I coined the phrase vibe officing because I think we’re at this moment where technology should be able to help us be more flowy through the built environment, to seek things that we need for ourselves. or to be with others and maybe we go to our own office, maybe we go to some kind of third place, maybe one day we’re taking autonomous vehicles because I see Waymo’s driving around right outside. - Phil Kirschner
Phil Kirschner returns to Work 20XX with a fresh perspective on how we actually get work done, and exploring a concept he calls “vibe officing.” And yes, it’s a verb. As Phil puts it, “technology should help us be more human,” navigating between spaces, people, and pulse moments with greater flow and fewer barriers.
Sitting face to face from Running Remote in Austin, Phil shares practical insights for leaders navigating change for their teams and organizations, culture shifts, and compliance challenges, with an update on New York City’s Local Law 97.
Please join me in welcoming Phil Kirschner back to the Work 20XX podcast from Running Remote.
As founder of PK Consulting, former McKinsey expert, and veteran of WeWork’s meteoric ride, Phil has seen firsthand how organizations build, adapt, and sometimes stall. His new newsletter, The Workline, has quickly become essential reading for workplace strategists, changemakers, and executives trying to align culture, operations, and experience. We dug a little deeper into a few choice editions.
Thanks again Phil.
Recorded April 24, Running Remote, Austin
Special thanks to Liam Martin, Egor Borushko, Ana Maria Bennett & Team Running Remote
Phil Kirschner v2: Vibe, Pulse, Transparency, Nudge | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep45 from Running Remote
Phil Kirschner v2: Vibe, Pulse, Transparency, Nudge | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep45 from Running Remote
English Transcript
© Copyright 2025 Menlo Creek Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved
Cold Open:
Okay.
In three, two, one.
Jeff Frick:
Hey welcome back everybody Jeff Frick here coming to you from actually Running Remote in Austin. Work 20XX on the road. I'm excited to get out and see so many friends and community people that I've met over the last few years in this thing to actually see them in person. And this is one of those guys I got to see him in New York sometime but here we are in Austin. So our next guest he’s Phil Kirschner the founder of PK Consulting Phil, great to see you.
Phil Kirschner:
Good to see you in the flesh.
Jeff Frick:
in the flesh.
Phil Kirschner:
here in Austin
Jeff Frick:
Yeah.
Phil Kirschner:
Yes and New York next time
Jeff Frick:
So you're in this, interesting little time. You’re no longer at McKinsey you were at WeWork and now we're going to see what's coming up next. So you're doing a very productive thing here with PK Consulting.
Phil Kirschner:
I’m doing my own thing again which is interesting because I did it between WeWork and McKinsey I never thought I would work for myself It was a little bit out of necessity having WeWork kind of implode the way it did when I was there the first time it was a fascinating time to try it I guess right at a moment of extreme demand for workplace strategists types in kind of core pandemic times. But it taught me a huge amount about like What it means to do individual business development and websites and writing and all these things being on your own So fast forward after doing that for about a year and a half and then three years at McKinsey. Thankfully when I chose to leave I kind of just blew the dust off my CRM and turned on the machine again and it didn’t feel so crazy Which, as I think about even like for my kids who are very young, but it’s going to be much more common for them probably in 10, 15, 20 years to be weaving in and out of different forms of employment
Jeff Frick:
Oh, for sure.
Phil Kirschner:
or gig work or I do halves and halves so having done it myself has been really informative and fun.
Jeff Frick:
Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I mean, my grandfather worked for AT&T for for years and years and years and years and retired and got his big fat pension and then blew all the actuarials because he lived the 100. That's a different story.
Phil Kirschner::
Different story
Jeff Frick:
So let's talk about some of your, episodes on Workline. I think you got some really cool things so one of them recently you talked about the four forces of inertia. Or excuse me? The four forces that are holding people back. Inertia was one of them.
Phil Kirschner:
Yeah, so that, oh you’re amazing that you’ve gone and checked that today cause that’s coming out on Thursday but I’m happy to tell you about it now.
Jeff Frick:
Oh, I’m ahead of the curve
Phil Kirschner:
That’s okay, yeah, you’re ahead of the curve
Jeff Frick: Oh I registered.
