Our Values

Article

Apr 2

At Foresight, we are passionate about building a culture where individuals can flourish and experience the joy of being on a team. One way we attempt to build our culture is to stay focused on our core values in all that we do. From formal evaluations to informal celebrations, we work hard to embody our values.

The below excerpt is from an interview with our President, Brian Pageau. It was originally published by Lakeshore Advantage on December 15, 2020.

Talk to us about company culture. What are some values that you and your team live by?

My primary responsibility at Foresight is to create an environment where our team members can become the best versions of themselves. Not the best worker they can be for Foresight, but the best version of themselves as a human-being. If the people I work with are healthy and flourishing, we’ll get closer to fulfilling our purpose and mission as an organization. Our company’s culture is where I spend much of my time and I believe is the vehicle with which we unlock our potential as individuals and as a team.

Our four core values at Foresight are vulnerability, curiosity, enthusiasm, and competitive greatness.

We believe a thriving work environment is built on a foundation of vulnerability. Each individual on our team must feel safe enough to be vulnerable and valued enough to be heard. We believe great ideas can come from anyone on the team, regardless of position or experience. If our people don’t feel it’s psychologically safe to share their ideas, then we are stifling innovation and human flourishing. Additionally, it takes vulnerability to admit mistakes. We talk about and celebrate mistakes every Friday in our all-team meeting, so failure is de-stigmatized and people (hopefully) aren’t afraid of it. Failure is simply an opportunity to learn, and we can’t learn from each other if we don’t feel the psychological safety that comes with healthy vulnerability.

We believe the root of all innovation is, in its most basic form, a spirit of curiosity and the continual adoption of a “beginner’s mindset”. Our willingness and capacity to be inquisitive empowers us to build trust with teammates and clients. Curiosity enables a sense of wonder and humility, ultimately exposing opportunities to serve teammates and clients in more impactful ways. Curiosity is how we disrupt our own way of doing things.

We believe people and organizations care about energy and the environment, yet these same organizations often have higher priorities that diminish their ability to execute. This gap, between “desire” and “action”, is basically at the core of why our clients hire us. Our insights, character, and expertise are qualities our team brings to our clients, but those valuable attributes are not enough to inspire action. Unbridled enthusiasm is contagious and the special ingredient we try to bring to our clients. Enthusiasm creates momentum and inspires action.

And finally, competitive greatness. I’m a basketball coach at heart, so if you know hoops, you won’t be surprised to hear that John Wooden’s teachings have heavily influenced me. In his pyramid of success, Coach Wooden puts “competitive greatness” at the top of the pyramid and says, “Competitive greatness is having a real love for the hard battle knowing it offers the opportunity to be at your best when your best is required.”

At Foresight, we believe Competitive Greatness is not limited to a particular function or moment in time, it is a posture and attitude we all strive to embody every day. Our goal is to fall in love with the pursuit of being our best. Energy and sustainability can be tough and challenging topics for many companies. When we are hired, our job is to embrace the challenge and relish in the opportunity to be our best when our best is required.