21 Questions Behind WORK then PLACE
Stories, Surprises, and Strong Opinions from Sara & Corinne
One of the best parts of writing WORK then PLACE together was discovering how our different experiences and instincts complemented each other. We’ve been deep in conversations about work for years—sometimes agreeing, sometimes challenging each other, and always learning.
As we head toward launch, we thought it would be fun to pull back the curtain and let you get to know us better. So we turned the tables and interviewed each other—21 Questions–style.
On the book and the work
What’s the first spark that eventually led you to write WORK then PLACE?
S: Two major factors impacted my desire to write this book: 1. Facilities and Real Estate teams are historically tactical and struggle to tell the story leadership needs to hear to understand the field. 2. Executives and leaders often view Facilities and Real Estate as straightforward and overlook the significance of aligning them with business objectives. Creating clarity in these two areas can dramatically move the field forward, which is precisely what this book aims to do.
C: The very first spark I had to write a book happened toward the end of my time at WeWork, reflecting on my work and its impact, especially the HQ Transformation my team and I led in 2018. It remains some of the best work of my career, but it was flawed because the built environment changed before the behaviors did, and in a high-pressure environment like WeWork in 2018/2019, it created added strain on employees. I realized then that, no matter how thoughtful and strategic a workplace transformation is, if a company’s culture and systems are not prepared to embrace it, the transformation will ultimately fail. Instead of settling for less innovation and change, I wanted to create a roadmap for teams to start with behavioral and cultural changes first, so they could then shape the built environment to support *what is* instead of *what should be*.
What’s one thing you believed about workplace strategy 10 years ago that you don’t believe now?
C: Ten years ago, I believed change management was about sharing information about a shift occurring within a business to help employees prepare and adjust. Today, I know that change management, in the way it’s commonly understood, is almost never needed if transformation is informed by organizational trust in employees and their insights.
S: Ten years ago, I believed workplace strategy was actually about places. In reality, Workplace strategy is clearly about people; places are just the “sparkly” outcome.
Which part of the book was the hardest to write—and why?
S: The first section, where we set the foundational knowledge, was hard to whittle down into the most important stuff. There are so many things that impact the workplace and culture, and it took a lot of effort to develop a holistic perspective that was informative but not overwhelming.
C: The first section took the longest to get right, but the hardest part, for me, was the editing process. Sara did the lionshare of the writing for our first draft, and I took the lead on shaping the manuscript’s final form. Even with warnings from fellow authors, I went into the editing process laughably naive. What I thought would be a couple of months of shifting language and tweaking the draft’s structure wound up being a ten-month process of killing our darlings and completely reconstructing parts of the book to create a cohesive flow. It was Sisyphean at times, but I’m so proud of the result.
If readers take away just one idea from the book, what do you hope it is?
C: Start where you are—make changes that are practical, not aspirational, and continue to adapt.
S: Workplace is an ever-evolving process, not only a place.
What’s a workplace trend you think is overhyped, and one that’s underrated?
S: Return to office is WAY overhyped, the reality of the world has changed, an office is ONE workplace, not THE workplace. Truly understanding and designing Culture is under-hyped; Culture has become a buzzword rather than a truly important action in business success.
C: Overrated: Productivity Theater. Our work culture, especially in the US, glorifies hustle and busyness at the cost of our health. New research confirms that over 80% of workers are at high risk of burnout, which can cost businesses over $300B annually (ANNUALLY!!) in lost productivity. Underrated: designing better ways of working—like creating restrictions around meetings—so people can spend their time well and not get burned out from back-to-back meetings, like Atlassian, GitLab, Dropbox, Shopify, Slack, and many others already have.
On each other
What’s one thing you’ve learned from working with me that’s changed how you think about work?
S: Corinne is the yin to my yang, and the importance of that alternate skillset has been very evident as we have written this book. I wouldn’t say it’s changed how I think about work, but it validated the importance of appreciating those who bring alternate skillsets.
C: What Sara said. Also, being on different coasts—each going through big personal changes while also writing this book—reinforced my belief that asynchronous and distributed work can create incredible outputs when there’s a clear vision, accountability, and a straightforward (but still flexible) course of action.
If you had to describe my working style in three words, what would they be?
C: Sara’s approaches work with enthusiasm, creativity, and a certainty that no challenge is too great to overcome.
