Afterwards the teacher decided to do a class project to see what kind of impact acknowledgement would have on their community. She gave each of the students three more ribbons and instructed them to go out and spread this Blue Ribbon Ceremony. They were to follow up on the results, see who honoured whom and report back to the class in about a week.

One of the boys in the class went to a junior executive in a nearby company and honoured him for having helped him with his career planning. The boy gave him a Blue Ribbon, placing it on his shirt just above his heart. Then he gave the junior executive two extra ribbons, and said, “We’re doing a class project on acknowledgement, and we’d like you to go out and find someone to honour. Give them this Blue Ribbon, then give them the extra Blue Ribbon so they can acknowledge another person to keep this acknowledgement ceremony going. Then, please report back to me and tell me what happened.”

Later that day the junior executive went in to see his boss, who had been noted, by the way, as being kind of a grouchy fellow. He sat his boss down and told him that he deeply admired him for being a creative genius. The junior executive asked him if he would accept the gift of the Blue Ribbon and would he give him permission to put it on him. His surprised boss said, “Well, sure.” The junior executive took the Blue Ribbon and placed it right on his boss’ jacket above his heart. As he gave him the last extra ribbon, he said, “Would you do me a favour? Would you take this extra ribbon and pass it on by honouring someone else? The young boy who first gave me the ribbons is doing a project in school and we want to keep this recognition ceremony going to find out how it affects people.”

That night the boss went home to his 14-year-old son and sat him down. He said, “The most incredible thing happened to me today. I was in my office and one of the junior executives came in and told me he admired me and gave me a Blue Ribbon for being a creative genius. Imagine. He thinks I’m a creative genius. Then he put this Blue Ribbon that says Who I Am Makes A Difference on my jacket above my heart. He gave me an extra ribbon and asked me to find someone else to honour. As I was driving home tonight, I started thinking about whom I would honour with this ribbon and I thought about you. I want to honour you.

“My days are really hectic and when I come home I don’t pay a lot of attention to you. Sometimes I scream at you for not getting good enough grades in school or for your bedroom being a mess. But somehow tonight, I just wanted to sit here and, well, just let you know that you do make a difference to me. Besides your mother, you are the most important person in my life. You’re a great kid and I love you!”

The startled boy started to sob and sob. He couldn’t stop crying. His whole body shook. He got up, walked over to a drawer, opened it and took out a gun. Holding the gun in his hand, he looked up at his father and through his tears he said, “I was planning on committing suicide tomorrow, Dad, because I didn’t think you loved me. Now I don’t need to.”

(Copyright ©2006 Helice Bridges)

• Remember, who you are makes a difference to the people around you. Make that difference count positively.
• When last did you tell the people in your life that who they are makes a difference to you? Why? How will you change this?

In her effort to undo what she had done, she went to the wise woman who lived in the village. Explaining her situation, she asked for advice. The wise woman listened patiently in an effort to determine just how sincere the younger woman was and how far she was willing to go to correct the situation.

The wise woman explained to the young woman that sometimes, in order to put things back the way they were, great efforts must be made. She then asked the young woman, “Just what would you be willing to do to repair the harm that has been done?”

The answer was heartfelt. “Anything,” said the young woman. Listening to her, the wise woman sensed the young woman’s distress and knew she must help her. She also knew that she could not lessen the young woman’s pain by shielding her, but she could teach if the young woman would first listen and then learn. The wise woman knew that the outcome would depend solely on the character of the young woman.

The wise woman said, “There are two things needed to make amends. The first of the two is very difficult. Tonight, take your best feather pillows and open a small hole in each one. Then, before the sun rises, you must put a single feather on the doorstep of each house in the village. When you are finished, come back to me. If you have done this first task completely and correctly, I will tell you the second task you need to accomplish.”

The young woman hurried home to prepare for her task, even though her feather pillows were very dear to her. All night long she laboured alone in the cold. She went from doorstep to doorstep, taking care not to overlook a single house. Her fingers were frozen and the wind was so sharp that it caused her eyes to water, but she ran on through the darkened streets, thankful that there was something she could do to put things back the way they once were.

Finally, as the sky was getting lighter, she placed the last feather on the steps of the last house. Just as the sun rose, she returned to the wise woman. She was exhausted but relieved that her efforts would now be rewarded. “My pillows are empty. I placed a feather on the doorstep of each home in the village,” the young woman told the wise woman.

