Page 90 - The Green Building Bottom Line The Real Cost of Sustainable Building

HR PRACTICES AND PROCESSES THAT MAKE SUSTAINABLE VALUES STICK 69

Part of this deep dive into history entailed delving in to the personal histories of the
staff members at Melaver, Inc. I believe this to be a critical part of the green glue of a
sustainable business culture, oftentimes overlooked. Too often we think of a business
as having a history without considering the degree to which the business itself is made
up of the multiple histories of the folks who have come to work with one another. Some
teasing out of individual histories occurs naturally and informally, as staff members get
to know each other better, but some calls for more formal practices and processes. I
recall one exercise, for example, when team members were brainstorming about
objects they would like to place in a time capsule at the first LEED shopping center in
the country. Team members knew this was something of a watershed moment for them-
selves and the company. And so the general brainstorming exercise took on a very per-
sonal tone, as they began to reflect upon monumental objects in their own lives, about
how objects can take on a quasi-sacred or special meaning, and what from their own
lives today might speak to a future generation that might open the time capsule.
Stephen Covey is well known for popularizing the aphorism, “Begin with the end
in mind.” The idea is as simple as imagining how others might eulogize you once you
have died, and what you would like this eulogy to include. Few of us, I think, would
doubt the powerful effectiveness of such an approach. But part of what is often left out
of such thinking is the recognition that for people to begin with an end in mind, it is
critical to have a strong sense of where one began. A vision for the future, whether in
terms of a values-centric organization or in terms of individuals working within such
an organization, is intimately connected to the hopes and dreams and aspirations one
grew up with. If a vision for the values-centric company needs to begin with the end
in mind, it also needs to end with a beginning in mind.
There are many specific practices that help elucidate personal stories: having a web-
site that showcases individual histories, creating a book of personal stories that any
and all can refer to, using coaching pairs to do a deeper dive into one another, and so
on. The key glue in all of these processes is empathy. Empathy touches virtually every
aspect of the green bottom line company. It goes to the heart of how leaders conduct
(or don’t conduct) themselves. It is the fundamental basis behind much of a company’s
practices and processes, and of feedback work specifically. It is an essential compo-
nent in all communication and, therefore, a company’s language system. And it
informs how a company approaches its own historical context.
What’s your story? one staff member asks another. In so doing, she is inquiring into
a person’s background: where someone was born and grew up, the backgrounds of
parents and grandparents, where a person studied and has worked, what the person’s
interests and hobbies are—the list goes on and on. Both the effort of inquiry and the
genuineness of interest are critical here: where both are strong, so too is empathy,
where both are weak or lacking, the effort seems superficial and disingenuous. One
thing seems fairly clear: The interest a company takes in the deep context of staff
members cannot be faked. It is there or it is not. When it is present, one finds a tapes-
try of stories and histories that deepen the value sensibilities of a company. A business
culture becomes all the richer for it.