Page 40 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

NARRATING VALUES, SHAPING VALUES, CREATING VALUE 19

Some of us find strong community within the fellowship of our work environment.
Others prefer to find that community within the more intimate setting of family. Some
of us thrive in an environment that is constantly trying to innovate beyond what our
most recent project entailed. Others are much more content to repeat a winning for-
mula over and over. There is an ongoing tension within our company about where we
should and should not develop, about the pace of our growth and the merits of growth
in general, about whether or not we would be willing to forego LEED certification on
a building in order to devote more financial resources to creating a building with super
high performance energy efficiency with minimal carbon emissions. The key is to
manage this tension of values so that mutual respect is always present and yet does not
inhibit the creative challenging of one another, so that each person’s voice is given
authentic expression and yet does not lead to a divisive, negative atmosphere. It’s not
as difficult as it sounds.
The curious thing about a values-oriented company is this: While it lends itself to a
highly charged, passionate environment full of diverse perspectives, the very fact that
these perspectives have a nurturing environment in which to be articulated means that
the adherents of various perspectives tend to have great respect for one another. It’s
something akin to the ethos, I might disagree strongly with your opinion but I will
defend completely and absolutely your right to express it.

6. Values Are Revisited Regularly: Doing a deep dive into the specific values of
individuals at a company doesn’t occur very often. The three values-exploration exer-
cises we’ve undergone over the past fifteen years are probably sufficient based on our
own growth, adding a few new people each year. However, it is probably fair to say
that we conduct informal values-determination exercises almost daily, as we go about
our regular decision-making. Reviews of policies—vacation, sick leave, maternity
leave, time off to tend to an ill family member or close friend—almost automatically
trigger larger discussions having to do with our values system. Retooling our com-
pensation package—moving costs, severance pay, a short-term bonus plan that fairly
recognizes the team element in most individual performances, a long-term incentive
plan that adequately recognizes the company’s value creation over an extended period
of time, investments in continuing education for all staff members, how pension plans
will be managed—also inevitably calls upon all of us to think of balancing immediate
and long-term financial security for all. Debate about whether or not to pursue a spe-
cific real estate development inevitably begs the question of why, beyond the pure eco-
nomics of a deal, we feel this project adds needed value to a community. Cobbling
together complex deals entails bringing in outside parties—financial institutions,
designers, architects, contractors—which raises immediate questions regarding these
parties’ congruence with our own values. From big decisions to the seemingly mun-
dane, basic questions of our own values are always present, questions that have to be
addressed for these decisions to be made.
Often, the decision on any particular issue is less important than the process we go
through in making that decision and the stated or unstated rationale behind it. The