Phil Kirschner:
I know, I know, I really appreciate it Yes. So what you hinted at, I despite writing and speaking for years I’d never kind of focused my writing in any way especially on LinkedIn one day it might have been very data oriented McKinsey reports and then the next day me spouting my mouth off about something a broker said somewhere about the office. I don’t know and everything in between. And so I launched a newsletter called The Workline two months ago now. That word came really from the idea of like trying to guide people on the path to the future work instead of just shouting about what it’s going to be. And I think having started as a practitioner, I’ve always been sort of see myself and seen by others as a bit of like a sherpa like come with me I want to help you do the weird change thing. So like I will help you on the Workline. And the sort of double entendre. I realized after the fact is I’m I’m very tall as you now know in person and have a mixed background of IT, HR and Real Estate So I tend to think I can like see over the lines of the organization and help people that way So that's where the name came from.
Jeff Frick
I like it. And I love the graphic.
Phil Kirschner:
Thank you yes, my half head. Grey haired guy, easy to see.
Jeff Frick:
Yeah. You're half a head, half a Phil.
Phil Kirschner:
But I’ve been trying to share like share practical stories that people really in the weeds of leading change for workplace and the future of work can hopefully use to inspire something to unblock barriers to change I’m still exploring with what I'm talking about kind of week over week profiles of individual companies like Atlassian kind of explainers on the nature of clear digital ways of working more sharing our work rhythms and the newsletter that will come out this coming Thursday I’m not sure when this video comes out, is on a something called the Four Forces diagram or the forces diagram Right which is part of the ‘Jobs to be done’ framework
Jeff Frick:
Good old Michael Porter A new version of Michael Porter here.
Phil Kirschner:
Well there’s yeah, there’s multiple forces diagrams, right. Like McKinsey’s got one everybody’s got one but the four forces diagram is designed to help figure out Again, for the ‘jobs to be done’ frameworks. So it comes from this mindset of we as humans hire and fire services and products to meet certain criteria for us and if you’re thinking about, ahh I used to buy like iPhones and now I'm going to switch to like Google phones what's holding me back or pushing me in that direction so it describes both, literally, two forces in the direction that I want to go or I want someone to go So what’s pushing me from my current state What’s pulling me for my future state or to the future state and then what anxiety might I have about that future state and what inertia or habit do I have that holds me back and it's it is not the most comprehensive or complicated model that I know for getting to the bottom of resistance to change but it’s a really easy one for anyone to try. And I hope that my little explainer encourages someone to give it a whirl if they feel stuck with something.
Jeff Frick:
Right, right Do you find on the four forces I always think of aviation, right. Because you have gravity and you have lift, and then you have propulsion and you have drag, and it's all a big trade off, right?
Phil Kirschner:
Exactly the same
Jeff Frick:
You can change the wing, but you, you're always picking up one and giving up the other.
Phil Kirschner:
Exactly
Jeff Frick:
Do you find those are pretty interrelated forces?
Phil Kirschner:
I mean, I think that that model works like 100% It’s just about balance and something that’s really I’ll hear a lot for workplace change like Oh the users don’t like it but the group leading that change hasn’t been guided through the process to figure out like why don’t they is it that they they don’t like the thing your selling them? or they’re actually so in love with the current state or have not been convinced that anything is wrong with the current state they just don’t want to move. It’s not even like they don’t like what you’re selling they’ve not decided that they need anything. And it's not so difficult to distinguish but it’s very uncommon so many change programs just leap right into tell them about the new thing and they’re going to figure it out and they’re going to love it which almost never happens.
Jeff Frick:
Yeah, never happening. Okay, you had another really cool one talking about the Vibe. You know, I mean one of the huge topics of this conference is all about culture and engagement and well-being and all these things that are very much rolled up into vibe. So talk about the vibe and how the vibe is changing and how you get a better vibe.
Phil Kirschner:
Yes So it came from two things like so as somebody who consumes a lot of newsletters I was seeing a lot of people talking about kind of the vibe economy at this moment the particular one being vibe coding So AI tools allowing people to go from like idea to simple product
Jeff Frick:
Just like that?
Phil Kirschner:
very quickly. Even if you don't know how to code. And once it makes something for you. You’re just like yeah, I like this, I don’t like that It’s all very loose and goosey and was inspired originally by a tweet from one of the original Tesla AI guys and so fist it was vibe coding and then vibe revenue and all this stuff and I then coined the phrase vibe officing because I think we’re at this moment where technology should be able to help us like just be more flowy through the built environment to seek things that we need for ourselves. or to be with others and maybe we go to our own office maybe we go to some kind of third place maybe one day we’re taking autonomous vehicles because I see Waymo’s
Jeff Frick:
Yeah, Waymo's are here.
