Page 85 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

64 CHAPTER 2

a strong desire on the part of both people to mentor and be mentored, the desired pro-
gram fails before it ever begins.
Mentoring, then, works when the desire to be mentored is present. It has its great-
est chance for success when an organization exhibits these characteristics:

■ A strong orientation toward learning among individuals within a company.
■ Significant trust among colleagues to enable staff members to feel comfortable
opening up to each other (openness as opposed to feeling vulnerable).
■ Mutual respect for the varied strengths staff members bring to the table.
■ Modeling of behavior among the leadership team, as they show themselves open to
being mentored by others.

My own role as a consultant in facilitating the practice of mentoring is largely two-
fold: drawing upon other rituals within the company to enhance the general sense of trust
and mutual respect, and coaching particularly the senior leadership team to open them-
selves up to mentoring from others. The tactic that is perhaps most helpful in this regard
is to open up the leadership team to using the phrase: “I need help with . . .” Oftentimes, this
is simply a rhetorical gesture, one that feigns collaboration while being authoritarian.
How many times, for instance, have we heard a leader say “I need help understand-
ing...” which, when translated to our ears means, “I disagree with you but I’m going to
do so in a polite way. The phrase, “I need help,” needs to be authentic, a true admission
of needing the guidance and direction of another. Like so many other aspects of green
glue, it’s easily said, but not so easily practiced.
The other helpful piece of the puzzle in facilitating the practice of mentoring entails
hiring people who have the desire to learn and grow. As a company that sees itself as a
learning company, Melaver, Inc. would not seem to face much of a challenge in this
regard. And it doesn’t. Every staff member has a line item in the budget each year for
continuing education. At any given time, several are working on additional accreditation
or advanced degrees. The calendar is filled with lunch-and-learn sessions, where knowl-
edge and practices are shared among colleagues and facilitated by either internal or
external experts. In any given month, a team member either is attending a conference to
further professional/personal growth or is lecturing at a conference—often both. The
company is replete with rituals that comprise formal and informal learning. But these rit-
uals among a staff of learners raise a more fundamental question: How does a company
fill its organization with a bunch of intellectually curious people without becoming a
nonprofit think tank? The question leads us to our final category of ritual-shaping at the
green bottom line company: alignment.

ALIGNMENT
One word that prevails in values-centric companies like Melaver, Inc. is “alignment”
or “fit.” That shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. These companies devote consid-
erable amounts of time and energy to culture-building rituals and, as a result, they