Learn how WeWork created a great team - People

BottomUp - Skills for Innovators

002 - Case Study - WeWork - People

Mike: [00:00:07] Hello, and welcome to the BottomUp podcast. This is episode two of the BottomUp podcast. I am your co-host Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by the man with the plan, Mr. Chad Owen himself.

Chad: [00:00:22] Hey Mike, and I just wanted to say thank you, listeners, for continuing to join us here on this journey into decoding and understanding WeWork. We've got part two of a four-part case study here. that comes straight from a case study that we've put up on the BottomUp.IO coursework. And, Mike, I’m curious,

if we couldn't just get right into the second P or people, and break down kind of, WeWork's successes and maybe failures when it comes to, people and their business.

Mike: [00:00:55] Totally well, much like the product side of the business that WeWork, the people side is a big tick. They got it right in a big way. And the interesting thing here is that obviously their employees were really happy up until very, very recent times, but there's a bigger learning in this, Chad, which is, and this is one of our tenants in BottomUp thinking, which is that great teams build great products. And,

if you don't have a great team, we really believe it is impossible to build a great product. And we've heard many great entrepreneurs talk about, the fact that if you want happy customers, then your customer support team need to be happy themselves. How can you imagine? Like calling up a call center.

And if everyone's very, very unhappy, there's no magical thing. that will instantly mean that they give a great customer experience. So, there is a direct, correlation. You may even say causation between great culture, great people, they make great products. And I think the story is what we have here with WeWork that the employees were really happy.

Don't you think Chad?

Chad: [00:02:05] Yeah. They certainly got, all of the benefits of working at a typical startup company. And I would say even beyond, all employees got perks, like insurance, wellness programs, unlimited sick days, which, I don't know many people have. And you know,

their work experiences would culminate in these, annual retreats that were often treated like summer camp.

I think they actually called them WeWork summer camps, but you know, places like Big Sur in California and, the coasts in England. And of course, with every startup comes your stock options and equity plans, that I'm sure you know, padded out to everyone's compensation packages.

Mike: [00:02:47] Yeah. And I think, the truth here is that. You've got to create great underlying wellness and culture in your organization. If you want to do big and ambitious things in the world. I mean culture and wellness are the things that keep everything together when it's tough. Culture and wellness are the things that when you face adversity, those are the things that get you through that stopped people quitting when it's tough times. and I think that the comprehensive nature of what they gave to employees was remarkable. Now, I think the lesson here is that you need great people in order to make great product. I think it's also fair to say that. You could argue with the unlimited cash that WeWork had for several years.

They were in a position to give so many perks. And so, I'm not going to argue that, but I think that the really positive learning here is if you take good care of folks, they will go out and build a great product. And I think we've established; they've got a great product right.

Chad: [00:03:48] Yeah. I think many of these benefits were even offered all the way down to people you know, that were, the community managers and people in charge of, operating and keeping the buildings going. So, this wasn't, things that were just offered to the leadership teams or management.

Mike: [00:04:03] Yeah, and so these benefits and perks. You could say, well, they cost a lot of money. But, if done in a proportional way, you can create really great sense of wellness. and Chad, you and I have just worked on a project with a client, which was all about creating employee wellness through design thinking.

And you can see how much people yearn to work in an environment that not only respects them and takes care of them but gives them. the benefits to have some sort of harmony in their life. And if you provide these things, it creates enormous loyalty, doesn't it?

Chad: [00:04:47] Yeah. And I think, my experience of people that are former employees, current employees, they have their own accord, have kind of created the WeWork family to support one another, both to find new jobs and opportunities within WeWork. But then when someone's ready to leave the company also, be very helpful

in, you know, going through their networks and being sure that they're also landing in a good place once they leave WeWork. And as you're saying, you know, these types of cultures, they don't just kind of happen by accident. It's very intentional and I think it speaks to the types of individuals and hard workers that WeWork has been able to recruit over the years.

Mike: [00:05:25] Yeah. So, one of the great ways that you can measure your company's culture and wellness is, doing some form of NPS, or net promoter score, asking folks how likely they would to recommend. the company to family and friends. And that can be a very good indicator of where you stand with culture.

So that's called NPS. I've done that several times in my own organizations or with clients. Very, very good. And in the case of WeWork, you can actually go to Glassdoor and there are hundreds and hundreds of reviews. Have been done by employees themselves of WeWork. And this gives you a really good, insight into actually what's going on in a company.

So, if you want to know how things are going inside of your company, this is a really good tool to use. The other thing you can do is, you know, for those of our listeners that are considering going to a new company, I would strongly recommend that you check out things like Glassdoor to see what people are actually saying.

The more informed you are about the environment, then I think it's all about your own empowerment there. And you can see here the recommendation rate. You can see an evaluation of the leadership, not only for, WeWork for thousands and thousands of, companies. I think this is an invaluable tool, don't you, Chad?

Chad: [00:06:49] I do, and one thing that we've maybe overlooked up to this point. But it would be remiss if we didn't talk about is the importance of the founding team and, or the founder, and leadership of the company. And I don't think anyone would argue, that there have been some issues with Adam Newman, one of the cofounders of WeWork.

And, so maybe lapses in judgment and good businesses stewardship, that has probably, likely led to, you know, some of the reasons why their IPO, was met with such resistance and skepticism when it was announced in August of 2019.

Mike: [00:07:28] Yeah. I think the founders bring so much to an organization, but the best teams that they put around themselves will be teams that not only do the things they ask but who will challenge them. And, I think there is perhaps too little challenge of Adam Newman too late. He's no longer with the company, but Cha...