Your office may be quietly working against your leadership without you realizing it.

When the space works against human behavior, it works against the leader.

But most offices weren't built with that truth in mind.

I don't believe that everyone needs to work in the office five days a week, except that I also don't believe that everyone could work on their couch for the rest of their lives and never have a human interaction at work.

When the space works against the culture you're trying to build, the collaboration you're hoping to spark, and the performance you're.

Responsible for, it is not just a space.

And if it was just a space, it wouldn't work.

Subtle cues shapes your team's energy and how a few overlooked moments can determine whether people want to show up at all.

Create human experiences for people when they're at work.

And we've been doing that for 13 years.

Hundreds of locations, millions of days at work.

In this conversation, Anna Squires Levine, president of Industrius, shows us how workspace design becomes a leadership tool.

Welcome back to Lead the Team.

I'm your host, Ben Fanning.

And this conversation that you're going to hear is is meant to challenge, inspire, and ripple out.

It's not just a podcast.

It's a positive movement to build better leaders.

And you can help by taking just 10 seconds to rate and follow on Apple, Spotify and YouTube and drop a quick review over on Apple.

This helps more bold leaders discover the show and keeps the mission alive.

Enjoy.

Anna, when you say humans need other humans, where do you see that showing up and how leaders think about their office and how people show up if.

You'Re going to come into the office?

I find people do it for one of two reasons.

Either literally, they feel more productive there, even if they're going to be on calls all day.

And secondly, and probably more importantly, they want to see other humans.

Like, I. I really believe humans need other humans.

I don't believe that everyone needs to work in the office five days a week, except that I also don't believe that everyone could work on their couch five days a week for the rest of their lives and never have a human interaction at work.

So there are a lot of ways to approach that.

But for me, what's so cool about the core of what we're trying to do here at Industrious is create human experiences for people when they're at work.

And we've been doing that for 13 years.

Hundreds of locations, millions of days at work.

It matters like it really matters.

And I can see in our data that the more our members are interacting with each other, either with their own teammates or we call them faux workers.

You know, like the people who are in your same industrious but not working for your company friends, they become business partners.

We've had members get married.

Like, those little micro interactions with other humans really shape your day, and it takes it from your experience.

How do you define hospitality?

I define hospitality as feeling seen.

Does someone know me?

Does someone see me?

Do I feel like they have my back and are in my corner?

What do you believe is one of the more overlooked or most overlooked elements of hospitality in the modern work space or workday?

Knowing people's names.

There's so much research out there that if.

If you use someone's name in an interaction, they are more likely to walk away thinking positively about that interaction.

That idea for designing for how people actually behave shows up even in your own leadership story.

Let's go back to where that actually started for you.

I remember one day in practice doing a team on team scrimmage.

Towards the end, it was a kind of crisp spring night and the kind of night where, like, they've just cut the grass, so there's grass shavings everywhere and it smells like grass.

And it's getting a little chilly, but it's nice to be out there.

And a teammate of mine who really actually was quite good at soccer kicked the ball really high down the field.

And I was playing midfield because that's the role where you run the most, but you don't actually have to do that much.

Apologies to any midfielders out there.

And for reasons that I don't remember, with this ball coming at me all the way from down the field, I decide to try to head the ball to stop it.

And I'm, like, looking at it and looking at it, and it's coming towards me and basically hits me, like, smack in the face, which did stop the ball, but did not achieve itself.

Instead of hitting the ball, you faced the ball.

Literally, I did face the ball and I fell over.

I'm like 9 or 10.

I remember the wind getting knocked out of me, like, and hobbled off the field.

And my coach, who was my friend's dad at the time, just kind of smiled at me.

And he said, well, you gave it your best look.

You know, I sat down, like, the practice went on, and it has stuck with me for so long because it could have been a moment where the team laughed at me or where the coach kind of shook his head and was like, ugh.

Like, this is why you know, you could be a professional soccer player.

And it also could have been a moment where he was like, it's okay, you know, you'll try again.

