At the Core of It All

I had an opportunity to do some traveling last week. Not for business this time, but for pure pleasure. Those of you that are long time readers of this column know that one of my favorite places to be is on a sailboat somewhere in the Caribbean. I didn't have an opportunity to spend much time on a sailboat for this trip, but it was, after all, the Caribbean and one of my favorite spots, the Virgin Islands.

It was with some trepidation that I decided to go on the trip. Because of the time I've spent there with family, it's that connection that I most look forward to. This time it was a trip for just us girls. What started out to be five or six women traveling together ended up being nine, which I recognized could be an issue. What I didn't realize is that many of the same basic core values that we work all the time in our business life would play a significant role in making certain everyone had a great time.

First, I had to recognize that it really wasn't about me. I was part of it, of course, but there were eight other women (note I did say women), to consider. And just like in the office where one of our basic values is respect for the individual, the same applied here. Don't let me kid you...it wasn't always easy.

One of the other core values important to our business is service to the customer. In this case, each and every one of these traveling partners was like a customer. Without trying to impose, I was one of the few in the group who had spent considerable time in the Virgins and so I had something to offer in terms of logistics, connections and general travel suggestions. Mind you, that didn't always mean that the "customer" was ready to buy what I had to offer. My "service" to the customer in this case was sometimes just to keep quiet. No one likes to be "sold".

The other important core value that came to mind was commitment to excellence. I was determined to have a great time, even though everything about the trip wasn't exactly as I would have planned; frankly, most of it wasn't. Like I said, for me the Virgin Islands, particularly St. John and the British Virgin Islands is all about kicking back, lying low, sailing, enjoying rum punches and spending time with my family. Most of that was not a part of this trip. Well, okay the rum punches certainly were, but what was here was an opportunity to meet new people, hopefully make new friends and gather some incredible experiences all over the short five days.

So it seemed the skills that I work to hone and use during my working hours really did come into play. The same basic values that help me day in and day out - the core of things - made this trip a really great experience. I'm not sure that any of the people I traveled with read this column. It doesn't really matter. What matters is you are reading it and hopefully you'll see, like I did, that we spend an awful lot of time working hard on our careers, so it's good to know that what we learn there can enable us to have better personal experiences as well.

And just in case you're thinking that this trip had nothing to do with technology, one of the core expectations of this column, think again. Most of us traveled with more need-to-be-charged items such as iPads, iPhone's, smart phones, DVD players, iPods, and the like to blow a fuse on the island of St. John. The island was more accommodating towards technology, including cell phone and Internet coverage than ever before, but another part of our commitment to one another as a traveling team was not to let staying connected back to our offices and family infringe on the core reason we did the trip, which was to get away from it all.

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