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Mission and Values

Mission

We are here to advance energy resilience using community owned sustainable energy microgrids. 

Values 

Collaboration

We are better Together: If you want to go quickly, go alone but if you want to go far, go together

Curiosity

Always learning, frequently questioning and listening. 

Community 

Default to Openness. We want to learn and build in public so that others who care about what we are working on can also learn and consider contributing to our mission. They'll be a few things that need to be private like our customers contact information but we aim to be open about how and what we are working on. So when in doubt, just share it.

People first

Relationships count most, invest in them. We want to give each other room to center our lives around family and friends, not our jobs. 

Managers of One

People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed. What it means to be a manager of one. 

Five dysfunctions

Our values also help us to prevent the five dysfunctions:

  1. Fear of conflict Seeking artificial harmony over constructive passionate debate => prevented by transparency, specifically Managers of One and Collaboration. 
  2. Absence of trust Unwilling to be vulnerable within the group => prevented by Collaboration, specifically People first. 
  3. Avoidance of accountability Ducking the responsibility to call peers on counterproductive behavior which sets low standards => prevented by Community. 
  4. Inattention to results Focusing on personal success, status, and ego before team success => prevented by Managers of One
  5. Lack of commitment Feigning buy-in for group decisions creates ambiguity throughout the organization => prevented by Community and Managers of One

Some dysfunctions are not addressed directly by our values; for example, trust is not one of our values. Similar to happiness, trust is something that is an outcome, not something you can strive for directly. We hope that the way we work and our values will instill trust, instead of mandating it from people; trust is earned, not given

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