In today's world, employees are increasingly seeking work that aligns with their personal values and sense of purpose. But how can companies ignite that fire within their team and truly inspire them to work towards a shared vision? At Green Canopy NODE, we believe that one secret to sparking purpose and passion in a team lies in empowering the team to co-create the company's values. 

Many companies have a mission and vision statement, but even the strongest statements may not be enough to spark the kind of passion required to achieve the impossible. At Green Canopy NODE, we regularly re-align our team with our mission and vision statements, and then we are all empowered to co-create our values together.  

With a mission to regenerate communities and environments, Green Canopy NODE is working to address the acute pain in the housing industry and help our clients deliver sustainable, healthy housing faster. Through the power of manufacturing, we believe in a future where carbon negative, healthy homes are accessible for everyone. 

Some may say what we’re trying to achieve is impossible. We have entered new terrain - a space where very few have gone and succeeded. So why do we at Green Canopy NODE believe the impossible is not only possible, but well within our reach? Because we have a fully integrated team with a shared set of values coupled with both purpose and passion. Our team’s energy and enthusiasm around our mission and momentum is palpable. How we work together towards our collective success feels like magic. 

“None of us are truly qualified to do our jobs because what we’re creating doesn’t exist yet. We’re venturing into uncharted territory and applying our skills and expertise to a whole new world. But that’s what makes this work so exciting and fulfilling. We have the opportunity to push the boundaries of what’s possible and create something that can actually change construction and the world.”

— Abby Willets, R&D Engineer

Our values aren't just statements on the wall, they guide how we work together every day and who we aspire to be as a team. To co-create our values, we gather our team annually and ask them to reflect on the most important aspects of teamwork and relationships that allow them to do their best work and feel supported.

“Values like vulnerability, integrity, and honesty are at the core of who we are. Those are our baseline, and they’re not values we’re creating today,” Ami Nieto, HR Director reminded the team during the retreat. “To continue growing and evolving, as individuals and as a team, we need to push further. We need to ask ourselves, where is our growth edge?” 

Through small group workshops and a voting process, we all co-create a set of values that our team agrees on and embraces. Once we have our values, we then create mantras that define how the value reveals itself day-to-day. This effort creates offers collective accountability and alignment around a shared set of values. 

We’re pleased to share Green Canopy NODE’s 2023 Values and Mantras:

Empathy   

• Seek first to understand   

• Assume good intentions   

• Think generously   

Empowerment   

• Foster opportunities for others to grow   

• Nurture fearless agency   

• Give each other what is needed to succeed   

Cultivation   

• Nurture the seeds of innovation   

• Plant knowledge, grow relationships, harvest solutions   

• Share what you know, so others can grow  

Syncopation   

• Listen for the offbeat, it's the opportunity for innovation   

• Focus on our goals, not what the industry expects   

• Let people march to the beat of their own drum, together  

“Today was a remarkable day for me. I have never been in a room before where such powerful values were created. Unlike the typical values, such as safety and teamwork, what I witnessed today was next level thinking and very inspiring. The process was nothing short of fantastic, and it allowed me to see deeper into the heart of the company. I was moved and energized by the passion and enthusiasm of the team, driven by their desire to change the world.”

— Peter Orser, Board Chair

Our experience has shown that empowering our team to co-create their company values is the key to sparking both purpose and passion. While mission and vision statements provide direction, they may not be enough to ignite the fire within your team. By ceding control and empowering your team to co-create values, you can build a stronger team that is aligned around a shared purpose, passionate about their work and committed to achieving the impossible. 

Wondering what our team thinks? Here are thoughts from them: 

“Empathy is the foundation for all the other values. It is the one value that the world needs most, and it has the power to change everything.” - Kyle Kutz, Design Project Manager. 

“Connecting with each other’s humanity makes it easy to come to work.” - Abby Willets, R&D Engineer. 

“At Green Canopy NODE we have a culture of openness and vulnerability. We shed our fear of failure and embrace transparency. It’s a unique environment I haven’t found elsewhere. I believe this opens up possibilities and fuels the magic of our work together.” - Greg Lotakis, VP Integration 

“Being empowered gives me the courage to put in the extra effort and I get better results.” - Christian Ledesma, Carpenter 

"There's a natural inclination to collaborate and innovate. By understanding each other’s unique perspectives and approaches, we can work together better.” - Darrin Griechen, VP Products and Innovation 

“I am humbled to work alongside such a passionate and inspiring group of team members. The days of employees showing up to work for a paycheck are long gone. People want and expect more. Co-creating values delivers on the promise of what we want most – finding purpose-drive work and to love what we do.” - Ami Nieto, HR Director 

2021 saw millions of people quitting their jobs voluntarily in a trend that was soon named ‘The Great Resignation’. Evidence shows that corporate culture is one of the most reliable factors to predict this attrition. And while for many businesses it is still overlooked, at Green Canopy NODE we are intentional and proactive in prioritizing our culture. Yet, culture isn’t simply about providing ping-pong tables, swag, or a free lunch. Employees resonate with a culture they can call their own.

