By Teresa Waugh
Western Area Power Administration is now 40 years old. Leading up to this milestone, we reflected as an organization on our strategic progress and our people. We refreshed Strategic Roadmap 2024. We looked back at our legacy of leaders and looked ahead to our talent of tomorrow. Many of our key leaders are on the road to retirement or almost there.
During rapidly changing times, we reflect and realign. We build and reaffirm our relationships. As part of this process, we refreshed the core values that drive our business decisions and strengthen our customer service.
WAPA is made up of people from different cultures, backgrounds, generations, skill sets and points of view across a 15-state footprint. Even though we are all very different, we adhere to a core set of standards. To determine and codify these standards, we socialized them with a set of diverse employees to identify our blind spots.
This process represents the first updating of WAPA’s core values since 1993, and we are excited to officially roll them out this month.
An organization’s core values serve as a guide in making decisions and as a standard for its behaviors and actions. Here are WAPA’s new core values.
Listen to understand, speak with purpose.
We must always consider our audience and speak to them in ways that will be clear, simple and relevant. Active listening is the first step in effective communication. Communications must be honest, transparent and consistent.
Seek. Share. Partner.
We value partnership and actively engage others in the seeking and sharing of ideas. We share relevant information in a timely fashion, acting as one team united in our common mission.
Respect self, others and the environment.
We represent WAPA in being good neighbors and stewards of our collective resources. We are compassionate in our relationships with others, as well as toward ourselves. We are respectful in our dealings with all things.
Do what is right.
We are public servants and act with integrity, stand up for what is right and demonstrate courage when acting in the best interests of our customers and the communities that they serve.
Be curious, learn more, do better. Repeat.
We seek and welcome feedback to directly and quickly improve. We innovate, plan for the future, and support the growth of our teams and colleagues. We reflect upon the progress we make in order to learn and grow.
Serve like your lights depend on it.
We understand the importance of our mission to provide power to customers that serve more than 40 million Americans. We do not take our service for granted and we work hard to ensure that other Americans know and understand the importance of our mission.
Let us embrace these promises, memorize them, talk about them, use them in our communications, and keep them in our thoughts to guide our way.
Our mission is steadfast, yet how we accomplish it is changing. These core values confirm our commitments to each and every one of our customers, stakeholders and interested parties to carve an honorable path forward.
Last modified on September 12th, 2023