Thank You Sarah and All of Us

Okay, Okay. So we said that anyone who gives the Values Trophy has to write a blog post.

Here it is: I gave the trophy to Sarah Apple for her awesome work on the Values Statement.

I know Sarah, you wondered….”does this really matter?! Is anyone paying attention?!” So let me tell you this story. After a particularly tough meeting with DHS staff on Friday, Tom and I were “debriefing” in the creative suite, and Tom pointed to the Values Statement --- that someone (Sarah?!) was brilliant enough to hang in there, and pretty much he said this is why I do this, because you guys care about stuff like this – well those weren’t his direct words, but you know what I mean. So, do the values matter…YES!! Did your work to make them look awesome matter….YES.

And what I particularly love about the values is that they model exactly what “collective impact” means. We started with an idea, refined by a couple of people, reacted to (and cared about by even more people – Suzanne, Nancy, Kyle) and thought about by all. Until finally someone cared enough to take the bull by the horns and get the job done (Sarah). That is collective ownership and leadership that is shared…and it makes a REAL difference when things get tough. So thank you. All of you, for all the work you did to make the values something living, breathing and a real part of what we do.