Page 37 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

16 CHAPTER 1

Our own company is small enough (fewer than three dozen people) that we can and
do engage everyone in discussions about what is of utmost importance. Responses
vary. Some focus on the intimate value of belonging, having to do with self-worth,
connectedness to family, and the community at work. Others emphasize the value of
self-actualization connected to a sense of liberation and the capacity to integrate the
various aspects of one’s life into a complete whole. Still others value the knowledge
and insight connected to wisdom and the capacity to shape a new world order. It takes
time to elicit expressions of value from every person at a company. It takes even more
time to synthesize those disparate values into the daily practices of a business. Many
companies are simply too large or lack the inclination to listen to their workforce. But
in the absence of deliberate effort to query what its people value, a company drifts with-
out definition. As the old saying goes, you cannot manage what you do not measure.

2. Knowledge Is Critical: Individual and collective knowledge about what we
want is critical to the values-centric business. One notable aspect of my father’s story
of the fisherman and the businessman is that the fisherman already knows what he
wants and he’s doing it. In the somewhat lofty language of philosophy, his sense of
being and his sense of becoming are integrated. 27 Most of us, I think, view work as
something of an unfortunate necessity at worst and a profession at best. Few see work
as a vocation or calling, providing what we need and desire. Among those who do,
however, is Catholic priest and business ethicist Oliver Williams, who notes that the
key purposes of a business are to “enable human flourishing” and to “provide oppor-
tunities for us to develop character and virtues, as well as talents and skills.” 28
This enabling of human capacity, like the surveying of values of people within an
organization, takes time and effort to bring forth from one’s workforce. First and fore-
most, most of us have been conditioned not to think about what we truly expect from
work except in the rather narrow context of receiving a wage and perhaps developing
professional skills. Secondly, it is rare for others, particularly management, to ask their
co-workers what it is they truly want and need. The immediate tasks at hand almost
always take precedent. However, the acts of asking and listening have the corollary
effect of empowering a work force to reflect upon the nature of work. And that is
a good thing. Almost always during our interviewing process for a new hire, one of
my colleagues will ask a candidate what it is he or she really wants to do in life.
Sometimes, the answer suggests a trajectory in life dramatically different from work
at our company. And so we respond with a question that evokes the story of the fish-
erman: If that is what you truly want, why aren’t you pursuing it instead of talking with
us? It is in the interest of our company that the interests of each potential employee
take center stage.

3. Values Are Not to Be Deferred: Another noteworthy element to the story of
the businessman and the fisherman is that the fisherman is clearly not deferring his
values to a latter stage of life. He knows what he wants and he’s acting on it in the
present time. Most Americans, by way of contrast, know everything there is to know
about pursuing material wealth in the here and now and deferring the stuff that really