can put this into practice.

Margaret writes so powerfully that I would like to honor her cogent and careful writing by offering you 3 snippets from the book:

Organization as machine or living system...

These days, a different ideal for organizations is surfacing. We want organizations to be adaptive, flexible, self-renewing, resilient, learning, intelligent --- attributes found only in living systems. The tension of our times is that we want our organizations to behave as living systems, but we only know how to treat them as machines. p. 32

Participation and change...

We never succeed in directing or telling people how they must change. We don’t succeed by handing them a plan, or pestering them with our interpretations, or relentlessly pressing forward with our agenda, believing that volume and intensity will convince them to see it our way. You can scream and holler as much as you want, but if people don’t regard what you’re saying as important, they’ll just ignore you and go on with their own life. (In this way, all people behave like teenagers.)...It is impossible to impose anything on people. We must participate in anything that affects us. We can’t act on behalf of anyone, we can’t figure out what’s best for somebody else. If leaders or task forces refuse to believe this and go ahead and make plans for us, we don’t sit by passively and do what we’re told. We still get involved, but from the sidelines, where we’ve been told to sit and wait. We get involved by ignoring, resisting, or sabotaging all plans and directives that are imposed on us. p. 105.

Listening...

Listening is such a simple act. It requires us to be present, and that takes practice, but we don't have to do anything else. We don't have to advise, or coach, or sound wise. We just have to be willing to sit there and listen. If we can do that, we create moments in which real healing is available. p. 208.

I hope you read this fine collection, listen to to how it speaks to you, and experience your own form of leadership healing.

*****

Reviewed by David Zinger David's own website (www.davidzinger.com) is devoted to work engagement and he is working hard to foster higher levels of authentic employee engagement that will be of benefit to all. Click here to visit and join the exciting and growing network David founded for people interested, involved, or engaged in employee engagement. He found Margaret's book an inspiration and practical source of ideas and approaches to further his work.

Weighing In on The Way of Life

Can the way of life be embedded in a slick 31 tips of self-development blog article?

I admit to being very convoluted and full of contradiction. I am slowly getting more comfortable as I learn to embrace my ambiguity, uncertainty, and complexity.

I dropped out of business school because I was reading books about psychology and when I got to psychology I read books about eastern perspectives on living.

I have moved full circle and I am now working mostly with businesses on employee engagement but my reading is mostly in psychology and Buddhism.

I classify myself as a bedroom Buddhist. This sounds kind of fun and kinky but it really means I often read popular Buddhist writers before going to sleep: Thich Nhat Hahn, Sylvia Boorstein, Pema Chodron, and others. It is interesting that I fall asleep with these books that help me "wake up."

I find comfort in the writing of these authors who embrace loving kindness, authenticity, mystery, awareness of the breath, mindfulness, impermanence, equanimity, and right effort.

It is an important balance to what I call the invasion of the copywriters in blogosphere. I am learning to write good copy and it works well in short posts on blogs but how many odd numbers lists that tell you how to get things done can one consume? (By the way, judging by what I see, there seems to be no end to it).

Do we know what we are searching for in these posts that make us list towards the future like self-development junkies high on the left-overs from Winning Friends and Influencing People?

Although my little paperback copy of Lao Tzu,'s The Way of Life is over 25 years old and quite yellowed it still seems more fresh than the latest copywriter tips pulled into my computer by my overzealous Bloglines RSS feed that refuses to let me miss a single post.

I have read many translations of the Way of Life but I still prefer the one written by Witter Bynner.

I  smile at my contradiction here in that I am presenting a Taoist book yet I profess to be a bedroom Buddhist. I'll have to sleep on that one.

Here are a few snippets from this gem:

The sanest man sets up no deed, lays down no law, takes everything that happens as it comes, as something to animate, not to appropriate, to earn, not to own, to accept naturally without self-importance: If you never assume importance you never lose it.

Thus we are helped by what is not to use what is.

But of a good leader, who talks little, when his work is done, his aim fulfilled, they will all say, "We did this ourselves."

Those who know do not tell, those who tell do not know.

Because I am telling I realize I do not know, but mostly I think I am trying to tell myself about a philosophy I believe in - so much for learning everything I needed to know in kindergarten.

The Big Question: What book has shown you your way of life?

Concluding from The Way Of Life:

Knowledge studies others; Wisdom is self-known; Muscle masters brothers, self-mastery is bone.

