Phil Kirschner v2: Vibe, Pulse, Transparency, Nudge | Work 20XX Ep45

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

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