S: Corinne is an intellectual, a storyteller, and a deep thinker, all with a wonderful layer of confidence and drive towards results.
What’s the most surprising thing about me that readers wouldn’t guess?
S: Corinne may be a New Yorker and seem solely focused on academics, but she is a spiritual, nature girl at heart. She even has her degree in religious studies and philosophy.
C: Sara is a classically trained singer! One day, we’ll do a karaoke duet together, but my true favorite little-known fact about Sara is that she bakes [very elaborate] birthday cakes for kids in the foster system—designed based on their hobbies and interests—so they can feel special and celebrated on their day.
What’s your favorite “Sara/Corinne-ism” or quote from our years of working together?
C: My favorite Sara-ism is truly her innate generosity; this project wouldn’t have happened without it. (Hon. Mention: the face Sara makes when you tell her she’s been talking on mute for at least 30 seconds.)
S: Corinne randomly said one day, “Workplace is a lot like Rome, all roads lead to it, and ironically, there is often pizza” —this lives rent-free in my brain. She can perfectly create an analogy for just about anything that eloquently makes it make sense.
When was the moment you realized our WORK then PLACE model would actually work?
S: I had the advantage of building the process in my work, so I knew there was a model that would work, but it came together into language that made sense as we wrote the book, and Corinne made it approachable.
C: WORK then PLACE draws from so much of our professional experiences, so we’ve always been confident that it worked, but I really realized that our approach was viable when I looked at the data about burnout and the increasing demand for adaptability within the workforce. Modern work is changing faster than most organizations can keep up with, and WORK then PLACE is how they can systematize change to empower employees with the resources they need to be successful.
On careers and backstory
What’s the weirdest or most unexpected job you’ve ever had?
C: I was president of my sorority in college, and I’ll leave it at that.
S: I built a reception desk once. I’m definitely not qualified for that, but we were trying a workplace concept and needed a design that didn’t exist, so I became a carpenter. I’ve found more skilled tradespeople since.
What’s a career risk you’re glad you took—even if it didn’t work out the way you planned?
S: I was employee #2 at Hulu. I almost turned down the job offer because it was originally an assistant role, and I wanted a higher pay rate. BUT, it was the role that changed my career trajectory. Workplace as a career didn’t exist at that time, and due to Hulu’s focus on supporting employees, I was able to create it within the company and ultimately impact the field.
C: WeWork. I maintained a healthy level of skepticism about WeWork and the startup experience long before and all the way through my interview process. I waffled on whether I’d actually take the job for weeks until a mentor and friend snapped me out of it and said, “Take the damn job, you’ll regret it if you don’t!” My experience—and the friendships I built—at WeWork changed my life and my work for the better, and I absolutely would have regretted not being there.
Which past role taught you the most about leadership?
S: Each of my roles has taught me something different about leadership. At Hulu I focused on leadership foundations, at Honey/PayPal I learned how to better translate to executives, at Netflix I learned how to translate an existing culture into meaningful action rather than build a culture around action as I had done at Hulu and Honey, at Riot Games I learned how to shift change management approaches, running my own consultancy I learned how to connect leadership, change management and culture for a range of current realities. At CBRE, I am learning how to do it all at scale. Leadership is a constant evolution, pending the current reality of any given company.
C: For me, there’ve been leadership lessons at each stop on my career path, but there are three that stand out most. My roles at AMEX and WeWork taught me the most about leadership around a subject matter and how to partner with people to create a shared vision, not just fight for dominance and control of a certain body of work. My role at RXR, a commercial landlord in New York, is where I learned the most about people leadership and what it takes to build a team from scratch, mentor people, and empower them to create good work and grow into leaders themselves.
Who’s a mentor or influence that shaped how you approach work today?
C: My friend and former boss, Anne, taught me so much when I worked for her at AMEX in my mid-twenties. She coached me through the transition from a lower-level employee to a strategic manager and domain expert in workplace and workplace strategy. What I learned from her about organizations, behavior, and life in general was so meaningful to me. So many of my core beliefs about work and workplace can be traced back to conversations we had and ideas we wanted to build together.
S: I have been lucky to have a suite of incredible mentors in my life, companies, bosses, and teams, but my biggest career influencers have been:
Rob Waller (EVP at CBRE) - The broker that supported multiple companies I’ve worked with, who took it on himself to teach me the tactical ins and outs of Real Estate and Facilities early in my career, and was the stable foundation to my crazy ideas as my career progressed into strategic focus.
