The brainstorm started with drinks. It was cocktail hour at our annual retreat, and the entire tPX team gathered among apple orchards in Julian, California. Someone had torn two oversized pieces of paper from the sticky easel pad and taped them to the wall. Each had a version of new company values. We played with the wording. We voted on favorites. At some point — likely after the second round of drinks — we explored adding the most impactful obscenity to each value. Then we all went out for tacos.
In the morning, we reconvened in the living room and kept at it. There were impassioned defenses, pithy protestations, cynical retorts, and lost patience with the process. There was also honesty, new ideas, and critical insights. Nearly everyone on the team — designers, writers, strategists, the admin team — had a say. And in the end, the process mirrored the very values we were trying to capture.
Keep it real: We tell it like it is — with kindness
Bring your brilliance: We welcome all kinds of bright minds.
Find a way forward: We believe everything is figureoutable.
Connect the dots: We think critically and strategically.
Embrace parallax: We seek fresh perspectives.
What do values mean, anyway? For us, they're a north star — the grounding reference points we return to when we're deep in a grueling project, interviewing for a new hire, or chasing the best idea for a client.
We'll fail to uphold them sometimes. Things won't always be kept real. We won't always be as brilliant as we want to be. Values aren't absolutes — they're aspirational. But as we acknowledge individual effort and reflect on our progress as a team, these are the standards against which we'll measure our work.
As we launch our new website, it feels like the dawn of a new era in sustainability — and not an easy one. The federal government has never been more antagonistic toward progress. Consumers have never been more supportive of the work we do, or more skeptical of it. What that creates is a future where sustainability work will have to be more rigorous, durable, and unassailable than ever. We believe these values will help us get there.
Our last night in Julian, we sat around one very long dinner table. While servers distributed freshly made apple pies and homemade ice cream, we each shared something we were grateful for. The answer, over and over, was the same: the people on this team. These are the values that guide them.
