Navigating towards a Vision

I’ll have to admit, once the vision for theGRADproject was nailed down, the staff was ecstatic…we finally knew where we were going, and why we were going there.

BUT, only a foolish captain sets sail without a compass, right!? 

From day one, the Executive Masters of Leadership program challenged us to look internally, and to really find and understand the values that would serve as our own “true north” for our direction in . So while David and I may have determined the ultimate destination for theGRADproject, we knew that we couldn’t  travel to far down the road without determining the foundational values that would keep us on course, and driving towards that vision even in the most turbulent of times.

With theGRADproject being a partnership, it would be foolish to think that you could build company’s foundation from the core values of only one partner. On the other hand, the beauty of a partnership is that you get to choose your partner. Over the last two years, about 40 hour long OC-LA commutes, team projects, conference calls, executive interviews, and countless beers/long Islands at Traddies, David and I have had the opportunity to share countless stories. And as we learned from John King in PPD 640, it’s the value based stories that act as conduits for which a person’s core values can be communicated.

It didn’t take many of these stories to realize that at our core, we were very similar. We both live for our families, have learned from tough life-altering experiences, we won’t be out worked, and thanks to EML, will not be out stratigized, and most importantly, will always do what we say we are going to do when we say we are going to do it.

From that it was simple…

The Core Values of theGRADproject are:

• Family
• Service
• Ambition
• Mindfulness
• Integrity