Shadowland - Melaver, Inc.

Shadowland

2006
Martin Melaver, CEO

By Martin Melaver Q2c

Just recently, we were shadowed over the course of almost a week, by a friend of mine: someone who wants to learn more about a sustainable real estate business, someone thinking of making a mid-course change in his life.
It was one of the more powerful weeks in my own professional career.
On a mundane level, it was a week more or less like any other. It began with a talk I gave before the local Chamber of Commerce, a talk about how our region had the potential to “pull it all together” and to be a beacon for sustainable community along the triple-bottom line axis of economic vitality, environmental stewardship, and social justice. And the week ended with a meeting with City officials, trying to persuade local leaders to adopt a recycling program.
In between, we looked at our brokerage division and how to ramp up our brokers’ knowledge of sustainable, low-impact development. We analyzed potential development deals, with an eye toward the “fit” of the project itself with our triple-bottom-line objectives and with an eye toward the “fit” with our potential partners. We reviewed our marketing and outreach practices, to make sure our “talk” never exceeded our “walk”. We took a close look at certain things going on inside the company culture, making sure that our rather fast-paced growth was not causing internal fissures. We introduced our shadow to a number of our outside stakeholders who share our own passion and commitment. In short, a week more or less like any other.
There was something deeply gratifying about sharing the ways in which virtually all of our practices are integrated into an overarching vision. It’s an integration that has taken years to create, something that all of us are very proud of. Part of our mission is to share that sense of integration with others. Sharing it all with our shadow made that mission somehow palpable. It was, corny as it sounds, a gift to someone else, who gratified us by the act of sharing.
Ray Anderson, founder and chairman of the board of Interface, is fond of saying that there is no such thing as a lapsed environmentalist. Once you begin to see things differently, there is no turning back. And, as he says with a grin and a poignant sense of humor, “that’s one more of us and one less of them.”
I agree with Ray on this (and on just about everything else – who can argue with a force of nature?). And we, as a company, believe that a critical part of what we do is education and outreach, sharing our sense of making a difference with others.
But as perhaps you can tell from my tone here, something is gnawing at me a bit. And what is gnawing is simply this: the integration we are practicing and promoting comes out of a long journey that is our own particular journey. When we started it years back, we were very cognizant of Paul Hawken’s charge to us all: “Take it slowly, a step at a time, make it evolutionary.”
And so I would simply pass that along to our shadow – along with some paraphrased lyrics from Mark Mancina and Lebo M.
And where the journey may lead you
Let our prayers be your guide

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