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The Deck of Cards: An HPL Project

by Hugh Scheffy, DTM

The High Performance Leadership Program offers a number of opportunities for learning and personal growth:

• You learn to organize a project.
• You work with people who are just as interested in learning as you are and who will contribute to your personal growth as well as to your project.
• You get to work on a project that is important to you. Personally, I’d recommend not undertaking a project if it isn’t important to you.
• You learn about yourself, and you have an opportunity to measure your improvement objectively.
• You engage in meaningful discussions and build your relationship with the other Toastmasters on your Guidance Committee.

My Project: The 50th Reunion

My project was the first phase of a four-year effort. I am President of my Phillips Exeter Academy Class of 1958, and our 50th Reunion is scheduled for May 2008. My project involved recruiting some key participants in the class to work toward creating an outstanding reunion.

The key result for this phase of my longer-term project was holding a dinner in New York for about 15 classmates. We identified this group as the Deck of Cards (inspired by the designation of the top U.S. enemies in Iraq). The Deck of Cards are the class officers and other classmates who have a presence and are contributors (primarily of time) to the school. One “card” in the Deck is a member of the Board of Exeter and is our Class Strategist (elected at the 45th Reunion). He also generously undertook to fund a series of dinners to forward the Reunion effort.

We held the dinner at the University Club in New York on February 4th, 2004. I found as I have at previous class gatherings over the years that, as time goes by, our classmates are more willing to share their experiences, their hopes, and their fears. We concluded that we should build on this at the 50th Reunion and recruit classmates to conduct discussion groups on their career experiences.

Exeter has what is known as the Harkness Plan, the format for classes, which are held around a large oval wooden table seating 12 to 15 class members. The Harkness table will provide the perfect venue for the kinds of discussions we plan to have. To give a few examples, one classmate is writing a history of crime in the United States, another is a federal judge, and yet another worked with the CIA.

The High Performance Leadership project requires that you identify the Vision, Mission, and Core Values that will underscore your work. Here is a recap of our Vision, Mission, and Core Values, developed from discussions before and after our New York dinner.

Vision for the 50th Exeter Reunion

• Enhance our network of relationships, especially their supportive aspects
• Enhance leadership depth and participation
• Have 100% attendance
• Gain record-breaking participation, not only in attendance, but in dollars
• Come away with a heightened appreciation of the school and how we can serve it
• Donate a class gift that we don’t have to apologize for
• Make the Reunion experience a “driveway moment” (apologies to NPR)

Mission

The mission is to celebrate our service to Exeter; to memorialize that service through a significant and meaningful class gift; to honor our accomplishments; and to provide a supportive, valuable, and meaningful Reunion experience that reaches beyond the event itself, in terms of classmates supporting one another as well as the school.

Core Values

• We love you even if you hated being at Exeter and still hate the school.
• The reunion is an opportunity to renew and strengthen old friendships as well as to make new ones.
• Every classmate has a contribution to make; check out the folks you didn’t know.
• Exeter has contributed significantly to us, and we want to maintain the quality we experienced.
• We will honor each classmate’s priority for giving, while making the case for Exeter.

The HPL project will certainly make a difference to the Exeter ’58 50th Reunion.

(Hugh Scheffy is a consultant who served as the 2003-2004 Division B Governor and a 2004-2005 Founder’s District Club Extension Co-Chair.)