Photo Credit: Zen Gravel Garden by http://flickr.com/photos/nihonbunka/1406823/

David Zinger, M.Ed. David is focused on employee engagement check out his website and his employee engagement social network. He is 1/2 of Slacker Manager and he writes a self-development blog at www.diehappytoday.com. 

Unpacking Gifts

January has been a very rich month for me. Right now it is -45 Celsius or -49 Fahrenheit but things are heating up for February.

This community is a very valuable source of learning and a welcome stop as I navigate through blogs. I feel so much at home here. I also feel that I can be very personal and sometimes the most personal is the most universal.

Joanna thank you so much for the information and example on Voicethread. What a neat tool. If you want to create a picture for learning I would certainly go in and weave together a thread of my voice to your creation.

Although it is very cold outside, things have very much heated up as I delve further and further into employee engagement. This is the topic that is closest to my heart and I would love people to see my name as synonymous with employee engagement. To me, the unengaged life (at work or home) is barely a life. To this end, I have created a new social/information network on employee engagement. If this is a topic that interests you I would love your participation. Here is a button and a link to that site:

Visit The Employee Engagement Network

Rosa and Phil have joined the site and I am especially indebted to Rosa for what I have learned as she demonstrates by example how to be the glue to hold JJL together. I am inspired by Rosa's energy and passion and I hope I can do a similar job for people who are passionate about employee engagement from an authentic and real perspective.

On a personal note I will be starting a new blog on Saturday: www.diehappytoday.com. I have always loved Ground Hog day and this will be a neat way to get out of the shadow of death, denial, doubt, and dubious deeds (okay, I admit it...I get easily hooked on alliterations).

I will only be writing there once or twice a week. There is a sneak preview if you want to take a look. If you want to see/read a different profile of me from that site: click here.

The site and name for it all came about on a flight to Halifax Nova Scotia when I wondered if the plane was to crash would I die happy?

To me this is not a morbid question and it is not some sort of "rah rah seize every moment with gusto and be pumped to the max" kind of self-injunction.

Rather, I am attempting to respond to this in an authentic way that connects with my full real voice and connects with the readers. I would love to have lots of readers but most importantly, I need to read it a few times every week to keep asking myself: If I was to die today, would I die happy?

By the way, the answer is YES, unequivocally YES.

I notice as I ask this question many times a day that I am more connected to my 3 teenagers, more understanding of others, more accepting of myself, and as an aside, I find myself laughing so much more even as I watch reruns of The Simpsons or Seinfeld (mostly I watch reruns to be sitting in the same room as my three chilren).

Staying cool in Winnipeg at -45

David

Unpacking An Improvisational Writing Experiment

This post began as an idea in December during our month focused on giving and receiving and dissipated in execution by the start of January. Our writing chain would pause, glitch, or break.

The concept was to create an improvisational post based on volunteers writing one sentence at a time. Click here to read the original idea.

I toyed with the idea of giving the whole post an execution but I wish to unpacked some learnings from the process and give my courageous co-authors a chance to comment.

The post was written one sentence at a time by the authors listed at the end of the post. This was indeed a big challenge especially with people away during the holidays. I tried to do this by email so that it would be open to everyone.

I take responsibility for the post and I wish to absolve all my participants of responsibility for the final product. In fact I think the product is only half of this post, the process is the key and after the co-created post I will share some bullet points lessons.

Remember, as you read this it was written over a number of weeks one sentence at a time by 9 different contributors:

I receive what I give. And then happily, I notice that I has become we. And although it's my turn - suddenly it's us who are telling this story. What a beautiful thing us is – working in tandem to encourage warmth, beauty and hope. Then, I understand that my story can never be just about me; there must be a receiver for the giver. And this post in the space of 12 hours embraced two new receivers, Julia and Tim.   

So the circle of us grows as I take inspiration from David, April, Dean, Joanna and Rosa's gifts not only share back with the givers but to share with the rest of my world.  It is in the sharing that our group learns to collaborate and collaborates to learn. We seem to enthusiastically agree that we want to give this collaborative learning to each other as a genuine experience; now, how can we stretch and enlarge that intention to it's fullest potential? It's a question and challenge from Rosa, but I'm thrown back to the other words she gifted me today: about fathers, and what they mean to us, and the importance of treasuring mine.

