Darby Strong

Playing point. Delivering the rock.

Thoughts from the Green Building Trenches

“Leadership should be born out of the understanding of the needs of those who would be affected by it.” ~Marian Anderson

Green building has come a long way since the United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) building standard, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED), took hold about a decade ago. As the market transformed and more bold standards were realized, working towards the creation of truly sustainable buildings and neighborhoods proved to be an effective way to tackle our current environmental crisis. Yet, there’s still much work left to do and many voices to be represented. Until we are able to provide a heightened level of respect within our immediate circles and organizations and begin to truly start “walking the talk”, we will surely fail in our attempt to “save the world”.

The story I am about to tell is nothing new, and it repeats itself across boardrooms and cubicles every day. Workers are unhappy, from assembly lines to classrooms and office parks to city halls. You’d be hard pressed to look for business books without running smack dab into dense offerings on leadership, organizational improvement through narrative (a la Let My People Go Surfing) and explorations of overcoming workplace politics and angst. The book that has recently resonated with me the most is “The No Asshole Rule” by Bob Sutton.

Sutton, a professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Business School, as well as a professor of Engineering there, has dealt with his fair share of assholes, as he describes in his thought-provoking book. Sutton makes a comprehensive and solid argument for how assholes cost organizations, from lost productivity to the real costs of having an asshole on board. So much so, that many highly successful organizations – like Google and Zappos – have instituted the “no asshole rule”, requiring new hires to agree by signing on the dotted line. This deliberate act often ensures that unsavory behavior is not exhibited in the first place, and sends a message that if it is, it will not be tolerated. (Sutton warns, though, that simply acting as if you have this policy but not enforcing it, is worse than not having the policy at all).

So, are you, or is someone you love, a certified asshole? Admittedly, we have all exhibited the characteristics of an asshole from time-to-time. Try as we might, we all do the best that we can with the skills that we have in order to get by in this world, but often fall short of our aspirations. And that’s totally acceptable as we yearn to better ourselves. But I’m talking about certified assholes; individuals who allow their insecurities, bullying, and abuse of power to run amok, unchecked, ultimately infecting everyone around them with their noxious gases.

Suttons’ “dirty dozen list of everyday asshole actions” includes personal insults, rude interruptions, two-faced attacks, and treating people as if they are invisible, along with other highly repugnant behavior.

Sadly, the personality exhibited by this “dirty dozen” list paints the picture of an unhappy individual working from a place of pain and fear. The pain of feeling less than, or inferior, and the fear of being rejected and unloved. It’s an incredibly sad situation, and one that deserves immediate, sincere attention. More often than not, though, these sometimes subtle behaviors are never addressed.

I would know. My former boss isn’t a certified asshole, per se, but when I take the quiz to assess whether or not she fits the description, she “passes” the test with flying colors. Almost every question on that list is something she would answer yes to, if she were able to be brutally honest with herself.

Neither she, nor the organization that continues to celebrate her talents and promote her behavior, are unable to look at this bleak situation honestly, which is too bad. Because I believe that she could learn to address her wheelbarrow full of baggage, refocus her energies onto her many talents, and remove her incredible insecurities and scorn so that, ultimately, her gifts and the gifts of her peers could take center stage. Sadly, the organization seems ever positioned to stroke her ailing ego, thus nurturing her willingness to put her work first – above all else – ensuring that the leaders continue to shine, no matter the cost. Ultimately, this has helped to diminish the input of colleagues who offer alternate solutions or challenge the leadership in any way.

I used to imagine how our relationship could have been different if my former boss weren’t always competing with me and her colleagues. How it might help solve daily problems if she was willing to truly mentor and share her knowledge and talent, rather than speak down to her subordinates and make them feel lousy most of the time. Unfortunately, her willingness to work constantly outrageous hours (while wearing it as a badge of honor, of course), along with her incredible ability to produce, has enabled the organization to turn a blind eye to the serious problems that exist with her management “style”.

If the incredibly basic needs of respect and collaboration can’t even be met at a respected, progressive non-profit working towards tranforming the built environment and beyond, how then will we traverse from our current state to an enlightened one where truly sustainable goals can be realized? How, pray tell, will the requirements of transparency that are expected of manufacturers and industry be met when a small non-profit veils its upper-level decisions and overall day-to-day operations in a thick cloud of secrecy and deception? This Machiavellian approach to “transforming” the built environment will no doubt result in a place only fit for a Prince.

Imagine a truly professional environment, where an organization helps to support the “asshole” so that she can heal herself. This path would help to begin the “detoxification” of the group, allowing it and its employees to focus on the work at hand, rather than rewarding asshole behavior with promotions, more power, and more people to manage and infect with one’s own toxicity. These progressive values, so often expressed as a base level requirement in mission based/non-profit environments, is especially important to achieve, if only for the sake of not being so ironically contradicting.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen first hand the realities on the ground, and our collective hope of reshaping business-as-usual is currently falling far short from our ideals. We must nurture and respect the input of all involved, ESPECIALLY those on the front lines doing the hard work, rather than merely giving lip service to such a thing, ever maintaining the upper echelon of our beloved top-down models. We must put to death our fear-based proclamations of propriety, recognition, and entitlement. Then, and only then, will we begin the transformation, finally shedding the cocoon that protects the outdated, inaccurate view of reality that so many collectively, desperately cling to.