Phil Kirschner:
driving around right outside. And it shouldn’t be that hard to just go with the flow instead of the static model that we’re used to. but it relates to existing real estate conversations because a lot of designer, architects, and workplace types will talk about Vibes, as like the noun Oh, there's good vibes here we have a coffee shop vibes. And then there are people who will plan spaces to be vibrant as the, or kind of like vibrancy but vibrant is the adjective. Even CBRE in a major kind of occupancy insights report a couple of months ago talked about like vibrancy indexes and how people you need to be in a place in order for it to feel vibrant
Jeff Frick:
to have it vibrant
Phil Kirschner:
But my model, as like vibe officing I sort of imagine, it’s the verb it’s the thing you do. It’s not just the energy around us or what you’re trying to design but it is the action that we take and the way that technology somewhat counterintuitively let’s us be more human about those choices.
Jeff Frick:
This is a perfect segue. You have another one on really taking the pulse. So what is the vibe? You got to take the pulse and really getting a better feel for what is going on in the organization.
Phil Kirschner:
Yeah, so that article was about really understanding like rhythms of the business or cadences of the business the major you know heartbeat or pulse moments either for regular meetings regular decisions regular communications regular events. And it's something that I think we take for granted. And something also that leaders tend to know intuitively. Like board meetings are the first week of every other month. or something, they know. But it’s not transparent, hardly ever and in particular in a more distributed and remote environment where like people are coming and going a lot of the time I think there’s tremendous value in the transparency of those rhythms so that I can plug myself into that. Whether I’m planning gatherings, like Oh, you shouldn’t try to plan a team gathering the same week of every other month when the board meets. It’s just like you can’t do that, and it’s so like seemingly difficult to create the mega calendar of every regular meeting or every regular cadence in every group in the whole company but again AI makes that possible today so that if I’m just trying to plan something even a new like roll out of a product. Airbnb was just on the stage saying that they do two major releases a year. And that guides everything for everybody. And like That's more than a pulse, that’s a major drumbeat. So at that level it’s transparent but when you get down to individual departments Why shouldn't I be able to know when the marketing group that I’m not in meets for regular community events cause maybe I have an idea that I can bring to them. Absent that information and I’ve experienced this first hand you’re sending emails and having calls or meetings just to find out when some other group get’s together and that’s crazy. Like I should just be able to look that up And then assert something if I have ideas for how to best use of my time in that rhythm.
Jeff Frick:
Right And I love how you extend it that really helps define the culture and the vibe because like you said I don’t have to go chase every stupid email to find out every stupid thing that's going on.
Phil Kirschner:
Yeah, we need a culture of search first as someone said earlier this morning
Jeff Frick:
So last time we talked I don't think local law 97 had come in in New York. I think it has since then. I know you're not super directly involved in big transactions, but I'm curious your perception. How has that changed things? I know when we last we talked, you know, you said there's kind of this middle tier of buildings that are going to be in real trouble, and this might be the tipping point. So has any that come to fruition? What's going on?
Phil Kirschner:
Yeah. I’m involved in that I mean I live in a building that is subject to local law 97 So for anyone listening to this who doesn‘t know
Jeff Frick:
Not just offices, but apartments and condos
Phil Kirschner:
Not just offices. Any building over 25,000 square feet. So New York City now has an energy efficiency law buildings get grades and over time there will be penalties if you can’t meet certain requirements. And as said, it’s been very real for me as an owner of an apartment in a building that has to comply with this law And hearing our kind of Co-op board talk about Yeah, the first line of compliance like, we’ll be okay. The second line of compliance we will probably have to do a big thing. Replace a boiler. Do something like big and dramatic which like the residents will have to pay for in some way. And then when you look beyond that one beyond maybe like level two you’re going to start to get into and this maybe where the interesting parallels for office is we as a building community are going to have to start to cooperate and behave and even collaborate in certain ways because the fines and measurement come at total building load. And that is influenced by the behavior of individual apartments. So we all have certain kinds of equipment we all have terrible light bulbs whatever it is We’re blowing air conditioners 24x7 We’re goin to screw ourselves like as a building. And you could think about that from the occupier from the real estate side at some point even if you have the smartest building in the world You’re gonna have to have populations of people who are willing to be kind of nudged around so that the building for example could you know, shut a floor on a Friday when only some people are around and say I’m not gonna to condition that floor today I’m not going to run the elevator I moved all your meetings I’ve rebooked all your desks I’ve done all the stuff you just have to follow the nudge and that’s like the at scale example of you know communities will have to collaborate even on the employer side to achieve these sustainability ratings. But Today, yeah, most of the New York City building stock does not meet these kind of 2025 - 2030 requirements And the costs are going to get passed to somebody. It just remains to be seen who that is
Jeff Frick:
Do you think it gets baked into the HOA at some point in time?