It is phenomenal time of year to consider the treasures that are not found in a catalog, store, or in a neatly wrapped package with a pretty bow under the tree.  And, as these most valued treasures are seen again for the first time, we find they are what we always wanted. The real treasure to open is the unique perspective of each writer here and "hear" the following sentence from each contributor on what specifically they have treasures most in giving this December.

The treasure from Julia this year is focused time which I find myself often too busy to give - time to watch my six year old girl stare in wonder as Nutcrackers, Sugar Plum Fairies and Gingerbread children dance across the stage; time to help my children understand how blessed their lives are by seeing the needs of other children their age; and time to watch my children decorate Christmas cookies with a little too much frosting and sprinkles but the pride of having done it by themselves. Tim finds that he is treasuring the snow and skiing with his wife and kids, and the time they spend together held captive on ski lifts hovering 30 feet in the air. Rosa has discovered the most amazing generosity: Her family is intent on giving her peace of mind.  And this intrigues me, this intent, and I wonder if this is how we give our most important presents: insistently, persistently, patiently, with love and with intent, so the gift cannot be overlooked, or exchanged, or returned. I also wonder why so many of us wait until this time of the year to take inventory of those bigger things that are most important and most valuable. For Dean, it's a combination of celebration - as it is every year. Our 32nd anniversary (19th) and Christ's birthday six days later. This year, we will celebrate - may it never stop! Steve turns to his father and comes to understand more of what made him and in turn develop us with an appreciation of bringing light in times of darkness.

Playful contributors: Julia Miler, Tim Milburn, Rosa Say. Joanna Young, April Groves, Stephen Sherlock, Dean Boyer, Andy Leitermann, and myself

Unpacking the observations and lessons from an Improvisational Post:

• We will not be successful at everything we try and failure is fine because there is learning available if we are willing to reflect and unpack the lessons. I am more willing to put "failure" where I can see it and learn from it rather than bury it under the carpet or hit the delete button. The spirit of improvisation is to embrace failure.
• It took courage and connection to keep a post like this going and I salute and learned how much effort people are willing to put into a project. Support makes all the difference in the world, and to me, ultimate success comes in second place.
• It was interesting to watch this post evolve one sentence at a time and realize each person is free to take it in different directions and each person is vital to where it is headed.
• I have clearer ideas about how I would do this if I was to attempt it again: I would keep a tighter focus and probably use a Google document so that people could go and post on the document rather than trying to follow a long email chain.
• Thank you to each participant for giving me a chance to play with the idea of improvisational writing and learn some valuable lessons for the future of not only improvisational writing but teamwork.

It is now time for me to pack my bag of learning from 2007 and move fully into 2008, "all aboard..."

David

Join me in a Playful Post: Give and Receive

I want some playful volunteers to create a community post on giving and receiving one sentence at a time.

• Do you want to receive and give in writing?
• Join me in a playful post that will begin next Monday December 10th.
• If I get early volunteers we might start sooner but I will be out of town from Thursday to Sunday.

• It will be a synthesis of improvisation built upon giving and receiving. I will write the first line of the post then we will take turns one at a time adding a sentence.You can let me know you will play along by sending me an email: dzinger@shaw.ca

• I will gather email addresses and we will have the post make the rounds a few times. Everyone will be cc’d on the post but we will follow an order for the creation of the post.

• The first line will be: I receive what I give.

• Then the next person will add only one more sentence building upon this and pass it on.We receive someone else’s writing and give our contribution for the next person to receive. Anyone who joins in will be sent the post in order and be asked to add a line then pass the post on.

Our  guidelines will be:

• Build upon what is offered by others.
• You can only add one sentence.
• Give the best you can.
• Make previous contribution look good.
• Avoid any negation of what was already said
• Have fun
• Let’s see what we can do.
• All contributors will be acknowledged as authors of the post.

We will work on it for a few days (I would like about 30 sentences if possible) and then post it here. I think this will be a playful experiment where we write about giving and receiving while actually giving and receiving.Come join me...this won't be a life sentence...just each of us collaborating one sentence at a time.

• Photo Credit: Fill in the blank by http://flickr.com/photos/cdm/51747860/

• Join in by dropping me a quick note: dzinger@shaw.ca.

