Working Zingers: Nourished at Work
Work as Soul Food: Fed or Nourished?
Pizza parties
piece of cake
cookies too
donuts dunked
in copious coffee quaffed
chocolates on desks
stacked in Inukshuk figures
guiding the way to the lunch room
weaving by assorted candies scattered
around the office like seashells at a beach.
The challenge is not
to be fed at work
it is to
prepare
share
and create work
that nourishes
stomach and soul
without heaping on the bonbons.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
David Zinger, M.Ed., works with organizations and individuals foster engagement. He is a writer, educator, speaker, and consultant who founded the 2700 member Employee Engagement Network. David’s website offers you 1100 free posts/articles on the engagement. David is committed to fostering a movement to increase employee engagement 20% by 2020.
Connect with David Zinger today to improve engagement where you work.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca - Phone 204 254 2130 - Website: www.davidzinger.com
Working Zingers: Engaging Breaks
We need a break
or work gets broken.
Stop the constant work
with a
b
r
e
a
k
today.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
David Zinger, M.Ed., helps organizations and individuals improve engagement. He is a writer, educator, speaker, and consultant who founded the 2600 member Employee Engagement Network. David’s website offers you 1100 posts/articles on the engagement reaching over 1,000,000 page views in the first 4 months of 2010.
Connect with David Zinger today to improve engagement where you work.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca - Phone 204 254 2130 - Website: www.davidzinger.com
Working Zingers: Work as the World Cup
GGGGGooooooooooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllll.
If our work was World Cup Football
we would feel the crowds around us
be able to wither in pain when our proposal is rejected
get yellow cards for stealing someone’s lunch out of the fridge
and a red card for stealing someone’s brilliant quality improvement idea.
We would not receive a golden handshake
but someone would get the golden boot.
We could kick up a fuss and run like mad inside the field
as announcers commented on our lack of engagement
while our every move was debated
and instantly displayed on replay monitors around the world.
And we would be given a few extra minutes to work before lunch
or at the end of the day to make up for the time we wasted
pointing fingers of blame and lamenting our fate.
Of course nobody would hear us above the roar of the crowd
or the amplified hive-like buzz of the vuvuzelas.
From a distance you would notice that
most of us would just be watching
while only a few people pitched in.
Of course this is not time for poetry
I must head to the closest television to watch Maradona’s
flamboyant coaching of Argentina
while I shudder to think of him running naked in Buenos Aires.
Ja Yebo
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
David Zinger, M.Ed., helps organizations and individuals improve engagement. He is a writer, educator, speaker, and consultant who founded the 2600 member Employee Engagement Network. David’s website offers you 1100 posts/articles on the engagement reaching over 1,000,000 page views in the first 4 months of 2010.
Contact David Zinger today to improve engagement where you work.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca - Phone 204 254 2130 - Website: www.davidzinger.com
Working Zingers: Waiting
A Question of Waiting
Is waiting a room
you sit impatiently in
feeling the weight of the world
holding you back
from what you seek
or is waiting
a space you inhabit
as long as your are there?
What are you waiting for
and where are you
while you wait?
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
David Zinger, M.Ed., helps organizations and individuals improve engagement. He is a writer, educator, speaker, and consultant who founded the 2600 member Employee Engagement Network. David’s website offers you 1100 posts/articles on the engagement reaching over 1,000,000 page views in the first 4 months of 2010.
Connect with David Zinger today to improve engagement where you work.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca - Phone 204 254 2130 - Website: www.davidzinger.com
Working Zingers: An Expression of Courage
The course of courage
Courage
at work
is expression
not impression.
Not medals
but meddle
into what
we care about
not exclusively
but inclusively.
Courage is
the heart at work
and hearty work.
Rather than
a course in courage
courage is following our course.
Of course also
making corrections
while remaining true.
We don’t find courage
we express it.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. David founded and moderates the 2400+ member Employee Engagement Network. His personal website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and reached over 1,000,000 page views in under 4 months in 2010. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.
Connect with David Zinger today for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com
Working Zingers: Tongue Depressant
Tongue Depressant
Nobody talked
As the project tanked.
At least
not
in public.
Heads bowed.
Eyes averted.
A few tongues bitten
to avoid
possible tongue lashing.
There was no conversational alchemy
Only a fool’s gold
of thought transmuted
into working whispers
and empty silence.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2350 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and reached over 1,000,000 page views in under 4 months in 2010. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.
Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com
Violation: What if they gave out tickets at work?
Work Zone Ahead (A working poem)
Imagine getting pulled over at work or coming to your desk and finding a ticket.
What would you be cited for?
Changing lanes without a turn indicator because you can’t be bothered to let others know when you change.
A speeding ticket for going too quickly on a job.
A parking ticket because you spend your time parked in the lunchroom or on one task.