Phil Kirschner:
Yeah, Somebody right I there’s a rental building on my block which has a much lower rating than my building does and I’m thinking like where mine’s a coop, so everyone’s an owner but in that building it’s a rental They are going to add it to the fee somewhere and I assume that that will create a bit of a flight to quality, as it should
Jeff Frick:
Well, Phil, I dig ‘The Workline’ Keep it up.
Phil Kirschner:
Thank you so much
Jeff Frick:
I know, some point you're going to be at some other cool big company like WeWork or McKinsey or one of those great places.
Phil Kirschner:
I hope, thank you so much for saying that
Jeff Frick:
But, in the meantime, we're all enjoying ‘The Workline’ and it's really great and useful information
Phil Kirschner:
Thank you Jeff. I appreciate it.
Jeff Frick:
and great to meet you in person as well
Phil Kirschner:
Thanks. Take Care.
Jeff Frick:
All right. He's Phil I'm Jeff You're watching Work 20XX coming to you from Austin, Texas at Running Remote Thanks for watching. Thanks for listening. Catch you next time. Take care.
Cold Close:
All right.
Boom.
Wow.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Phil Kirschner v2: Vibe, Pulse, Transparency, Nudge | Work 20XX podcast with Jeff Frick Ep45 from Running Remote
© Copyright 2025 Menlo Creek Media, LLC, All Rights Reserved
Links and References
LinkedIn
https://www.linkedin.com/in/philkirschner/
The Workline Newsletter by Phil Kirschner
https://www.flexos.work/the-workline
https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-workline-7298836897030680577/
Phil Kirschner dot com
https://www.philkirschner.com/
—--
Select Issues of The Workline
—--
#11 Chief of Work: A Modern(a) C‑Suite Role
https://www.flexos.work/the-workline/chief-of-work-a-modern-a-c-suite-role
#8 Four Forces That Make or Break Your Change Initiative [Free Worksheet]
https://www.flexos.work/the-workline/four-forces-that-make-or-break-your-change-initiative
#7 Vibe Officing: The Antidote to Office Mandates
https://www.flexos.work/the-workline/vibe-officing-the-antidote-to-office-mandates
#5 Take Your Pulse: How Rhythms of the Business Create Order in Hybrid Chaos
https://www.flexos.work/the-workline/take-your-pulse-how-rhythms-of-the-business-create-order-in-hybrid-chaos
#2 Why Every Change Program Needs a North Star—and How to Create One
https://www.flexos.work/the-workline/why-every-change-program-needs-a-north-star-how-to-create-one
#1 Exclusive Case Study: Atlassian Humanized the Office with One New Metric
https://www.flexos.work/the-workline/exclusive-case-study-atlassian-humanized-the-office-with-one-new-metric
—--
Vibe Coding - Andrej Karpathy
https://x.com/karpathy/status/1886192184808149383
There's a new kind of coding I call "vibe coding", where you fully give in to the vibes, embrace exponentials, and forget that the code even exists. It's possible because the LLMs (e.g. Cursor Composer w Sonnet) are getting too good. Also I just talk to Composer with SuperWhisper so I barely even touch the keyboard. I ask for the dumbest things like "decrease the padding on the sidebar by half" because I'm too lazy to find it. I "Accept All" always, I don't read the diffs anymore. When I get error messages I just copy paste them in with no comment, usually that fixes it. The code grows beyond my usual comprehension, I'd have to really read through it for a while. Sometimes the LLMs can't fix a bug so I just work around it or ask for random changes until it goes away. It's not too bad for throwaway weekend projects, but still quite amusing. I'm building a project or webapp, but it's not really coding - I just see stuff, say stuff, run stuff, and copy paste stuff, and it mostly works
Jobs To Be Done: Theory to Practice by Anthony W. Ulwick
https://strategyn.com/jobs-to-be-done/
Jobs To Be Done: 4 Real-World Examples by Matt Gavin, HBS
https://online.hbs.edu/blog/post/jobs-to-be-done-examples
Jobs to Be Done: Definition and Framework for Your Business
By Coursera
https://www.coursera.org/articles/jobs-to-be-done
What is the Jobs to Be Done Framework (JTBD)? By Jeff Link, Built In
https://builtin.com/articles/jobs-to-be-done-framework
Michael Porter’s Five Forces Framework
Harvard Business Review - Porter's Five Forces
Porter’s five forces analysis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porter%27s_five_forces_analysis
How things fly - The Four Forces
https://howthingsfly.si.edu/forces-flight/four-forces
2024-Aug-15
The Pursuit of Vibrancy: What Makes an Effective Workplace?