Jim O’Gorman - The Chief People Officer at Hulu, as I shifted my focus on the workplace towards strategic and learned how to be a leader of teams. He was incredibly patient in teaching me the value of bringing the right solutions, in the right way, for your audience, linked to the right company objectives, at the right time.
Jason Kilar - The first CEO of Hulu, an amazingly courageous innovator, and the person who said “yes” to allowing me to create a workplace team within Hulu (with support) when it was really just a crazy idea from a young employee.
What’s the biggest professional challenge you’ve faced, and how did it change you?
S: Becoming a good leader was hard for me. I am naturally a dominant personality that can seem demanding, even if I don’t mean to be; I work at a rapid pace (often too fast for others to feel comfortable); and I drive towards results (leaving little space for team alignment if you don’t speak up quickly). I had to consciously shift my approach to teams, and it has resulted in better outcomes, team performance, and alignment. But I still feel bad for those who had to endure as I was learning how to develop into a good leader.
C: Coming to terms with the fact good workplace strategy cannot compensate for bad culture and experience. Reconciling the fact that the challenges most workplaces face are much deeper than the built environment was a tough pill to swallow, especially after working so hard to make it true. The realization changed me so fundamentally that I’ve spent the six years since my time at WeWork deliberately exploring even the most obscure angles of the workplace and what influences it. WORK then PLACE was written partly as a catharsis, and to share that knowledge and help others avoid the same pain and disillusion, and to supply them with approaches that can help their efforts have the impact they deserve.
On philosophy and the future
How do you define “good work”?
C: One of my college professors used to say, “It doesn’t matter if I agree with your argument, but it does matter whether you can back it up.” Good work, to me, is well-researched, contextualized strategies and concepts, and using them to improve circumstances with realistic, actionable solutions.
S: Results. I know that shouldn’t be the answer, but that is my reality. You can talk about it all you want, but you have to get to meaningful outcomes, or all the talk is moot. Philosophically, one of the reasons we wrote this book is that the “how” in how you get results IS actually just as important. This book is all about getting results in an effective way.
What’s one small change any company could make tomorrow that would have a big impact?
S: Listen. As a results-oriented person, I can’t emphasize enough how much listening matters in achieving results that people will actually buy into.
C: Take action on what your people—and your data—are already telling you needs fixing. You already have the answers you need to get started.
What’s your boldest prediction for the future of work?
C: The workforce of tomorrow will be trained in the humanities and ethics, not STEM, and will never work a 40-hour work week in an office (or anywhere else).
S: Knowledge workers will work flexibly for the foreseeable future. We called it 5 days per week in the office prior to COVID, but in reality, people were out of the office when other priorities came up, they needed to be at home, or they were traveling for work. I believe the notion of “5 days in the office” will eventually fade. Although some offices will remain open 5 days a week and set expectations for in-office work, people will continue to prioritize life and effectiveness, as has always been the case, despite the traditional 5-day workweek.
If you could wave a magic wand and fix one thing about modern work instantly, what would it be?
S: Having employees understand that time together has value, and having leaders understand and respect that each knowledge worker works differently.
C: The root cause of burnout.
What’s a question you wish people asked about work, but rarely do?
C: Even though we *can* do [fill-in-the-blank], should we?
S: How do we better utilize humans for their humanness?
The wildcard
If WORK then PLACE had a soundtrack, what three songs would be on it—and why?
S: I laugh at this question because we literally thought about making a WORK then PLACE soundtrack with a song quote at the beginning of each chapter. We may still do it. But, for now, my one song that represents WORK then PLACE is “New Americana” by Halsey. It talks a lot about openness to new ideas, new visions of what success is, status, seniority, and the sarcasm progress is often met with.
C: Yeah, we’ll get back to making that playlist again sometime soon. But the song that keeps rolling around in my head, and has for the now several years of the online debate about return-to-office and the future of work: Elvis Presley singing the line, “a little less conversation, a little more action, please.”
That’s our 21 Questions—for now. Writing WORK then PLACE was about exploring the questions organizations aren’t asking about work. We’d love to keep this conversation going: what would you ask us?
Drop your question in the comments, and it may show up in a future edition.
I love the soundtrack. I started adding songs to the end of my newsletters. I just feel like my life is currently set to a mixtape.