“Now,” said the wise woman, “Go back and refill your pillows. Then everything will be as it was before.” The younger woman was stunned. “You know that is impossible! The wind blew away each feather as fast as I placed them on the doorsteps! You did not say I had to get them back! If this is the second requirement, then things will never be the same.”

“That is true,” said the wise woman. “Never forget. Each of your words is like a feather in the wind. Once spoken, no amount of effort, regardless of how heartfelt and sincere this effort is, can ever return them to your mouth. Choose your words well and guard them most of all in the presence of those you love.”

1. You will receive a body.

You may like it or hate it, but it will be yours for the entire period of this time around.

2. You will learn lessons.

You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called ‘Life’. Each day in this school you will have the opportunity to learn lessons. You may like the lessons or think them irrelevant and stupid.

3. There are no mistakes, only lessons.

Growth is a process of trial and error: experimentation. The ‘failed’ experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiment that ultimately ‘works’.

4. A lesson is repeated until learned.

A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can then then go on to the next lesson.

5. Learning lessons does not end.

There is no part of life that does not contain its lessons. If you are alive, there are lessons to be learned.

6. ‘There’ is no better than ‘here’.

When your ‘there’ has become a ‘here,’ you will simply obtain another ‘there’ that will again look better than ‘here’.

7. Others are merely mirrors of you.

You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects something you love or hate about yourself.

8. What you make of your life is up to you.

You have all the tools and resources you need.  What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.

9. Your answers lie inside you.

The answers to Life’s questions lie inside you. All you need to do is look, listen and trust.

10. You will forget all this.

(Acknowledgements to Chérie Carter-Scott)

What lessons may you have been ignoring and why?

One day a teacher asked her students to list the names of the other students in the room on two sheets of paper, leaving a space between each name.

Then she told them to think of the nicest thing that they could say about each of their classmates and write it down. It took the remainder of the class period to finish their assignment and as the students left the room, each one handed in the papers.

That Saturday, the teacher wrote down the name of each student on a separate piece of paper and listed what everyone else had said about that individual. On Monday, she gave each student his or her list. Before long, the entire class was smiling.

No one ever mentioned those papers in class again. The teacher never knew if the students discussed them after class or with their parents. But, it didn’t matter. The exercise had accomplished its purpose. The students were happy with themselves and one another. That group of students moved on the next year.

Several years later, Mark one of the students was killed in Vietnam and the teacher attended his funeral. The church was packed with his friends. One by one those who loved him took a last walk by the coffin. The teacher was the last to bless the coffin.

As she stood there, one of the soldiers who had acted as a pall bearer came up to her. “Were you Mark’s maths teacher?” he asked. She nodded. Then he said, “Mark talked about you a lot.”

After the funeral, Mark’s mother and father approached the teacher. “We want to show you something,” his father said, taking a wallet out of his pocket. “They found this on Mark when he was killed. We thought you might recognise it.”

He opened his wallet and carefully removed two worn pieces of notebook paper that had obviously been taped, folded and refolded many times. The teacher knew without even looking that the papers were the ones on which she had listed all the good things each of Mark’s classmates had said about him.

“Thank you so much for doing that,” Mark’s mother said. “As you can see, Mark treasured it.” All of Mark’s former classmates started to gather around. Charlie, one of the classmates, smiled rather sheepishly and said, “I still have my list. It’s in the top draw of my desk at home.”

One by one, Mark’s former classmates admitted that they too had kept their lists. Then Vicky, another classmate, reached into her handbag, took out her wallet and showed her worn and tattered list to the group. “I carry this with me at all times,” Vicky said and then she continued, “I think we all saved our lists.”

That’s when the teacher finally sat down and cried. She cried for the remarkable effect that her simple exercise, so long ago, had on each student.

Never doubt that you make a difference in the world, or the power of kind words to touch a soul. Our words can be bullets or seeds. Let’s make them seeds. You may not always see the seeds of your kindness grow, but never doubt that they do.

What kind words can you write down about yourself to make your own list and where will you keep it so that you can look at it often?

And finally, never miss an opportunity to tell the people that you love and care for that they are special and important to you and how you feel about them.

Some of you may have heard this story before; it’s a golden oldie that still holds true
today. Especially as we come to terms with a world forever changed by the current
pandemic, where it is all too easy to feel insignificant…

A man was walking down a deserted Mexican beach at sunset. As he walked along, he
began to see another man in the distance. As he grew nearer, he noticed that the
other man kept leaning down, picking something up and throwing it out into the
water. Time and again he kept hurling things out into the ocean.

