“He may very well be the brightest baseball mind I’ve had. Obviously, he’s an artist on the mound. But he’s an Einstein off the mound.” – New York Yankees general manager Brian Cashman on his star pitcher Gerrit Cole
The Value of Thinking
In his book The Magic of Believing, Claude M. Bristol said, “Thought is the original source of all wealth, all success, all material gain, all great discoveries and inventions, and all achievement.” Harvey Firestone said, “What is important is ideas. If you have ideas, you have the main asset you need, and there isn’t any limit to what you can do with your business and your life.”
John Maxwell in his book Today Matters: 12 Daily Practices To Guarantee Tomorrow’s Success wrote, “When a person is a good thinker and has lots of ideas, he or she becomes very valuable.”
A Valuable Leader
In the 2011 Major League Baseball amateur draft, the Pittsburgh Pirates selected pitcher Gerrit Cole with the first overall pick. Since that time, Cole has amassed 138 wins versus 73 losses with a lifetime ERA of 3.21. In 2019, he signed a nine-year, $324 million contract with the New York Yankees, the largest guaranteed contract in baseball history.
Cole has since proven to be a good investment. Currently, he has an 8-2 record with a 2.79 ERA.
But what makes Cole such a valuable commodity is not just his skills, win-loss record, or ERA. It is how he approaches the game. As Bristol, Firestone, and Maxwell would attest, what makes Cole invaluable is his uncommon approach to the game and thinking skills.
13 Characteristics Of Leaders With Great Thinking Skills
In a July 7 article in The Athletic, writer Ken Rosenthal profiled the Yankees ace. From his article I gleaned 13 Thinking Skills Leaders Must Possess To Become Invaluable To Their Organizations:
Great Thinkers Were Taught How To Think
Thinking is rarely a skill which develops organically. It needs to be modeled and taught by others. Cole did not begin as an “Einstein off the mound.” Early in his Pirates career, Cole was taught how to properly watch games by veteran pitchers Charlie Morton, A.J. Burnett, and Ryan Vogelsong.
Where Cole deserves special credit here is his humility. Being willing to listen to his elders and taking the position of a continual learner set him on a trajectory to success.
Great Thinkers Then Teach Others How To Think
When pitcher Jameson Taillon was a rookie with the Pirates, a now-successful Cole began passing on the traits he had learned as a young player. This was an act of generosity on Cole’s part as he could have easily utilized his marginal time in the training or weight rooms. But instead, he used it to engage others and teach younger players how to watch the game.
Great Thinkers Seek Out Other Great Thinkers
After being traded to the Houston Astros in 2018, Cole began consistently interacting with manager A.J. Hinch. This was counter-intuitive to how many players think. Birds of a feather flock together. Players normally hang out with other players. While Cole has a great relationship with his teammates, he also navigated to the coaches.
Hinch said, “I first noticed it when he would hang a little bit closer to the coaching side of the dugout. Players have an uncanny consistency in creating some distance from the coaches’ area. Gerrit didn’t. He would sit down on the chairs with us. He would stand behind us. First, he was really quiet. Then he started asking some in-game strategy stuff. And it grew from there.”
Great Thinkers Ask Great Questions
Wisdom is in great questions, not great answers. During his time with Hinch, Cole’s questions were not like those asked by a player. They were more layered and in-depth, much like a coach instead. Hinch noted, “He’d ask why. He’d ask what I was thinking. Not as criticism. It was more just curiosity.”
Great Thinkers Often Have The Unique Skill Of Pattern Recognition
Because they see the world through a different lens, leaders with great thinking skills notice trends. Hinch added, “In between innings, he would be really good with ideas. He has a great memory. It may be the second or third time through and he knows a certain hitter has not seen a changeup, or the top-down breaking ball.”
Some trends are easily recognized like how a player is feeling or performing on a particular day. But other observations can be much more complex. Yankees pitching coach Matt Blake says Cole has an innate ability to know when players are tipping their pitches. Blake said, “When weird swings show up, he’s looking at what’s going on with the delivery, making sure we’ve got everything buttoned up. Sometimes there is a lot going on and we’re not totally locked in on fastball vs. slider, fastball vs. changeup. He’s really good at diagnosing deliveries in general.”
Great Thinkers Are Humble Enough To Learn From Anyone
Many pitchers would isolate their learning to come from only fellow pitchers, pitching coaches, and their manager. Not Cole. Cole’s curiosity compels him to also learn from hitting coaches and position players on the team. Upon being traded to the Yankees, he asked hitting coach Brad Wilkerson, “Would you get hits off me?” It was an honest question in hopes of locating blindspots in his game.
Former teammate Jameson Tailon observed, “The biggest thing for me is that he doesn’t only talk to pitchers. He talks to hitters probably the same amount, or more.”
There is a lesson here for all leaders. Regardless of what profession you are in, you should follow Cole’s example and take the opportunity to learn from everyone in your organization, regardless of their area of discipline.
Great Thinkers Are Focused On Continual Improvement And Personal Growth
Great thinkers are always looking for marginal gains in hopes of getting better. Wilkerson added that Cole is “always trying to perfect his craft, acting almost as if no pitch he throws is good enough.”
Cole and other great thinkers often then pass their learnings on to others in hopes of making them better as well, which leads to my next point…
Great Thinkers Freely Share Their Thoughts (Sometimes To The Extreme)
Oftentimes, great thinkers’s have so many great ideas they simply can’t help but to continually share them with others. This can be viewed as helpful, amusing, or annoying depending on the people involved.
Taillon continued, “It’s with such good intentions and from a place of wanting to help, I don’t think anyone gets frustrated. I’m sure some people let it go in one ear and out the other. But for me at least, you have a potential Hall of Famer trying to help you out in-game, you’re going to frickin’ listen. Every time.”
Great Thinkers Add Great Value To Your Organization
Taillon noted Cole is continually looking to help improve the team any way he can. He recounted a conversation between the two in 2021. Between innings during a game with the Miami Marlins, Cole told him, “Your glove arm is lower tonight, which I think is affecting your fastball.”
Great Thinkers Give Great Advice
Cole did not stop with simply diagnosing Taillon’s faulty mechanics, he took the extra step and gave him suggestions on how to improve. Cole told him to “raise his glove arm and stay strong with it.” The advice worked as Taillon began striking out hitters again the following inning.
Today, Cole often uses an iPad to help Yankee players like Aaron Judge and others with their swings.
For even more on how Judge gets better as a player, read 5 Things Top Performers Talk Privately About.
Great Thinkers Are Endlessly Curious
Cole watches approximately 130 games per year in which he has no pitching responsibilities. Rather than viewing those games as down time or mentally taking the day off, Cole remains fully-engaged. He said, “You’re sitting there, watching 130 games a year. Maybe I will learn something that helps me out. Or maybe I learn something I can give to something else. The best players I’ve been around are always curious, always inquisitive, always trying to get better.”
Great Thinkers Take Deep Ownership Of Their Organization’s Success
Yankees manager Aaron Boone said of Cole, “What I love most about him is his investment in everything and everybody, his sense of responsibility in being an ace, representing this organization. He takes it very seriously. He cares a lot. He cares 365 days a year.”
Great Thinkers Have Great Value In Any Organization
I want to end this article with the quote I used at the beginning. Yankees general manager Brian Cashman said of Cole, “He may very well be the brightest baseball mind I’ve had. Obviously, he’s an artist on the mound. But he’s an Einstein off the mound.”
Conclusion
If you want to get better as an organization, teach people how to properly think. And when you hire people, make sure thinking skills is one of the qualities they possess. It is the one of the most important things you can do to ensure sustainable success in your organization.
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