SPARK POWER CORP • FALL 2015

HOW SPARK POWER IS USING ACULTURE OF INNOVATION TO DISRUPT THE

100 YEAR OLD CANADIANPOWER AND ENERGY INDUSTRY

PART 2 OF 2

This white paper, presented in 2 Parts, describes how Jason Sparaga and Andrew Clark, Co-Founders (the “Founders”) of Spark Power Corp (“Spark” or the “Company”), an Ontario leader in the power and energy sector have established a culture of innovation as the Company’s strategic cornerstone and most critical competitive advantage.

Click here to read Part 1: A HISTORY OF INNOVATION AT SPARK POWER CORP which outlines Spark’s history, key innovations and milestones illustrating the Founders’ drive to create and shape a Company from the ground up.

The following is Part 2: CREATING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION which explores and details those factors that the Founders feel have enabled their successes to date, and those innovative and disruptive factors that will guide their success in the future.

INTRODUCTION

SPARK POWER CORP IS A CANADIAN LEADER IN THE POWER AND

ENERGY SECTOR. THE COMPANY WAS LAUNCHED IN 2009 BY CLARK

AND SPARAGA TO CAPITALIZE ON OPPORTUNITIES UNDER THE

PROVINCE OF ONTARIO’S RENEWABLE ENERGY INITIATIVE - THE 2009

GREEN ENERGY AND GREEN ECONOMY ACT (THE “GREEN ENERGY ACT”).

Sparaga and Clark set out to create a culture of innovation at Spark Power because they realize it is one of the hard-est elements for a growing company to institutionalize, particularly with a dispersed team across multiple o� ces and in the face of acquisitions. While culture may feel like a ‘softer’ matter when compared to other management systems, Spark Power knows that it’s the grease that allows their “engine” to run.

“We are constantly taking the Company’s pulse on ‘culture’ and trying to search and destroy barriers and impedi-ments,” said Sparaga. “It is amazing how many dumb things happen in a company because ‘that’s how it has always been done’ or because no one cared or thought to try something di� erent,”

While Spark continues to build their business through both acquisition and organic growth, they o� er several tools which they feel have served them well in their e� orts to institutionalize “innovation”:

1. Make Innovation A Mindset At the TopSpark encourages what the Founders describe as an “innovator’s mindset” amongst their Ex-ecutive Team. They feel that is too easy to pay lip service to innovation and adding it as a meeting point or agenda. Instead, Spark hires, trains, values, incents and rewards across the intangibles of culture – beliefs, expectations, sense of one’s self.

While Management knows that driving this mindset throughout an organization is tricky, they realize it absolutely cannot and will not happen without complete buy-in at the top.

“People treat risk as exclusively negative and innovation as an incremental force,” said Clark. “But our industry is in its infancy and full of very smart people, technology, and capital. We’ve tried to realize that there are good risks too – risks that costs will come down or prices or demand will increase.”

“Innovation doesn’t happen neatly on a white board or on the front side of bidding on a project. Sometimes you need to trust in your team and your partners and know that your people will � nd a way that is cheaper, faster, or better,” he added.

2. Focus on OutcomesOne of the approaches that Management feels has served their team well is to shift their focus in projects to out-comes; away from a focus on ‘how to’ towards ‘what to’ achieve and in what timeframe.

“We try to paint the picture in regard to where we want to end up and hold our teams accountable for achieving this in an agreed timeframe.” said Clark. “We made a conscious decision not to micromanage from day one and it has been a good approach”.

“As Management, our role has become one of enabling and keeping teams resourced, aware-of, and focused on driving toward outcomes and results. It is amazing how much creative energy gets expended in administrating for admin’s sake,” he added.

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PART 2: CREATING A CULTURE OF INNOVATION

People treat risk as exclusively negative and innovation as an incremental force, but our industry is in its infancy and full of very smart people, technology, and capital. As Management, our role has become one of enabling and keeping teams resourced, aware-of, and focused on driving toward outcomes and results. It is amazing how much creative energy gets expended in administrating.”

Andrew Clark | Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Spark Power Corp

3. Listen Often and ActivelyThe Founders know that in top organizations, insights and ideas come from anywhere; inside the organization or out and that sometimes novices or outsiders provide insights that lead to new approaches. They feel that most employees don’t believe they are looked to for innovation and that organizations are awash with good ideas but they generally aren’t invited or solicited.

“We try to be incredibly open-minded when it comes to new ideas and we actively solicit input from everyone,” said Sparaga. “We also know that we don’t hold all the cards when it comes to ideas, so encourage this same spirit of openness and collaboration with groups one normally wouldn’t go looking for their next insight from; like a competitor or a government policy maker.”

4. Fail Small and Lean to Win BigSparaga and Clark are both fans of building lean and realize that not every initiative is going to succeed, but that customer validation (or the absence thereof ) via small “experiments” provides indication of success or failures.

