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The Thinker

A very nice Sunday in Central NJ

This is one of my favorite things about living in New Jersey, the blue summer sky with puffy clouds. This view is from Hilltop Park in Princeton, New Jersey.

1st program for Strengths

Hurrah! Today was the delivery day for the first real program on Discovering Your Strengths at Columbia University. We will now see whether there can be a strengths revolution or mere squirmishes with the status quo.

The program is designed as a three part interactive affair that includes taking the strengthfinder 2.0 in a group setting. Today's session provided an introduction and laying the ground work for strengths terminology particularly within group settings and on projects.

So far, so good as people seemed engaged and receptive. More to come with session #2. I'll report further after Friday.

Baseball Update - Etherton's versus Steinert High School

One of the things I love most about baseball is the sense if drama approaching mysticism that is routinely involved in the game. How else can you explain the Yankees losing four straight to Boston on the Red Sox way to winning the World Series after so many years of the Curse of the Bambino?

This week there was a version of that striking a little closer to home. Both Etherton's, Dan and Steve, pitched against the respective Steinert team, Varsity and Freshmen within a 4 day period.

To keep things brief, both outings had highlights and lowlights. Both were lit up pretty badly by the strongest program in the region but both suffered from the defense giving away too many errors causing the pitchers to have to get too many outs.

The scores were 12-3 for the varsity loss and 8-7 for the freshman loss. Both Etherton' pitched well for 4 innings but had 1 bad inning giving up 8 runs and 7 runs respectively.

In addition, both show promise as pitchers who throw strikes but pitch at about 70 percent velocity because of thier mechanis. Room for improvement or potential for becoming truly special, time and work will tell.

It was great to be present for both games although I agonize over each pitch and every missed play or ball hit hard. I'ld like to be able to coach them to meet thier potential but I recognize its in thier hands and thier trust in thier coaches and willingness to assess what could improve and work to make it happen.

In all, two good days, almost...

Sent from my GoodLink synchronized handheld (www.good.com)

2 Hours Until First Pitch

There is a little over two hours until the first pitch of the baseball game between the Princeton High School varsity team (Little Tigers) and the Steinart High School varisty team (team mascot unknown) for the first game in the 2007 Mercer County Baseball Tournament. This game pits the #1 ranked team (SHS) against the #16 ranked team (PHS) in a game that has a story within a story within a story.

The match-up would have probably seen PHS Colin Sarafin take the mound against the highly touted SHS team. Unfortunately, due to an archaic and unfair high school eligibility ruling, Colin Sarafin was declared ineligible for the first 10 games of the spring 2007 season due to playing on the Peddie High School JV team when he was in the 8th grade. I know this rule is to prevent older players from playing multiple years of varisty but as is typical with these things, it was used against the PHS team by local teams who had suffered defeat from the Princeton ace, even though he is the same age as his peers.

The story within the story is that Dan Etherton (yes, my son) will be taking the mound to lead the Princeton defense. This will be his 3rd outing as a starter this year after pitching sporadically over the past several years. Dan has been focusing his efforts on being the best centerfielder and hitter that he can be but he has stepped up to the challenge in a remarkable way. Possibly no one would be able to fend off the strong Steinart offense, but Dan gets to take on that challenge in a little less than 2 hours.

I'll report the outcome by tomorrow. Wish the PHS Little Tigers well as they are the underdogs we always want to cheer for. More later.

Update on Strengths

It's been several weeks since I blogged about the strengths revolution. As with anything, it seems that things get bogged down with all the hub-bub of the routines of the day. The past several weeks have been among the busiest with regard to large servings of crisis-du-jour.

To update you on the strengths revolution in my own work area, the entire group took the Strengths-Finders 2.0 survey and we presented our results to one another. It was a good exercise in individual self-awareness and also with regard to functioning better as a team. We created a strengths grid indicating everyone's five dominant strengths and discussed how people cluster as well as how people exhibit individual specialities.

Of the 34 personality themes, our work group covered 26. Not a bad range for the group. I will post the grid when I can access the chart. It is a good representation for the way multiple people working in a team may team or partner for specific strengths that may be missing from one's own reportorie. If anyone is interested in the grid as a template for your own team strengths evaluaiton, it is available for a nominal contribution to HomeFieldAdvantage.

The next steps we are undertaking are to continue to bring our individual and group strengths more into play in our work. We are viewing the Marcus Buckingham series, "Trombone Player Wanted." The giist of this is to review what activities "make us strong" and to determine how to bring those forward in our daily work.

Well, more to come. Let me know if there are any questions about the strengths approach. It would also be good to hear individual testimonials about how focusing on strengths have helped others. Feel free to add your stories. Stay strong!

Takes from the Train - About Dan's Triumph

It is Friday already and I meant to write the tale of Dan's pitching triumph sooner. At least I can provide the synopsis before the event becomes obscurred by the passage of time.

I took Monday as a vacation day to do several personal errands and also hoped to see Steve play baseball with his Freshman team. When I got to the school I learned that the game had been cancelled but the varsity team (Dan's) team would be playing in Hopewell. I have been chosing Steve's games over Dan's since he is the younger but with such a nice afternoon I drove to Hopewell Valley High School looking forward to watching Dan play centerfield.

