The Partnership was fortunate last week to host a leadership seminar with Bob Vanourek titled, “Unleash Your Latent Leader: How Anyone and Everyone Can Lead.” The seminar focused on how anyone can lead regardless of job title or organizational hierarchy and Bob shared numerous personal stories and business case studies from his book “Triple Crown Leadership.”
Attendees learned some immediate, practical steps they can take to lead, even without formal authority, including telling truth to power, gaining allies, becoming a talent magnet, speaking up as a voice of one, and more.
Bob’s presentation resonated with the audience and feedback to Bob’s presentation was very positive – especially with regard to the discussion around core values and the importance of having and following these values. As stated on triplecrownleadership.com, personal values are those things that are important to you. Think about what you believe and stand for, as well as your convictions about what is most important in life.
While many organizations have statements of their values, in our experience many people don’t take the time to identify their own values. Values matter because what you deem important guides your behavior. Many people run into trouble when they start living and leading in ways that conflict with their values.
Attendees shared their values and how these values helped guide them in their professional and personal lives; it was a powerful and meaningful discussion and encouraged people to really put some thought into what guides them.
With this preface and understanding, I’d like to take the opportunity to share the organizational values of Vail Valley Partnership. In an effort to remain focused on our mission to encourage economic development and increase destination tourism in Eagle County, as well as serve as community leaders in the creation and management of collaborative programs, we recently found it necessary to define our core organizational values.
Like many organizations, and as outlined in “Triple Crown Leadership,” our core values drive our culture, our brand and our business strategies. We agree with Bob’s statement that there is great power in making our values explicit and communicating them with others via respectful dialogue.
That said, here are our organizational core values at Vail Valley Partnership:
Collaboration
Collaboration among and between staff, members, industry groups, partner organizations and other stakeholders increases communication, efficiency and effectiveness within the organization and throughout the community. We strive to collaborate to the fullest extent internally as a staff and externally with public entities, our members, and with local, regional and state partners.
Engagement
We strive to be engaged with each other, with our jobs, with the organization and with the greater community. VVP team members are engaged in our community via active involvement in industry groups, community programs and other groups. Similarly, we strive to develop programs and benefits that increase member engagement with the organization and the greater community.
Service
We are a service organization. We are strongly committed to providing the best service experience possible on all levels. We hold the needs of our members and stakeholders to the highest importance and diligently work to provide them with the best service experience possible. Our point of differentiation is our service.
Integrity
As a membership-driven community organization, VVP has an uncompromising commitment to be honest to our stakeholders and to implement generally accepted business standards and ethics. We remain committed to adding value to our community via our ongoing work and to always act with integrity according to the values, beliefs and principles of our community.
Responsiveness
VVP is a responsive organization, focused first and foremost on the needs of the community. Responsiveness and reliability in a service-driven atmosphere allow us to differentiate ourselves, thus adding value to our members and the greater community. We actively respond in a timely fashion to the needs of our teammates, members, communities, visitors and other partners utilizing our services.
There are some powerful themes here and it’s our constant goal to live and work by these values in order to achieve our mission and to add value to our stakeholders (members and partners) and the community at large.
The above values drive our organization and our ongoing efforts to help create a vibrant business community in the Vail Valley. We’d love to hear from you via our membership survey (available at vailvalleypartnership.com through close of business on April 11), via a phone call, email or better yet, a visit to our office.
Chris Romer is president & CEO of Vail Valley Partnership.