Sunday, September 25, 2005

Busy busy busy

It's hard to keep up with a blog. Last weekend, my wife's sister and brother-in-law came down from New Jersey for a weekend visit. The weekend before that, my son and I went whitewater rafting on the French Broad River and spent the rest of the weekend at Camp Rockmont for the Trail Blazer Fall Outing.

My Duke University Continuing Studies class was canceled due to insufficient enrollment. That recovers several Thursday evenings over the coming weeks.

Too fast? Too hot? Too wimpy?

Went on a long run with Christopher this morning - out and back at the Durham American Tobacco Trail, adding the Riddle Road spur. Our goal was 16 - stretch goal was to go longer if we felt up to it. He wanted to run at marathon pace for a few miles, so I demurred. We ran at pace on the spur on the way back, which is about mile 11.

Felt fine until that surge. Went slower after getting back on the main trail, but I felt fatigued. Then, I simply ran out of gas about .75 mile from the finish. Just simply ran out of gas. Heart rate was around 165 - it took a while to recover after I got back to the car and started sipping Gatorade.

This is annoyingly similar to what happened last weekend during my long run at Hanes with Christopher and Eric. Ran out of gas just before the finish.

What was common to both episodes?
  • It was warm (70s)
  • It was humid (90%)
  • I went faster than I would have preferred
  • I wore a hat that didn't breathe

I'm going to have to run the long runs slower - the goal is to finish! I've got 20 miles coming up next weekend - I need to finish it.

Need to eat more protein for recovery - so, for the first time since 1983, I'm going to add chicken to my diet until after the Richmond Marathon.

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Notes from Marcus Buckingham’s “The One Thing You Need to Know”

I really resonated to this book, especially now as I've broadened the scope of my authority at work. Here are my notes.

"To excel as a manager you must never forget that each of your direct reports is unique and that your chief responsibility is not to eradicate this uniqueness, but rather to arrange roles, responsibilities, and expectations so that you can capitalize upon it."

"To excel as a leader requires the opposite skill. You must become adept at calling upon those needs we all share. Our common needs include the need for security, for community, for authority, and for respect, but, for you, the leader, the most powerful universal need is our need for clarity. To transform our fear of the unknown into confidence in the future, you must discipline yourself to describe our joint future vividly and precisely."

"...sustained success depends on your ability to cut out of your working life those activities, or people, that pull you off your strengths' path. Your leader can show you clearly your better future. Your manager can draft you on to the team and cast you into the right role on the team. ...it will always be your responsibility to make the small but significant course corrections that allow you to sustain your highest and best contribution to this team, and to the better future it is charged with creating."

Average managers play checkers. Great managers play chess.

In the happiest couples, the husband rated the wife more positively than she did (herself) on every single quality (like open, warm, patient, etc.)

Find the most generous explanation for each other's behavior and believe it.

Not everyone can be a leader.

No matter what the situation, (the first response of a great manager) is to think about the individual concerned and how things can be arranged to help that individual experience success.

Great leaders rally people to a better future.

Discover what is unique about each person and capitalize on it.

The three great levers:
  • Strengths and weaknesses - the most influential qualities of a person are innate and that the essence of management is to deploy these...qualities as effectively as possible and so drive performance - overconfidence is not the problem - self-awareness drives performance - unrealistic self-assessment actually stimulates performance, but the person has to have a healthy respect for the challenge/difficulty of the task - the person should have a fully realistic assessment of the difficult of the challenge ahead, and, at the same time, an unrealistically optimistic belief in his ability to overcome it
  • Triggers - recognition, praise, "being on someone's case," etc.
  • Style of learning - analyzing, doing, watching

How do you identify the levers?
  • What was the best/worst day at work you've had in the last three months?
  • What were you doing?
  • Why did you enjoy it/did it grate on you so much?

What was the best relationships with a manager you've ever had? What made it work so well?

When in your career do you think you were learning the most? Why did you learn so much? What's the best way for you to learn?

Leading - discover what is universal and capitalize on it

Five fears, five needs, one focus
  • Fear of death/the need for security
  • Fear of the outsider/the need for community
  • Fear of the future/the need for clarity
  • Fear of chaos/the need for authority
  • Fear of insignificance/the need for respect]

To inspire confidence, be clear

Points of clarity:
  • Who do we serve?
  • What is our core strength?
  • What is our core score?
  • What actions can we take today?

Disciplines:
  • Take time to reflect
  • Select your heroes with great care
  • Practice

Discover what you don't like doing and stop doing it

Sustained success means making the greatest possible impact over the longest period of time

You will NOT learn the most in your areas of weakness

You will not feel most energized and challenged when focusing on your flaws

Discover your strengths and cultivate them

If you are bored, chances are you're deep interests are not engaged
If you are unfulfilled, chances are that your values are not engaged
If you are frustrated, chances are your strengths are not in play
If you are drained, chances are your job requires strength where you have weakness - find someone else to do the thing that drains you

Rockmont, putting in the miles

In a few minutes I'll pick up my son from school and we'll pack for a Trail Blazers outing to Camp Rockmont. We've been looking forward to it for weeks. It'll be the second time this month we'll head to the mountains. We'll go white water rafting on the French Broad tomorrow. The weather forecast is good.

Ran a little under 11 earlier this morning, but I had no zip in my legs, so my average pace was over 10". Then again, I did 8 Yassos with Christopher and Eric yesterday, so my legs probably haven't recovered from that speed workout. Won't be running this weekend. Still, my weekly total is 25, and last week's total was close to 40, so it works out.

Friday, September 02, 2005

17 tomorrow, and then we head west

I'll run 17 tomorrow, swapping next week's scheduled mileage for this week's scheduled recovery because I'll be at Camp Rockmont next weekend with my son. It will be my longest long run since I trained for Disney in 2003.

Christopher and I had a good Yasso workout yesterday. Times 7 @ around 3:40, an easy mile on either end. Christopher cannot join me tomorrow because he's traveling to Dallas to visit his ailing father. Eric may join me tomorrow - I e-mailed him what I planned to do but I haven't heard back from him.

After the run, the family willl pack up and head to Salisbury to celebrate my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. Then it's off to the mountains for a Labor Day vacation. This despite $3.50 gasoline and the governor advising against unnecessary travel. It's not as though this is an impulsive trip - we'd been planning it for weeks. The kids have never seen the mountains. Question is, how available will gas be in the western part of the state?

As I write this, I have live video streaming in from WWL TV in New Orleans. No matter how sore I feel after a long run, no matter how stressful it gets at work, no matter how hectic it can get at home, no matter how high gas prices get, it pales to the horror that those folks are living through. We suffered through Fran, but Fran was a picnic compared to Katrina.