When I got to the field and was positioned on the bleachers Coach Goldsmith came to tell the parents about a situation where the senior ace pitcher was declared ineligible based on playing on a high school team when he was in the 8th grade. Turns out the school players have 4 years eligibility from when they start playing.

This was devastating in it would reverse the two wins that the player had pitched but also he would not be allowed to play the remainder of this year. He was also slated to pitch the game that was being played that afternoon.

While taking that news in, I noticed Dan heading out to warm up as pitcher. He has been used only sparingly the past two years coming in as a relief pitcher and never going more than 2 or 3 innings. I was excited about being able to see what he could do.

The game began with the tall HV pitcher making quick work of the three Princeton batters. Dan came out to pitch the first inning and handled the HV batters quite effectively himself, getting the batters to hit easy ground ball outs to the infield.

In the next inning Dan led off and hit a long ball that flew over the centerfielder's head. It was a close play but Dan slid in to 2nd base for a double. He later came around to score and was followed by 2 more runs that inning. That would be the extent of the offense for Princeton that day.

The story of the day was how Dan kept coming back inning after inning pitching his game of ground balls and fly balls. The team behind him was making good plays and seemed to grow stronger and more confident with each made play. By the 7th inning taking a 3-1 lead into the final at bat by HV, Dan and the Princeton team seemed very sure of themselves.

The first pitch of the final inning was a ground ball back to the pitcher for an easy put-out. One pitch - one out. The next batter went down swinging at a change up for the only strikeout recorded for Dan. The next batter hit a grounder to the first baseman who flipped the ball to Dan covering 1st for the final out.

The celebration that ensued was a great moment for the Princeton team who had recieved such devestating news just hours before. The game was the best individual performance of Dan's life and I was so glad to have been there to witness it and to share his joy.

There certainly will be big things to happen to him in the future but this was a day that reminds me what baseball can be about. Good job, Dan! I love you and am so proud to be your dad.

Tales from the Train - Executive Coaching

I only have about 15 minutes for this blog post as we just stopped at the Newark Penn Station and soon will be heading to NYC. I wanted to write a little just to keep the blog pump primed.

I was writing in the journal we have asked to keep associated with a pilot team coaching program. A group of Directors from each of the units will meet once per week until the end of June to advance our capabilities with leadership in team settings.

The journaling is tied in to developing better self-awareness. Rather than do it by hand in a paper journal I would rather blog it, but the self-discovery may not be something I should reveal web-wide. I'll certainly bring over pertinent things I can share.

We also will be doing assessment tools like Myers-Briggs, DISC, and hopefully Strengths-Finders. My own Strengths Revolution is proceeding at Columbia through exposure to leadership, and my work team. It is fun to self identify and observe in others when we are working to our strengths.

This morning I observed myself being a Maximizer. Yesterday I pointed out a coworker being Competitive, and another is often using her Restorative abilities. I need to log various people's strengths so I can better see them in action. For one person, the people strengths of Individualization, Relator, and Woo are a very powerful set (you know who you are).

Well, that's all I have time for as we dive under the Hudson. All the best for you on this rainy Thursday. Keep working to your strengths every day.

Easter egg insects

Tales from the Train - What's He Reading Now

I know that question is burning on everyone's brain to the exclusion of any other thing you want or need to know. Not what is the meaning of life or what will happen tomorrow. Only what could he possibly be reading now on his daily traverse to and from central NJ to NTC.

I would like to tell you, I really would, and of course You shall in my own good time. Afterall, we are not even to New Brunswick yet so I have plenty of time to delay the answer to that question.

It's been a full year of reading all kinds of things, from business and leadership books to sci fi to a book about a rampaging polar bear god to a biography of LDV to long-winded novels by Ayn Rand. Have I averaged a book a week? Well, pretty near, pretty near.

New Brunswick is here and then comes Jersey Ave followed by Princeton Junction then my stop which is Hamilton. I have about 20 minutes left. I suppose I can draw out the agony for a while longer.

I once read a book by Pat Conroy whs character spoke about a list of the 100 must read books that was given to him by a literature professor. Seeing as how this story was fiction and the student and professor both fictional I was still slightly disappointed when the list was never provided. Not even the top 10, damn. Jersey Avenue station now.

I wonder if I could write Mr. Conroy for suggestions. Well, I work at one of the premier institutions of higher learning (for?) so I suppose I could chase down (or scare up) literary types willing to make suggestions. But the top 100 must reads. That has a certain pull to it. That has power.

Anyhow, I am sure the suspense is killing you by now or at least causing you impatient types to skip over these hard-types words to get to the answer. OK, here it is. The Stones of Summer by Dow Mossman is my read du jour.

I can tell this book is going to be interesting because while I like the writing the prose style is quite beguiling. What are the stones? They keep appearing in the text ina descriptive way but it is not clear. I feel that these works are literary IQ tests or methods for dwterming whether my brain is too left-brain-wired for anything truly artistic, anything truly abstract and symbolic. I hate doubting my own intelligence.

So what is it about? Read the damn book and don't take the short cuts. I know there is a documentary about it. I know I could Amazon or Google it. I choose the hard road.

Well, here is Princeton Junction so I need to prepare to detrain in a few minutes. I don't want to leave mid-thought. Have you read the Stones of Summer? If so, don't give anything away. I'll be back with an update. Enjoy the nightime.