Happy Opening Day!

To celebrate opening day of the 2011 baseball season — oh, baseball, where have you been?? — we snagged front row seats at the bar at South Street Brewery. With a flat-screen perched high above us, a game tied in the 9th, Cville-brewed beer, and the BIGGEST pretzel I have ever seen — how could life get any better?

(Well. If we were watching the O's or the Yanks, instead of the Cards and the Padres. But let's not get too demanding. I'm going to save my wishes for the O's breaking .500 this year.)

So, about that pretzel ...



Yes. It is bigger than the plate. This doughy crown, warm and soft and sprinkled with perfect bits of salt, is propped up by three little condiment dishes of unidentified yellow stuff. I taste all three. I tell Ron: "This one is really really spicy mustard. This one is a tangy honey-mustard. And this one is just your generic bland ballpark mustard." I say this authoritatively.

He is busy with a goat-cheese-and-red-pepper appetizer wrapped in pastry. Umm-hmmm, he says.


(Yes, it looks like a fillet of salmon, but really, I swear, it's a puff pastry with squiggles of balsamic. See Exhibit 1 on menu.)

A few minutes later, Ron tries the pretzels. "Umm, sweetie," he says, in that dubious tone. "What did you say this last one was? Ballpark mustard?"

Uh, yeeeeaaaaah.

"It's cheese."

Oh. Right. As in, Cheeze-Whiz or something.

Well, everything else at South Street is fantastic. And the Padres won (5-3) in the 11th!

South Street Brewery
106 South Street
Charlottesville, Va.

SY Reading Seminars

Finally. The chaos of the first year at business school has given way to a more thoughtful second year. No classes illustrate the difference to me better than the reading seminars.

Instead of 30-page Harvard Business School cases, with 10 exhibits that include balance sheets, income statements, and cash flow statements, these classes feature books. Real, honest-to-goodness classics and best-sellers. Instead of 60+ students in stadium-style seating, these classes seat 10 to 15 around a long table. Instead of one big final, these classes require a weekly page of thoughts.

To the outside world, it's a book club with 1.5 credits attached. To this MBA student, it's heaven.

The book list for my current class:

"The Portable Machiavelli"
"Andrew Carngie" by David Nasaw
"The Smartest Guys in the Room: The Amazing Rise and Scandalous Fall of Enron" by Bethany McLean and Peter Elkind
"The Snowball: Warren Buffet and The Business of Life" by Alice Schroeder
"iCon Steve Jobs" by Jeffrey S. Young and William L. Simon
"My American Journey" by Colin Powell

I just finished "My American Journey," which I thoroughly enjoyed. The autobiography — the only one we've read — is sprinkled throughout with amusing anecdotes, little lessons, and leadership tips.

For example: Powell writes about his 40/70 rule for decision making. When faced with a decision, he begins collecting information, never making a decision if his chance of being correct is less than 40%. Once he feels as though he has at least a 40% chance of being correct, up to a 70%, he'll let his instincts, honed over time, guide his informed decision. His point is that a leader can't wait until he or she has all the data — that's too late. And a leader also shouldn't act too soon, without any data.

"The key is not to make quick decisions, but to make timely decision," he writes.

Another insight:

"The day soldiers stop bringing you their problems is the day you have stopped leading them. They have either lost confidence that you can help them or concluded that you do not care. Either case is a failure of leadership."

So true all across workplaces, far removed from the battlefield.

For more wisdom — not to mention amusing tales, from painting a rusty Chevy to the National Security Council "seal" — I'd highly recommend "My American Journey" by Colin Powell.