As the first man approached even closer, he noticed that the man was picking up
starfish that had been washed up on the beach and, one at a time, he was throwing
them back into the water. He was puzzled. He approached the other man and greeted
him saying, “I was wondering what you are doing?”

“I’m throwing these starfish back into the ocean. You see, it’s low tide right now and
all these starfish have been washed up onto the shore. If I don’t throw them back into
the sea, they’ll die up here from lack of oxygen.”

“I understand,” the first man replied, “but there must be thousands of starfish on this
beach. You can’t possibly get to all of them. There are simply too many. And don’t you
realise this is probably happening on hundreds of beaches all up and down this coast.
Can’t you see that you can’t possibly make a difference?”

The other man smiled, bent down and picked up yet another starfish, and as he threw
it back into the sea, he replied, “Made a difference to that one!”

Never doubt that you make a difference and be known as the one who tried🦋

The gifted storyteller Jack Canfield tells this story about Monty Roberts, the world-famous horse trainer who has shown the world that it is possible to train a horse without ever using force or hitting the horse. His is a truly remarkable story in itself.

This is my version of Jack and Monty’s story…

My friend Monty Roberts, lets me use his house, which is situated on a magnificent horse ranch, to run fund-raising events for youth at risk. Monty passionately believes in the power of our dreams, as well as the importance of following them.

He is also deeply committed to sharing this message of hope to youth who are at risk and widely shares his own life story to help him do so.

He tells the story of a young man who grew up as the son of a drifter who was constantly moving from place to place looking for work as a horse trainer. Because of this vagabond lifestyle, this young man’s high school career was interrupted many times and he struggled with his schooling.

And then one day, as a senior in high school, the unexpected happened. The class teacher told Monty’s class to write an essay about what they wanted to be and do when they grew up.

Monty’s imagination was ignited, and he was filled with excitement about his future. He wrote a 7-page essay that night, describing his goal of one day owning a horse ranch. He wrote about his dream in great detail and even included a diagram a 200-hundred acre ranch.

His diagram showed the location of all the buildings, the stables and the training track for the horses. And then he drew a detailed floor plan for a        4 000 square-foot house that would one day sit on this dream ranch.

He put his heart and soul into the project and eagerly handed his essay to the class teacher the next morning. Two days later the young man received his essay back. On the front page of his essay, in big red letters, was an F, with the words, “See me after class.”

The young man with the dream went to see his class teacher as instructed. He asked the teacher why he had received an F for his essay. The teacher responded by telling Monty that his dream was not realistic for a young man like him. He listed all the barriers that stood in Monty’s way to convince Monty that there was no way in which Monty could ever hope to achieve his goals.

The teacher then told Monty that if he re-wrote his essay with a more realistic goal, they would reconsider his grade for the project. That night, Monty went home and thought long and hard about what he had been asked to do.

The young man returned to see the teacher after a few days and submitted the same essay without having made any changes to it. He told the teacher, “You can keep the F and I’ll keep my dream.”

Monty then explains to the youth at risk that he works with that they are, in fact, sitting in Monty’s 4 000 square-foot house on his 200-acre horse ranch. And then he shows them the framed essay which had pride of place over the fire place.

He also explains that the best part of his story is that a few years ago that same teacher brought 30 children to camp on his farm. When the teacher was about to leave with their group, they turned to Monty and said, “Look Monty, I can tell you this now. when I was your teacher, I was something of a dream stealer. During those years I stole a lot of children’s dreams. Fortunately, you had enough gumption not to give up on yours.”

Monty then ends his story by telling the assembled youths not to let anyone steal their dreams and to be careful to always follow their hearts.

Reflection

• What dreams do you have today?
• What did you do yesterday to work towards making your dreams come true?
• What dreams have you given-up on in your own life?

What might have been different for you if you hadn’t given up?

I have never forgotten this story. I think perhaps it has something to do with the sadness of regret because you spent too long looking for your dream in the wrong places. Only to find out, far too late, that your dream was inside you all the time. Today, I’d like to share this story…

According to the anonymous story, these words were inscribed on the tomb of one of the Bishops buried in the Crypts of Westminster Abbey…

“When I was young and free and my imagination had no limits, I dreamed of changing the world. As I grew older and wiser, I discovered the world would not change, so I shortened my sights somewhat and decided to change only my country.

But it, too, seemed immovable.

As I grew into my twilight years, in one last desperate attempt, I settled for changing only my family, those closest to me, but alas, they would have none of it.