“We have had a couple of initiatives that aligned with our business and made sense on paper, but never found customer validation in real life, so we shuttered them and moved on,” said Clark, “But we brought customers into the mix early and when we didn’t � nd support for our assumptions, we were quick to declare ‘fail-ure’ and focus our energies on the next project,”

“No one likes to admit they were wrong, but if you can set up small early experiments to assess validation, you can avoid a potential failure. It’s about � nding customers and tweaking a value proposition on the smallest amount of resources, not being right or wrong,” Clark added.

5. Don’t Apologize for Driving a Cultural Vision Clark and Sparaga take an aggressive approach to building, monitoring, and guarding company culture at Spark. They had great con� dence in their ability to in� uence culture amongst their organic business but were sensitive to how this would carry into acquisitions of companies with their own established culture.

They wondered, for example, about potential op-tics and response (amongst new team members) to Spark’s corporate facilities that were fun and contemporary while they planned to keep � eld o� ces modest. They took deliberate strategies to identify and manage these sorts of potential issues as part of their internal communications/integration strategies.

“We invite new � eld guys into the o� ce for social and training events as often as possible. We are proud of our headquarters and make a point to explain how it supports the culture we’re trying to build,” said Clark. “There is this natural tendency among managers to feel like they are playing into that age-old image of corporate excesses at the expense of the worker. But we know that’s not what is going on here and we hide from nothing, and make our facilities a point of pride and a manifestation of our culture,” he added.

“Of course we know having ping-pong tables or a bar makes for some easy fodder for “digs” and “ribbing” but we keep a sense of humor when we’re being teased. In cases where feelings seem more than just good-natured fun we use these as an opportunity to have a conversation about what we’re trying to do and the culture we’re building. Every employee may not agree with what we’re doing but we’re con� dent they respect our passion and conviction,” said Clark

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We invite new � eld guys into the

o� ce for social and training events

as often as possible. We are proud

of our headquarters and make a

point to explain how it supports the

culture we’re trying to build.”

Andrew Clark | Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Spark Power Corp

Sparaga and Clark both feel that if you are truly trying to build culture you’re going to need to take it to your people’s ‘doorsteps’ to discuss, debate, and defend it. The pair believes that by repeatedly ‘walking the walk’ and staying true to their vision, that employees begin to trust, respect, and adopt the culture.

Spark Power continues to focus on its culture of innovation as a key plank in the company’s growth strategy. Sparaga and Clark know that the Company’s small size allowed them to rapidly develop innovative strategies and tactics and implement them quickly. Spark uses its small size to make and implement decisions quickly; allowing them to be � rst to market and rapidly direct resources and team members toward implementation.

Sparaga and Clark feel that small companies should focus on being innovative. As Richard Branson has said, “Small businesses are nimble and bold and can often teach much larger com-panies a thing or two about innovations that can change entire industries.” But as Spark Power has built a critical mass and is now well into adoles-cence, Sparaga and Clark know that their next challenge is proliferating and institutionalizing this strategic asset into their expanded � eet.

While they are still early in this battle, the Found-ers have no plans to diverge from their core strat-egy; to take on di� cult issues from within a cli-mate of healthy creative tension, inspiration and pride. They believe that no other tools have the same ability to in� uence productivity, engage-ment, and employee satisfaction.

“When people are inspired by their company strategy and leadership, they do better work because they care,” said Sparaga. “It’s not about working harder or longer, it’s about feeling valued and feeling con� dant to contribute towards some bigger goals because you know you’ll be heard. This is when innovation occurs” he added.

Clark suggests that the next chapter in their playbook is about setting goals and sustaining buy-in to these goals as the Company expands.

“With early success, our fear is that we move one step closer to complacency every time things go well,” said Clark. “Start-ups take on a “pirate culture” and can sustain it more easily based on their size and stage. They attract inno-vators and disrupters in and of themselves in many cases.”

“It’s how you sustain that culture of insurgency and tenacity when you’ve come ‘inside the tent’ that matters. If you can bottle that, you are have institutionalized and weaponized sustained innovation in a Company”, said Clark.

So for now ,Sparaga and Clark focus on picking their next set of battles by setting stretch goals for their teams and creating buy-in for these goals.

“We think the secret sauce in creating innovation is to set goals that are very di� cult to achieve but just possible enough that our teams have the con� dence and desire to achieve them,” said Sparaga.

“Stretch goals require new approaches and create commitment. If we can get this right, the future is ours. Innovation can’t be a one-time thing. “

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SUMMARY: NEXT CHAPTER FOR SPARK POWER

When people are inspired by their com-pany strategy and leadership, they do better work because they care. It’s not about working harder or longer, it’s about feeling valued and feeling con� dant to contribute towards some bigger goals because you know you’ll be heard. This is when innovation occurs.”

Jason Sparaga | Co-Founder & Co-CEO, Spark Power Corp