The other day Smugglers’ Notch had to share some bad news with their skiers. They thought they’d be open one more weekend, the signs initially looked good, but then the facts changed and they had to be faced.

Here’s the tweet:

Important message about this coming weekend from our Chief: pic.twitter.com/mPR3f6MIPG

— Smugglers' Notch (@Smugglers_Notch) April 16, 2019

I love letters from leadership and I’ve seen some great ones, but I really like this one for a long list of reasons.

But near the top of that list is this line:

“Common sense tells me it is time to pull the plug. “

It took me a while to put my finger on why this line stood out to me as much as it did. But after reading a handful of other letters I realized what stood out wasn’t a sentence, but a word.

“Me”

One Step Removed
So often, you see a CEO or GM or COO or whoever talking as if they were one step removed. They’ll use a passive voice like “it became clear the plug needed to be pulled” or spread the decision across a nebulous group like “we decided it was time to pull the plug.”

But the point of a CEO or GM is whoever is to be the final say. To have the authority. To take the responsibility.

And I love that little slice, that little combination, of humanity and responsibility in Mark’s letter. It was his call. It has his decision. And it hurts.

Good stuff, Mark. Really good stuff.

About Gregg & SlopeFillers
I've had more first-time visitors lately, so adding a quick "about" section. I started SlopeFillers in 2010 with the simple goal of sharing great resort marketing strategies. Today I run marketing for resort ecommerce and CRM provider Inntopia, my home mountain is the lovely Nordic Valley, and my favorite marketing campaign remains the Ski Utah TV show that sold me on skiing as a kid in the 90s.