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01.11

By Terrance Malkinson

We learn values from our parents, family, peers and the many others with whom we interact.  Movies are an important component of our cultural heritage and are one way that we can teach ourselves and influence others about values. They provide an opportunity to learn values through the characters and story told; offering new perspectives and experiences that you may not otherwise have and providing an opening for communication where communication might otherwise be difficult. Movies are an excellent way to initiate conversations about the way that our values affect our choices and their consequences.

Following is a selection of a few movies follows in which, the story and characters teach values that will be beneficial to your personal and professional life. This will contribute to a successful journey through life and leaving a positive legacy. This is not intended to be a comprehensive list but simply a starting point for you to choose from the many movies in our cultural heritage that teach values.

A Man for All Seasons

A Man for all Seasons is a 1966 film that tells the true story of Sir Thomas More (1478-1535), a man of principle who was Lord Chancellor to King Henry VIII. More is the ultimate man of conscience, remaining true to his principles and faith under all circumstances and at all times despite every possible form of persuasion and coercion. In the end he is sentenced to death, accepting it with grace and his faith because he believed in himself and the correctness of his choices which he knew would make the world better.

Dead Poets Society

Dead Poets Society is a 1989 American film that tells the story of an English teacher, John Keating, who through his unorthodox teaching of poetry and literature inspires his students to change their lives of conformity. He focuses on the idea of carpe diem (seize the day). Students learn important lessons in independent thinking and self-expression. Keating encourages his students to "be wise, not stupid" about protesting against the system. Having incurred the headmaster's wrath Keating loses his job but leaves happily with tears in his eyes when his students stand and publically display their respect for what they have learned from his teachings.

The Bucket List

The Bucket List is a 2007 film about a blue-collar mechanic and billionaire hospital magnate who meet for the first time in the hospital after both have been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer. While in hospital the mechanic writes a "bucket list” or things he wants to do before he dies. Reluctantly sharing this information with his hospital room-mate they decide to pursue their “bucket list” dreams.  During their adventures they confide about their innermost difficulties. In the end they resolve these issues, learn about themselves, and comple all of the activities scribed on their “bucket list” before their death.

Field of Dreams

Field of Dreams is a 1989 film where a farmer living in rural Iowa hears a voice, "If you build it, he will come.” Believing he is being asked to build a baseball field and fearing he is in danger of "turning into" his father whom he resented for his lack of spontaneity, he creates the field. One of the baseball players says "If you build it, he will come", and glances toward a player near home plate. The farmer recognizes this person as his father when he was a young man. The farmer gains a new and important understanding of his relationship with his father.

Invictus

Invictus is a 2009 biographical drama film based on the John Carlin book Playing the Enemy: Nelson Mandela and the Game That Changed a Nation about the events in South Africa before and during the 1995 Rugby World Cup, hosted in that country following the dismantling of apartheid. The title Invictus may be translated from the Latin as undefeated or unconquered, and is the title of a poem by English poet William Ernest Henley. At the age of 12, Henley fell victim to tuberculosis of the bone resulting in amputtion of a leg. Despite this disability, he led an active life until his death at the age of 53.In 1875, he wrote the "Invictus" poem from a hospital bed; the last two often quoted lines of which are:

I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Other Bytes

Here are some of the things going on in and around the community:

• Future consciousness is the capacity to have thoughts, feelings, and goals about the future. Tom Lombardo is the director of the Center for Future Consciousness [www.centerforfutureconsciousness.com] and the author of the book The Evolution of Future Consciousness, as well as others that explore heightening your awareness and understanding of trends, possibilities, challenges, and opportunities for the future.  The author believes that through education and self-development practices it is possible to develop our “future consciousness.”  In his article “Wisdom Facing Forward: What It Means to Have Heightened Future Consciousness”  [The Futurist, 44(5):34-42, September-October 2010,  www.wfs.org], Lombardo discusses his belief that “wisdom is the ideal toward which we should aspire as we develop our awareness and understanding of the future.”  Thinking futuristically is one pathway toward personal and career success.