And now as I lie on my death bed, I suddenly realise: if I had only changed myself first, then by example I would have changed my family.

From their inspiration and encouragement, I would then have been able to better my country and, who knows, I may have even changed the world.”

Reflection

• How are you changing your world through your example?
• What are you willing to commit to doing differently to live your dream? To make a positive contribution to your world?

(Acknowledgements to Jack Canfield and Mark Victor Hansen)

So here we are, working from home during the Coronavirus lockdown. No more daily commuting in grid-locked traffic, no more tedious late-afternoon meetings in the office. We have been force-marched into an unfamiliar virtual world.

One of our lead trainers at Change Dynamics is new to Zoom videoconferencing. Her performance anxiety peaked just before her very first ‘virtual’ training session, right at the beginning of lockdown. When she started introducing her lecture she said, afterwards, that she was “worried her voice was sounding shaky”. After a few minutes of the call, one of the delegates piped up “you’re on mute”!

Laughter erupted. The ice had broken. Everyone in the on-line session relaxed and the interaction was great, but something was still missing.

Co-location

Scrum is an Agile process framework that has been used to manage work on complex products since the early 1990s. The essence of Scrum is a small team of people which is highly flexible and adaptive.

Co-locating members of a Scrum team seems like a no-brainer.

Many players in the Agile field, such as Alistair Cockburn, one of the signatories to the Agile Manifesto, make a big deal of co-location and “Osmotic Communication”.

Osmotic Communication refers to the free flow of information into people’s “background hearing”. They can pick up relevant information though “osmosis”. Team members seated in the same room often ask one another questions. Other Team members consciously or sub-consciously “tune in” on the discussion and gain new knowledge which they can apply to their own work.

Ok, so we are more effective as a team if we are co-located, preferably in the same room. But must distributing a Team inevitably lead to a negative impact on Team performance?

What are we missing?

Interestingly, Jeff Sutherland and Ken Schwaber, the co-authors of The Scrum Guide™, make little mention of co-location in the guide.

They do talk about respect; “Scrum Team members respect each other to be capable, independent people”.

They also talk about trust:  “When the values of commitment, courage, focus, openness and respect are embodied and lived by the Scrum Team, the Scrum pillars of transparency, inspection, and adaptation come to life and build trust for everyone”.

Since lockdown started, we are forced to work as remote teams. Co-location is no longer an option. Our fellow team members may as well be in different towns, or even in different countries.  We have no choice but to use on-line communication technologies such as Zoom, Teams, Hangouts and others. Is it really so bad? In Cockburn’s communication effectiveness graph, Video Conversation is pretty ‘hot’!

After her first training session on Zoom, our lead trainer organised a follow-up virtual coaching session with the same delegates. She wanted to ‘check in’ with them. Her first question to the group was ‘So how are we all doing in these stressful times?”.

One of the younger members responded. “I don’t miss the traffic and the noise”.

“And?” the trainer asked.

“I really miss you guys”.

Capable Independent People.

High-performing teams thrive where there is mutual respect. They trust their Scrum Master as a servant leader to keep them focused on the principles and values of Scrum. They trust their Product Owner to keep focus on value-driven goals. They trust each other’s knowledge and skills.

The foundations of trust are in relationships; “we trust our friends” and in consistency “when you say you will do something you always do it”.

Distributed Teams are naturally going to find it harder to build and maintain trust and respect when they each spend long hours alone. This is where leadership becomes so important.

Our trainer wasn’t just ‘checking-in’ with the Team. She was building trust, respect and cohesion. She was exercising servant-leadership.

Maybe it is time to rethink the traditional wisdom of co-location and build on these practices as Scrum Masters or Managers of high-performing teams.

Let’s keep ‘checking in’ with our teams and find new ways to create ‘Osmotic Communication’. More on Managing Distributed Teams in my next blog . . .

Your Scrum Master and Agile Coach

Many, many centuries ago in Ancient Greece, when gods were believed to freely roam the earth and the sky, they were led by a mighty king called Zeus. He reigned over the lesser gods, along with his wife Hera, obviously known as the queen of the gods.

One day, as the king and queen of the gods sat watching the difficulties faced by humankind from their comfortable palace in the sky, Hera became somewhat unhappy and upset by the sight of a poor man and his wife. They looked like beggars.

This man and his wife were burdened down by the weight of all their troubles, their own hunger and that of their families, as well as their own children whom they could no longer afford to feed. They had failed. Their children were starving, and it was clear that both the man and his wife felt shame and defeat.