But instead, he made a joke.

And we had known each other for many years.

We actually also lived on the same street.

But it, in retrospect, I think was one of the inputs to me feeling like humor and joy are such critical parts of teamwork.

And there are ways in which using humor appropriately can really make people feel seen and feel comfortable and feel included.

And I was talking with a woman the other day named Stephanie Bloom, who's actually the head of people at a company called Framebridge, and she put words to what I've been feeling like a long time, which is humor can be a business lever in the way you lead, in the way you run teams.

So I thank Coach McWilliams and the Swarthmore Stingrays for that.

Also think it's so great that instead of yelling or getting upset or, you know, shaming the player of, oh, you didn't do it, right?

You didn't do this.

You know, they made a little joke, made it light, and just set the standard for the rest of the team.

Because I think in a microcosm, by the way, I really enjoy coaching youth sports and have my entire.

What do you coach?

Basketball, soccer, tennis.

And I think one of the things that, that comes up so often is players need to feel the courage to go for something, to try something, and you were going to head the ball and you weren't the strongest player.

But that's a bold, That's a bold move at that age.

And it's painful when it doesn't work out.

But if you, if you really come down a player or, you know, instead of laughing with them, you're laughing at them, they won't go for it next time.

And that's not you.

You want the different behavior.

So shout out that coach.

And I can see throughout your career which you're going to dive into.

You've had a career of going for stuff, even outside the boxes a little bit early on with your.

With your non profits.

And so maybe that coach, that moment, that humor unlocked a successful career.

How do you.

But going back to humor, it's also like a.

It can be tricky because humor can go dark.

It can be gallows humor.

It can turn into making fun of people, it can turn into offending people, or it can be like a gift from the universe that unifies the team.

How do you approach humor with your team and your clients?

You're right.

I think it can go off the rails, especially if it's too forced.

I. I mean, honestly, I approach it with like, what do I find funny?

And my own very particular flavor of humor tends to be kind of like Curb youb Enthusiasm meets dad jokes meets little moments that make you smile.

Okay.

Our humor is very much aligned then.

It tends to be like, I like things that are.

You could miss them, but they're clever.

I like, you know, when I read something and I know that the author has, like, thought a lot about this little turn of phrase that, you know, will matter to some people and not to others, but that I pick up and I'm like, oh, ha.

That was good.

I like things that bring smiles to people's faces because they're silly and weird and there is no reason.

But I kind of.

I feel like.

I don't know when we all exactly become adults, but the too cool for school thing, I try really hard to fight against, even though of course I feel it sometimes too.

So what that means at industrious, obviously we don't always get it right, but what that means is from the very early days, there's been a lot of laughter and a lot of not taking ourselves too seriously.

And I think that happens to align with how I want to be in the world.

But also our two co founders, really, that was who they are.

That is who they are too.

And I remember actually in this room almost 10 years ago in our industrious here in Prospect Heights in Brooklyn, on my first day, one of our co founders, Justin.

I mean, we were a team of 10 people, 10, 12 people.

He controlled the speaker from his phone for the music and he can control it wherever he was.

And he used to like, leave to whatever, go get lunch or go home to be with his kids for the night and change whatever music we had on to the steel drums version of Disney songs.

And we couldn't change it.

It was on his phone.

Like we were subjected.

You know, it's like, let it go on steel drums.

Okay.

The first time.

Okay.

Second, third time.

Yeah.

And it just like, I mean, now just the beginning.

So we place a huge priority on the kind of wholesome, clever, quirky, made you SM humor and also just fun.

I'm not saying it's every moment of the day.

Like we're, you know, we're running a business and that's a part of it.

And when the going gets tough, you've got, you know, have to find fun in ways that uplift people and don't downplay the situation, but I do think it's super unifying.

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Humor can be a leadership strategy.

It can be a leadership skill.

And, and I love the fact that you've recognized that as something like a key to success behind the industrious organization.

Yeah, that is so, so cool on the humor front too.