Building an inclusive culture is embedded into our DNA and to us, that is pretty special. At its heart lie our values, co-created by every team member and defining how we are to interact and behave in the workplace. “Over the years, we have found that when values are inclusive, alive, and dynamic, the team feels more connected and whole, and the Company experiences greater resiliency through the inevitable ups and downs of organizational growth,” says Aaron Fairchild, Co-CEO of Green Canopy NODE.

Why pay so much attention to values?

Well, to start because they define how we show up for each other at work and constantly remind us of the kind of team we want to be. “They have enormous transformative power, being the vehicle for a cohesive and loving culture in which we can all see our fingerprints, setting up our team for success, and nurturing us to be more caring and aware,” remarks Ami Nieto, HR Director of Green Canopy NODE.

Our values also set the tone for how our team communicates. We have seen that the more effective we are in speaking with each other, the better we communicate with our clients, investors, subcontractors, community members, and other stakeholders.

Our secret sauce for co-creating values:

Our culture and values are some of the most powerful components of our company. We are proud of the process we go through to build and strengthen them and hope others can benefit from knowing more about what we believe is our secret sauce.

The key ingredient is being deliberate about providing opportunities for having meaningful connection. A key moment for our team to connect with each other is our yearly Mission, Vision, and Values (MVV) retreat. We recently gathered in May for our 2022 retreat, in a space designed to bring together the unique and diverse perspectives of all team members, re-calibrate to our mission, vision, and co-create our values. A special byproduct of this approach is a sense of gratitude and ownership from our employees. “I appreciate the community that Green Canopy NODE builds, including how transparent the leadership is with the rest of the staff”, shares Green Canopy NODE employee.

If co-creating values is the first step, going beyond showcasing them on a poster in the lobby or on a website solely for branding purposes is the second. Values are key to articulating a shared language that facilitates effective internal communications. We accompany each value with a couple of mantras, as these short phrases are a dynamic way for team members to understand the context within the words and be constantly reminded of the spirit behind each value in our daily interactions. In other words, mantras help keep values alive. Plus, they also provide a framework for having hard conversations with our peers and stakeholders.

Finally, team members hold themselves and each other accountable to these values by going through a bi-annual 360 peer values review. Team members are not evaluated by what work they accomplished, but by how they accomplished it. In other words, on how they lived into the company’s values day-to-day

We’re excited to share with you our four new values and corresponding mantras.

Expanding Mental Boundaries

• Be curious to learn and fearless to unlearn

• Fall into discomfort

• Be willing to ask “how might we…?”

Vulnerability

• Bring your whole self

• Lean in, share, and learn from our lived experiences

• Give trust and expect transparency

Radical Ownership

• We fail, we succeed, we come with solutions

• Accountability, not blame, from beginning to end

• Own it all, together - the good, the bad, and the ugly

Empathy

• Seek first to understand

• Connect with each other’s humanity

• Create space, help each other grow

From our team to yours:

In the end, “our culture is about our connection to each other as a team and to what we are building as a company,” reflects Bec Chapin, Co-CEO of Green Canopy NODE. There is no better way to describe our efforts to weave an inclusive culture, rooted in co-created values, than to share some reflections gathered from different team members during our 2022 MVV retreat:

“It is a beautiful process to see a team come together with such ease, in a space of vulnerability, curiosity, and care for each other.”

“Not afraid to speak up because we created a space in which we can leave expectations out and show up with honesty.”

“A space in which we can explore our fear and hopes at the same moment,”

“Feeling both welcomed and excited.”

“In which we acknowledge how extremely inspirational it is to learn from the people we work with,”

“And appreciate the humanity that our group is showing.”

"This is our communal and artistic endeavor and what Green Canopy NODE's essentially is: the canvas upon which we all do our art to inspire and create a positive expression of the future we believe in pulling forward."

We encourage you to learn more about how our culture, values and work translate to impact by reading our 2021 Impact Report here!