As she watched them struggle, Hera felt great pity, as a parent herself, and quickly turned to Zeus, begging him to show compassion by helping the poor couple. She argued passionately that they needed help; strengthening her argument by drawing Zeus’ attention to the fact that even their sandals were old and were now tied together with seaweed.

Now, Zeus loved his wife Hera greatly and usually gave her whatever she asked for without hesitation. However, this time, when Hera asked him to help the man and his wife, he explained that as much as he wanted to give her the desire of her heart by helping them, they were not yet ready.

Hera was bitterly disappointed! How could Zeus be so unfeeling? She scolded him loudly, trying to shame Zeus into taking action by reminding him that it would be the easiest thing in the world for him to put a sack of gold in the couple’s path. This would mean that they would never have to worry again.

When Zeus heard this, he replied, “Oh, that’s easy! I can give you that small gift immediately.”  Without warning, there was a loud bolt of thunder, and bright lightening zig-zagged across the sky.

A sack of the purest gold suddenly appeared in front of the man and his wife. Who both carefully lifted their feet and stepped over the sack of gold; careful not to do anything that could damage their sandals any further.

What would happen in your life today if you replaced fear of the unknown with curiosity about what is possible? How have you sabotaged yourself by perhaps secretly believing that you don’t deserve any better? By setting mental ceilings on what you think you are capable of, without ever having even tested your assumptions? What gifts, those personal strengths such as perseverance, etc., might you be overlooking in walking your path? And most importantly, how can you make sure that you focus on what’s important so that you don’t waste your precious resource of time and therefore waste your life?

I would like to acknowledge Nick Owen for the first version of this story which I came across in his wonderfully helpful book ‘The Magic of Metaphor’ published in 2001.

Back in 1957, a group of monks from a monastery in Bangkok, Thailand had to relocate a ten-and-a half-foot tall clay Buddha from their temple to a new location.

The reason? The monastery was to be relocated to make room for the development of a highway through Bangkok. This highway would run right through the existing location of the monastery.

The monks called in a crane to help them with this delicate operation. However, when the crane began to lift the giant statue, the weight of it was so tremendous that the statue began to crack. What’s more, rain began to fall.

The head monk, who was understandably anxious about possible damage to the sacred clay Buddha, decided to lower the statue back to the ground and cover it with a large canvas tarpaulin to protect it from the rain. They could try again the next day.

Later that evening, unable to sleep because of his anxiety over the clay Buddha, the head monk went to check on the Buddha. He shone his flashlight under the tarpaulin to check if the Buddha was staying dry.

As the light reached the crack made earlier when trying to lift the clay Buddha, the head monk noticed a small gleam shining back at him and thought it somewhat strange. He was immediately curious.

As he took a closer look at this gleam of light, he wondered if there might be something underneath the clay. So, he went to fetch a chisel and hammer from the monastery and began to carefully chip away at the clay.

As he knocked off pieces of the outer clay, the little gleam grew brighter and bigger. Many hours of work went by before the head monk stood face to face with the unexpected. An extraordinary solid gold Buddha stood in all its glory before the head monk.

History tells us that many hundreds of years before the head monk’s discovery, the Burmese army was about to invade Siam (now Thailand). The Siamese monks, realising that their country would soon be attacked, were fearful that the Burmese would destroy the monastery. They were also fearful that their treasured golden Buddha would be looted.

The question was: where could they hide such a huge statue? It was too heavy for them to move. The answer was obvious; hide it in plain sight. So, they covered their precious golden Buddha with clay to hide it from the invaders.

Unfortunately, the monks’ fears were well-founded. The Burmese slaughtered all the Siamese monks and the well-kept secret of the golden Buddha died with them. It remained hidden until that fateful day in 1957.

We are all like that golden Buddha. WE have covered our true, golden essence with a layer of clay; a layer of hardness created out of fear and pain. A layer of determined invulnerability.

We have forgotten who we truly are in our desire to protect ourselves and keep ourselves safe from others and the disappointments of life.

And much like the head monk in this story, our job now is to use our hammer and chisel to discover and release our true character once again. To let our own light shine.

What would happen in your life today if you liberated the greatness which lies within you, within each of us, by finally BELIEVING that you are whole, competent and resourceful? And by seeing others in the same way?

I would like to acknowledge Jack Canfield for the original version of this story which he and Mark Victor Hansen included in their wonderful book ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul #1’ published in 1993.