Do you have a go to place you go to laugh or person you listen to or what's your.

Like what.

What do you do where, you know, you can lighten the situation or for yourself or provide that for somebody else?

However you think of it.

I'm not like, I don't think anyone would say I'm a funny person.

Like, I'm not like, thinking up jokes on the fly.

I'm not the one who's gonna crack a joke in a tense meeting.

My in in with it is more brainstorming funny, zany ideas, like moments in time, experiences that people can have that will make them smile.

And my mental litmus test is something like, did something happen today that made you smile that you'd go home and tell a friend or a partner or a spouse about?

It can be tiny, but just like, was there something that made you sparkle today?

And that's pretty.

That can be personal.

Like, what makes you stop and think and smile would be totally different than for someone else.

It can be as small as actual service recovery in a hospitality setting.

Like, hey, the printer's broken.

And our team scrambles with all they've got to get you that thing printed before the meeting and delivers it to you just in time.

And you're like, thank you.

Like, I really was stressed about this.

You fixed it.

Like, that's not humor, but that is a moment of joy that made a difference.

Or it could be something actually silly.

You know, during the Paris Olympics, we hosted a virtual Olympics for our own team.

And my favorite event was the judged synchronized office chair spinning competition.

Like, you know, it's just made up.

Um, but it brought all of us a lot of laughs and a lot of smiles.

And that's the kind of thing I like where it's kind of clever and kind of on, you know, you really have to stretch your brain to think of it.

Mirror something in the real world, but takes a fun spin on it.

Well, two things that you're leading right now that I think are naturally contrasting.

The office and hospitality.

Those two words are, to me, never found together.

I'm a Gen Xer.

There was no hospitality in the office.

It was more like survival of the fittest.

What in the world are y' all doing at Industrious?

What made it to you feel like survival of the fittest?

Okay, cubicles, closed door offices.

I want to be in that closed door office.

And then when I got in the closed door office, it sucked.

It was like the furniture was from like 4 or 5 liters ago.

It was old, it was creaky.

Couldn't get a new office chair.

And it may.

It turned the library.

It also the doors, they would often be shut.

And it's everybody else that was outside in the cubicle.

And I've been on both sides of that.

It turned it like, into a library.

Like, there was no energy in the office.

And oftentimes I would find myself commuting into the office to walk by a few people to say good morning, get sit down in my office.

And what did I do?

I immediately got on a conference call talking to people all over the world, never the people in the office.

And so it was not very pleasant.

And then it's like just the basics of, hey, these buildings are really old.

They didn't heat well, they didn't cool well.

It was never comfortable.

Well, that's still an issue.

You haven't fixed that yet.

And I'm so, so I'm just gonna look like, what else?

Like, lots, lots of things.

Like, it just did not feel.

It did not feel hospitable.

Because when I think of hospitality, I think about hotels, I think about a great restaurant.

And when I started reading about Industrious, I even read that you taught.

You say you're offering a lover house, you're offering turndown service.

I almost fell out of my chair, even though I'm at a standing desk.

But it's like, what is Anna doing over there?

And are there chocolates involved?

There can be.

There can be.

If you are a chocolate person.

Are you a milk chocolate person or a dark chocolate?

Dark chocolate for sure.

Yeah.

Yes.

Well, a few things.

One, I think that even in the way you've described it, it's almost as if hospitality, like, is it hospitable like is someone else creating an environment where I feel taken care of.

That's important.

But the first thing you said was actually energy.

Like you commute in, you come and you sit alone.

You were on conference calls.

Those were the days.

I know from my research it sounds like you guys are using a lot of you.

You're always doing experiments, trying new things and see the results, right.

Of like, what's, what's working in these office spaces, what's not, what's the result?

What's one of the bolder experiments that you're trying right now to see if it, how it impacts the, the hospitality level.

This is one thing that's really fun about our business because we are opening, you know, tens of new industrious locations around the world per year.

And we have the opportunity to tweak each one based on what we're learning.