Remember November: 5 Learnings

Here are my 5 learnings for November:

1. Creating good You Tube videos are more challenging than it looks but I vow to learn to get better at it.
2. What you gamble in Las Vegas - stays in Las Vegas - they don't build those ostentatious replica buildings for free.
3. You can teach a course 1000 times and never stop learning from the very material you are teaching.
4. I am learning that 2 big trends in 2008 will be story and leadership/living and bloggers joining and creating more specific and defined networks.
5. Being a parent of 3 children (ages 18, 16, and 16) is rewarding, disconcerting, challenging, loving, educational, spiritual, physical, costly, exhausting, and uplifting. In a word, being a parent IS. Everything else is......extra.

David Zinger

Remembering

Every year on November 11, Canadians pause in a silent moment of remembrance for the men and women who have served, and continue to serve our country during times of war, conflict and peace.

I was extremely touched today by an article and 3 part video feature on the LA Times about the Marlboro Marine and the photographer who took his picture.

If you have time I encourage you to read, watch, and listen to this story. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/marlboromarine/

Signature Stories: More than Once Upon A Time

Do you believe you have a signature story? Do you know your signature story?

This post is dedicated with utmost gratitude to the memory of my mother, Genevieve Zinger's who was born on November 11th. Although she died a number of years ago part of her story lives on in me. I have so much love and gratitude for how she nurtured imagination and empathy in my life. Parents give children roots and wings and I am flying because of the solid roots Genevieve passed on to me and the wings she helped me to feather out. Thanks mom.

I have heard it said that some people make their marks while others sign their names. One of the ways we sign our names and live our authentic self is through the key stories that live inside us and we share with others.

I believe the most authentic story is our signature story. This story is an expression of us. It may be our own story or it may be a story that resonates so strongly with us that it may even feel like our own. Perhaps we tell many stories but when we mentally weave them together we recognize a theme that expresses our unique signature.

Here is an explanation of signature:

A signature (from Latin signare, "sign") is a handwritten (and sometimes stylized) depiction of someone's name, nickname or even a simple "X" that a person writes on documents as a proof of identity and intent. The writer of a signature is a signatory. Like a handwritten signature, a signature work describes the work as readily identifying its creator.

A signature story is the story or stories that express who we are to the world. It may be a story we share with friends or if we are speakers or educators it may be the story we tell often in our presentations. If we are a writer it may be the story we need to write. As a parent, it may be the story we keep telling our children.

Here are some markers to uncover or create your signature story:

1. It is the story you tell often, or stories you tell often that have the same theme.
2. It is the story you most need to hear, even when you are the person telling it.
3. It is the story you most need to tell, if you could tell only one more story what would it be.
4. It is the story that you can tell a thousand times but you keep learning from it almost every time your tell it.
5. It is the story that lives in you and may come alive every time you tell it.
6. It is the story that is most authentic and true for you.
7. It is the story you most want to read.
8. It is an "easy" story to tell because it is so much a part of you.
9. It is a story that when you tell it, it strengthens you.

Here are a 3 additional resources if you want to learn more about signature stories:

• Chris King wrote about using the power of signature stories to enliven your presentation.
• Doug Stevenson outlines 7 types of stories for speakers and gives some suggestions on creating your signature story.
• I highly recommend this short post by Gari on life signature story that begins with the paragraph:

The story of a baby being given his/her own song which goes with him/her throughout life provided an extremely powerful image for me. It may have been so very powerful because I have worked with so many children and families who are concentrating so much of their effort to gain the basic needs of life that they forget they are more than just food, water and clothing. In other words, they have been too tired to recognize that they even have a song. They have forgotten about singing each other’s praises. They have forgotten their worth.

In conclusion, I see signature story not so much as a tool or technique but a strong way to bring who we are to what we do. I wish you all the best in being the story you truly are.

Postscript:

Your story is more important than mine because it is, after all, your story. As a speaker, writer, and educator I make extensive use of stories and teach a 3 day course on the Power of Story for the Univeristy of Manitoba.

My signature story or theme is Don Quixote. I loved the story the very first time I read it as a young boy failing to realize that it was my signature story. By the way, I don't tell the story of Don Quixote but if you listen to the hundreds of stories I tell you would find strong threads of imagination, quest, partnership, love, comedy, windmills, and creative reality permeating the stories I share.

If you appreciated this post I would be honored if you would click here to watch and listen to The Impossible Dream from the 57th Tony Awards Man Of La Mancha.

May you reach the unreachable stars.

Written by - David Zinger

Photo Credit (Image at start of post): Letterwiting by http://flickr.com/photos/larimdame/65917688/

Photo Credit (Don Quixote - Picasso drawing) don quijote by http://flickr.com/photos/gi/113323784/