By Jen Siebrits, Richard Holberton, CBRE Insights
https://www.cbre.com/insights/articles/the-pursuit-of-vibrancy-what-makes-an-effective-workplace
New York City Local Law 97
Deadline Enforcement Begins: 2024
Referenced as a key sustainability compliance driver for both residential and commercial buildings over 25,000 sq ft.
NYC Buildings - Sustainability
https://www.nyc.gov/site/buildings/codes/sustainability.page
NYC Local Law 97
https://www.nyc.gov/site/sustainablebuildings/ll97/local-law-97.page
Breaking down New York real estate’s path to sustainability
Urban Green Council’s John Mandyck on Local Law 97, climate tech and carbon trading,
Hiten Samtani, April 22, 2021
https://therealdeal.com/new-york/2021/04/22/breaking-down-new-york-real-estates-path-to-sustainability/
------
A selection of Phil’s podcast appearances
--------
2025-Apr-10
The Future of Work: Corporate Collaboration in the Phygital Landscape
Design Nerds Anonymous podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZF93AlpmgA&ab_channel=SURROUNDPodcastNetwork
2025-April-03
Putting Your Campus in the Hot Seat: What Is Your Physical Space Doing for You?
EdUp Campus Planning podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/12-putting-your-campus-in-the-hot-seat-what-is-your/id1785957454?i=1000702093709
2025-Mar-16
Designing Workplaces for Human Potential
Wellbeing Ignites Welldoing podcast
https://open.spotify.com/episode/0w8L3vJAXgRdKmVp96mnVj?si=ACxaMF7GSain3t4Aa6dYCg
2025-Feb-25
Strategic Productization of Work Experiences
Transforming Work with Sophie Wade podcast
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/phil-kirschner-strategic-productization-of-work/id1502313782?i=1000696510838
2025-Feb-11
The Productivity Puzzle
The Nowhere Office Podcast
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5rRC1b0Brw8GiIBpQma5eG?si=tAn2wwhESQGkXFd3ec0vSA
2024-Nov-26
The Future Workplace: Where DEX and Real Estate Collide
The DEX Show: A Show for IT Change Makers podcast
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5lp3Kk36Th4Ro4zwdPcwjw?si=saYCQLCwRJebWUKnUQK5Ig
2024-May-30
Ep 12: Virtual First, but Not Place-Less: McKinsey’s Phil Kirschner on the Future of Work
Podcast: Heroes of Modern Work podcast
https://www.skedda.com/heroes-of-modern-work/ep-12-mckinseys-phil-kirschner-future-of-work
2024-Feb-11
Phil Kirschner: Real Estate, Futures, Workplace
Work 20XX podcast
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RF7pCVoAI0&ab_channel=TurntheLenswithJeffFrick
2024-Feb-05
The Economist and Researcher Perspective with Phil Kirschner & Ryan Luby
Work Design Magazine podcast
Part 1 - https://www.workdesign.com/2024/02/the-economist-researchers-perspective-with-phil-kirschner-ryan-luby-ep6-1/
Part 2 - https://www.workdesign.com/2024/02/the-economist-and-researcher-perspective-with-phil-kirschner-ryan-luby-ep-6-2/
2022-Oct-26
Phil Kirschner - Activating the workplace
Ollie on Work podcast
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3gRgqLHB197JMDgrgXndc7?si=gssvoZ68SSqSH-diHolsJg
—-----
A selection of McKinsey pieces
—--------
Corporate real estate: From bricks and mortar to people and places,
By Phil Kirschner, Britta Lietke, John Means, Abhishek Shirali 2022-Dec-05
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/operations/our-insights/operations-blog/corporate-real-estate-from-bricks-and-mortar-to-people-and-places
Your office needs a purpose,
By Phil Kirschner, Adrian Kwok, Matt Schrimper, Brooke Weddle 2022-August-29
https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/people-and-organizational-performance/our-insights/the-organization-blog/your-office-needs-a-purpose
—----------------
Recorded April 30, Fair Market, Austin
Special thanks to Liam Martin, Egor Borushko, Ana Maria Bennett & Team Running Remote
—--------------------------------------------
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