A stop sign violation because you worked right through your son’s baseball game.
A noise violation for eating carrots too loudly at your desk.
Running a red light because nothing comes between you and your work.
Making an illegal turn for leaving a stalled project requiring work for a shiny new project full of promise.
Using the diamond or carpool lane with nobody else in your vehicle because you don’t work well with others.
Driving at night without your headlights because you hate to see where you are going.
Hitting another vehicle because you need to bump coworkers who get in your way.
…
What’s your ticket?
It is time to pull over, slow down, quiet down, and fill your energy meter.
Stop making stupid violations at work.
Of course you’ll never get a real ticket at work
But you may succeed in ticking many people off at work,
And that’s not the ticket.
by David Zinger
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2300 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.
Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com
Photo Credit: Flickr Creative Commons Parking Ticket.
Employee Engagement: Above The Bottom Line
Above The Bottom Line
Dwelling above the bottom line
our contributions
our meaning
our routines
our relationships
our passions
our connections
our fears
our hopes
our irritations
our time
our lives.
Business is looking up.
It doesn’t all come down to the bottom line.
—
Flickr Creative Commons: Numbers.
—–
David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement writer, educator, speaker, coach, and consultant. He offers exceptional contributions on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2180 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 posts/articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership. David is involved in the application of Enterprise 2.0 approaches to engagement and the precursor, creating engaging approaches to communication, collaboration, and community within Enterprise 2.0.
Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com
In Gaudi’s Grip: If I was an Information Architect
What do you see?
If I was an information architect
I would imitate Gaudi
Expressing Spanish flair fused with Barcelona beat
Into artistic displays of moving information
The information would be beautiful
Creating towering displays of data
That would continue to be built well past my short shelf life.
I would wave information
Transforming data points
Into curved beauty
Abandoning myopic reliance
On straight lines.
I would invite my information patrons
To walk through the data build
Unable to keep their hands off of the implications
While grabbing hold of meaningful measures
Conveyed in waves of inspiring information
Lacuna
She came to work
but wasn’t there.
Focus blotched
by last night’s
Fear Filled Family Fight.
Invisible scars
deep inside
slicing into her sense of self
she valiantly but vainly
tries to do her job
like she knows she can- – -
But she can’t.
Last night’s cutting words won’t mute.
We cannot see
what isn’t there
But connect the dots
and we are drawn into an invitation
to punctuate the veil of silence
as we realize our co-worker
was diminished
knocked off balance
by verbal violence flaring behind closed doors.
This is not the time to tuck our head
deep down into our cubicle shell.
…..
Lacuna n. pl. la·cu·nae (-n ). 1. An empty space or a missing part; a gap.
—–
David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement expert. He offers exceptional education and consulting on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2025 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.
Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com.
Employee Engagement: Don’t Go Soft
Shift Thinking of Soft Skills Into Fluid Skills and Hard Skills into Fixed Skills
Employee engagement is not a soft skill.
And it is not a matter of pure will.
You don’t go to a training room to learn engagement.
Training is for dogs – education is for people.
We can certainly go to a classroom to learn about engagement
But we must show class by demonstrating that education
is as much about what you give as what you get
and that a learning community resides within the group
and we need to bring learning out while creating community
Don’t just put more stuff in with participants who are already loaded to the max with too much to do and too little time to do it and going to a course just seems to be putting them further behind and they shudder at the possible imposition embedded in training to do a whole bunch more stuff when they leave the session with time and energy they do not have.
Education and engagement must be invitations not impositions.
Engagement is no more a soft skill than accounting is a hard skill.
Engagement is a fluid approach embracing skills in relationship to
our work, each other, our organization and our customers.
And this fluidity is what keeps the fixed skills from seizing up.
Lets melt our rigid concepts of hard and soft skills training
into fluid and fixed learning and actions that achieve results that matter to all.
We must say no to something else while maintaining laser-like focus on performing
the smallest thing we can that is most significant in creating and sustaining engagement.
—–
David Zinger, M.Ed., is an employee engagement expert. He offers exceptional education and consulting on employee engagement for leaders, managers, and employees. David founded and moderates the 2025 member Employee Engagement Network. His website offers 1000 articles relating to employee engagement and strength based leadership.
Book David for education, speaking, and coaching on engagement today for 2010.
Email: dzinger@shaw.ca Phone 204 254 2130 Website: www.davidzinger.com.
Employee Engagement Bardzo
Warsaw 2010
Frigid January in Warsaw
walking down windy frozen streets
in the city leveled
to ruin and rubble (1945).
Chopin pieces play from
push button street benches
giving note to his 200th birthday.
As the frozen mermaid stands guard
singing a song of resilient rejuvenation.
Walking in Warsaw
I realize
we can rebuild,
we can always rebuild.
There is no quit in Warsaw
Warszawa – Dziękuję bardzo .
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