On 11/30/10, Severin Sorensen, Utah Chair, Launches First New Vistage Group in Utah Launches in 11 Years.
Sometimes you have to celebrate. Today was one of those days. Indeed, a goal written was realized today. I held a founders organizational group launch meeting today for Utah Vistage CEO Group #3754 in the board room of Utah Disaster Kleenup, Inc.; UDK President, Denny Jensen, hosted the inaugural meeting of the Vistage UT CEO Group. This founders meeting culminates a four month CEO group build process that Severin Sorensen, Utah Vistage Chair, started in August 2010 upon authorization from Vistage International to form a Vistage CEO Group in Utah.
Founding Vistage CEO Group #3754 Members on 11/30/2010: Henry Sorensen, President & CEO, Prov, Inc (Sandy); Clark Merkley, President, Employer Solutions Group, Inc. (Provo); Patrick Richter, President, Americom Technology Inc (Murray); Severin Sorensen, Vistage Utah Chair, VistageUT.com (Park City), and Vistage International (San Diego); Denny Jensen, President, Utah Disaster Kleenup Inc (Draper); Ari Ioannides, President & CEO, Emerald Data Solutions, Inc (Park City); Alan Eaton, OneGreatFamily.com (Springville); Rick Lindsey, President & CEO, Prime Insurance Group, Inc. (Sandy); and Craig Swapp, Managing Partner and CEO, Craig Swapp & Associates (Sandy).
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At today's founders meeting, founding Vistage CEO group members participated in several leadership exercises that demonstrated the important principle that "all of us are stronger than one of us," as many minds focused on a problem are brighter and more effective than one mind working alone on a problem.
The founding member organizational meeting activities included introductions of members; setting norms and expectations of group behavior and performance; identifying topics of importance for the group's 2011 expert speakers, a company tour of the host member's facilities, a company business model presentation, and specific member business issue processing sessions using the Socratic and proprietary Vistage Learning System. The meeting closed with several member issue processing topics of great importance to members, wherein several member CEOs had their business issues processed in a supportive, caring, confronting, and probing manner to help them get to the root of issues impacting the performance of member companies. Needless to say, it was exciting for me as the Vistage Chair, to witness and experience, the coming together of exceptional growth-oriented CEOs in the pursuit of a common goal dedicated to increasing the effectiveness and enhancing the lives of chief executives.
The highight of the meeting for me was the afternoon executive issue processing session where members had their answers questioned. In a Vistage group, for our member CEOs, the most important things they will ever learn, are the things they learn in Vistage after they have learned everything on their own; Vistage groups provide new meaning, new perspectives, and fresh approaches for member CEOs to address specific problems and seize opportunities. These confidential business processing sessions identify core business issues of member companies. Through Chair facilitated exchanges, members drill down to find the roots of the member leadership problems, with an aim of reaching the epicenter of problem pain. Once the pain center is found, the Group then processes the underlying issue in a "carefrontational" manner, where the Chair acting as facilitator directs a focused dialog on member issues to assess, address, and resolve business issues impeding the growth and effectiveness of member executives and their companies.
In closing, based on my past personal experience as a Vistage CEO Group member in CEO Group #554 (Washington DC), I suspect that Vistage CEO Group #3754 will grow to become one of the truly outstanding, high-performing Vistage Groups in the nation; and this is my overarching operating objective as a Vistage Chair.
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The next meeting of Vistage CEO Group #3754 is on December 15, 2010. Membership in a Vistage CEO Group is by invitation-only. For CEOs/Presidents/Business owners/Managing Partners that are "life-long learners" who think they would benefit from a challenging and supporting Vistage CEO Peer Group experience, and for key employees that desire to have their CEOs learn more about Vistage and our CEO Group, there remain a few open seats for qualified UT based CEOs operating businesses that are non-competitive to members within the group. Interested CEO's are invited to contact Severin Sorensen (sev@epraxis.com), Utah Vistage Chair, to see if a Vistage Group experience might be a good fit for you.
- Severin Sorensen, UT Chair, Vistage International