• FORTUNE magazine’s businessperson of the year is profiled by Michael Copeland in “Reed Hastings: Leader of the Pack. [Fortune, 162(9): 121-130, 6 December 2010, www.fortune.com ]. Netflix [www.netflix.com], the company he founded in 1997, has grown domestically and internationally through a hard-driving and risk-taking culture.  Headquartered in Los Gatos, California, Netflix sales reached $1.6B with a profit of $31M in 2009. With more than 16 million members in the United States and Canada Netflix has revolutionized the way people rent movies. As described in the article, many thought that the concept would not be successful. This success story exemplifies that by thinking futuristically and moving ahead courageously in front of the technology curve an entrepreneur can change an industry.

• As discussed in an earlier Today’s Engineer article (Malkinson and McClure, www.todaysengineer.org/2006/Mar/sarbanes-oxley.asp), the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 (SOX) was the legislative response by Congress to correct failures of corporate governance such as occurred with Enron and WorldCom.  However in spite of compliance by most institutions failures continue to occur.  The recent financial crisis, where major financial institutions were SOX compliant, is one example of this.  Robert Pozen provides his opinion that the SOX reforms were ineffective because “they merely added a new layer of legal obligations for governance without improving the quality of the people serving on the boards or changing their behavior dynamics.” [“The Case for Professional Boards,” Harvard Business Review, 88(12):50-58, December 2010, www.hbr.org].

• The World Future Society has launched a unique program that will provide young people (15-25 years) with the opportunity to learn to think futuristically. This will be of benefit to them when making decisions on their career and helping them to make a real difference on the job by learning foresight as a life skill providing tools for thinking realistically, creatively, and hopefully about the future.  Edward Cornish describes this program in “Foresight for the Worlds Youth” [The Futurist, 44(5):44-46, September-October 2010].

• Geoff Gloeckler provides an assessment of the best business schools nationally and internationally [Bloomberg Businessweek, #4204, pp.77-80, 15 November 2010, www.businessweek.com]. Leading the national ranking was Chicago (Booth), followed by Harvard and Pennsylvania (Wharton). Internationally, Insead led the rankings, followed by Queens and IE Business School. The twelve criteria used for the ranking of each educational institution are provided, including, among others, tuition fees, pre- and post- MBA salary and job offers.

• Leonard Berry, Ann Mirabito and William Baun discuss how employee wellness programs provide a substantial return on investment sometimes as high as six to one in “What’s the Hard Return on Employee Wellness Programs” [Harvard Business Review, 88(12):104-112, December 2010].  Some employers consider employee wellness programs to be simply an optional additional employee benefit.  The authors provide six essential pillars for the successful implementation and management of a wellness program resulting from their analysis of ten organizations that have financially sound workplace wellness programs.  An interesting inset provides key employee and organizational metrics for a wellness dashboard.

Terrance Malkinson is a communications specialist, business analyst and futurist. He is Vice-Chair of the IEEE-USA Communications Committee, an international correspondent for IEEE-USA Today's Engineer , editor-in-chief of IEEE-USA Today's Engineer Digest, associate editor for IEEE Canadian Review, and a member of the editorial advisory board of IEEE The Institute.  He was an elected Senator of the University of Calgary and an elected Governor of the IEEE Engineering Management Society as well as an elected Administrative Committee member of the IEEE Professional Communication Society. He has been the editor of several IEEE conference proceedings, and past editor of IEEE Engineering Management. He is the author of more than 400 publications, and is an accomplished triathlete. His career path includes being an accomplished technical supervisor and medical researcher at the University of Calgary a business proposal manager for the General Electric Company, an associate for Sears Canada Inc. and research administrator with the School of Health and Public Safety/Applied Research and Innovation Services at SAIT Polytechnic in Calgary Canada.

The author is grateful to the professional support of the Haskayne School of Business Library at the University of Calgary. He can be reached at todaysengineer@ieee.org.