Trim Tab Book Review

About a year ago, I was tasked with writing a book review for Trim Tab, Cascadia Green Building Council’s e-zine. It was interesting to revisit this a year later, and while it was excruciatingly difficult to write knowing that my colleagues and peers eyes would be on it, the process was worthwhile.

Here it is, for your reading pleasure:

While lobbyists wined and dined delegates during recent conversations in Copenhagen, Al Gore reminds us that the future of the climate crisis is in our collective hands by offering us his newest book, Our Choice: A Plan To Solve The Climate Crisis. That Gore opens with Kurt Vonnegut is a welcome beginning, providing a sense that we should prepare to digest a raw and spirited truth. The message Gore sends on the wings of Vonnegut’s cynicism is that:

Despair serves no purpose when reality still offers hope. Despair is simply another form of denial, and it invites inaction. We don’t have time for despair. The solutions are available to us! We need to make our choice to act now.

As one that is more naturally drawn to Vonnegut’s penetrating, somewhat dark view of humanity, it is this kind of needed hope that I, and likely many of us, need in these troubling times.

It’s clear, too, that Mr. Gore has responded to the criticism of “An Inconvenient Truth” as being short on solutions by providing us with this incredibly applicable guide. In doing so, he provides us with the needed framework to move from a fossil-fuel based economy to one that transitions towards the goal of “350 parts-per-million”, the upper limit for safe atmospheric carbon concentration that NASA scientist James Hansen identified.

Gore began his task by gathering leading experts from around the world for 30 intensive “Solution Summits”. The culmination of these lengthy conversations provides this books’ blueprint, with practical and well-developed results.

First, Gore examines energy sources; concentrated solar thermal (CST) power and photovoltaic (PV) power are logically explained and evaluated. Wind harvesting, geothermal energy, and biomass are all well analyzed versus the backdrop of our present coal-hungry, fossil fuel based addiction. No mention was made of using solar thermal technologies to heat water for residential applications, though, which is definitely an oversight.

Still, Gore makes up for it by providing an updated view on smart grid technologies, including modernizing our present grids, storage opportunities, and progress in the development of batteries. He also does a great job of insisting that energy efficiency is the needed first step in solving our climate crisis, affirming that it is also the most cost-effective and most quickly implemented option we possess.

The easy-to-grasp arc mapping our current crisis and the science behind it, an overview of the options we can presently rely on, to the very real political obstacles we face, forms a logical pathway to help us create a future positive outcome.

First and foremost is our need for a paradigm shift in both the way we think about this crisis, and in our consumptive behavior. This thinking reminded me of Thomas Princen’s The Logic of Sufficiency, in which the idea of sufficiency (not meant to infer “doing without”, but rather doing well) claims that a society cannot operate as if “there’s never enough and never too much”.

Gore provides a great anecdote, too, retelling the story of constructing medieval cathedrals. He describes how our ancestors had the ability to think long term, knowing that these projects would take a century to complete. The message, of course, is that we do possess the ability to act now to affect change for a future we, ourselves, will not fully experience.

Touching on everything from how a simple turbine works to carbon capture and sequestration, from deforestation and agriculture to carbon offset programs, this textbook-like compilation provides the layman and expert alike a thorough and comprehensive reference guide.

Presented in book form that feels like a power point presentation (no need to reinvent the wheel, right?), the graphics are at times beautiful and stark in depicting the grandness of our planet and its life, to downright pedestrian while visually describing the “urbanization and growth of megacities” and other robust ideas that require a simpler translation.

This elegantly allows for the accessibility an effort like this – saving the world, that is – needs. And while humanity may not yet be fully prepared to enact these remedies in order to survive, hopefully we at least die trying.

Grand 'Ol Petroleum, or GOP for Short

Today marks the fourth time this summer that the GOP in the Senate have blocked an energy and business tax bill from getting to the floor. The Wall Street Journal explains:

The bill would extend tax incentives for wind, solar and other forms of renewable energy, and would renew a host of expired tax cuts, such as the research tax credit and the state-sales-tax deduction. It would also protect most taxpayers from the alternative minimum tax in 2008.

The move failed on a 51-43 procedural vote, dashing Democrats’ hopes that their recent additions to the bill would draw more Republican support.

The White House said senior advisers will recommend a veto should the Senate tax bill reach the president’s desk in its current form. The White House had earlier threatened a veto of similar legislation passed by the House.

The GOP is attempting to attach amendments to the bill for offshore drilling. But for many Republicans, it’s more a matter of principle and politics: many oppose what they say are new tax increases to pay for parts of the package and nearly all say the Senate’s only business now is acting on an energy bill that promotes drilling and other measures to boost domestic oil supply. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, added that his party sees a “need to dispose of the pending energy bill to help bring down the price of gas at the pump before turning to other matters.”

I’m speechless. For now.