Half the kids in any playground are playing with trucks. Digging holes. Moving sand. Building things.

There was a time when it was common practice for corporate leaders to build buildings and spaces that contributed to their culture and their community.

Some still do. But somewhere along the way, other, less altruistic perceptions of our craft have crept into the public psyche. People expect private projects to take three times as long and cost three times as much as their estimate. And they expect public projects to squander tax dollars.

How did these cynical expectations creep into such a dynamic, aspirational, imagination-driven, tactile, scientific, safety-conscious, and engineering based practice?

Like a lot of things that aren’t what they use to be, these perceptions developed slowly, over time. As companies get bigger, the nice people who work at them are distanced from the people and communities who their projects serve. They start to become accountable for different metrics. Numbers become easier to see than people.

But not everyone works this way.

People with the technical know-how to build, who stand on an untouched patch of ground and imagine what could be there get the same feeling they did as kids playing with trucks. They’re inspired. They’re excited to dream with their clients, partner with their trades and build spaces that create returns for multiple stakeholders.

We were literally sitting around one day wondering whether there was a way to be successful in this business AND treat people well. We realized there was:

• Rise above it.
• Treat peers and partners the way we want to be treated.
• Remember why we got into this field.
• Remember why we started Ingenuity.
• Build a team who share those values.

We started Ingenuity with a plan to use better treatment of clients and partners as a strategic advantage. Fourteen years in, we realize we can do more. We can teach people what we’ve learned.