And so it really is iterative, which allows us to, you know, use each location kind of like the world's best petri dish.

One of the things I'm most excited right now, I think it's not quite an experiment.

Like we prove in demand and we're doing it.

But you referenced it.

It is Industrious Reserve at Lever House, which is our first luxury coworking space in an iconic building in Lever House in midtown New York, which was built in, I think the 1960s, 1950s, by the family that, you know, the original soap Unilever family.

It's a special building because it's surrounded on all sides by open space.

Each floor is tiny, so natural light comes flooding in and it overlooks Park Avenue and those combinations like, where can you go where you're looking at such an iconic street in New York with tons of natural light are few and far between.

And we are really excited to be debuting our luxury product there, which is meant for business leaders who want a sanctuary, you know, from the rest of their lives and from the busyness of New York.

It's meant for business leaders who want a place to work where they can have their own office that feels like theirs.

To your point where there's turn down service at the end of the night, so you come in the next morning and your desk is reset just how you like it.

And the shades are pulled down so the sun's not right in your eyes, bouncing off your screen as you're doing your.

Is there a cut?

We don't intend for people to sleep there.

I would say hopefully they don't, but if we do, we'll figure out what they do to Be supported.

And we're doing this because we've seen the demand.

What we see across our whole network globally, especially since the pandemic, is that our members actively ask us, hey, we like, when are you opening the next echelon of Industrious?

People are craving an experience that makes them feel special, makes them feel important, makes them feel like even a more of a boss than they think they are.

And we endeavor to provide that at every industrious.

But Industrious right now is an amazing premium product where you go to feel taken care of.

It's really hard in that environment to, for example, have caviar for snack or have a barista pouring lattes just how you like it because the costs just don't work.

And also, not everyone wants to pay for it.

Like, that's not what everyone needs and wants.

This is a spot that only has 44 offices.

So for better or worse, it's very exclusive.

And this is a spot where we're able to do that and really, for the first time, show the best of the best of luxury in an office setting.

And I think it's going to fly off the shelves.

Do you believe that, like a situation, it's more for executives that are in a team and they're coming in and taking several offices and working as a unit.

Or is it more for.

In that environment, like the one off executive who wants to come in and just have their own office and be amongst other top execs?

I think it.

Well, so far.

So far it's both.

We are seeing small financial firms, you know, the kinds of hedge funds that want to be at that location but could never otherwise afford it.

I mean, this is a building that's 100% leased.

Like, you're not getting into this building unless you're a giant bank.

But what does that do for little guys, you know?

So, yes, I think it will be small firms and also individual executives in particular.

We're seeing a lot of demand from executives who have offices in the Bay Area or in Shanghai or in London or honestly, even in downtown Manhattan who want a spot.

I've already got an office, but I need a second one.

Well, that's less crazy.

I'm doing my choir work at, at, at this office.

Yes.

Let me go to.

Leave her out.

Yeah, but it's a real thing, you know, like people need to be in midtown, and a lot of folks want an outpost there that they feel really, really proud to be in and to bring their clients into.

Yeah, I, I think that's such an Important thing, and I love that, like what, what's resonating with me so much is you're able to bring the best of like top level hospitality industries that we think about, like restaurants, like hotels and you're, and you're finding a great niche for it in the workplace and making.

And I think you people will do their best work in that setting when there is hospitality, when there is connection, when they're able to communicate, hey, I need to do my quiet work now versus hey, I'm open to more networking opportunities.

And also I think about organizations in terms of the importance of people's network now, not just from a LinkedIn job standpoint, but I mean way beyond that.

Like who you, who you can depend on in a work crisis needs to be your suppliers, it needs to be your top customers.

And because we're so connected now and anything that's going to get us into those opportunities to network more positively can really boost the value of your company and your team and your own personal network.

It sounds like you're really designing that.

Yeah.

Thinking about, I was looking at some of the research on your company about some case studies for like an attorney's office that, that, that came in and they took over like a whole office and they, they have to have like printed documents, I believe.

I'm just thinking about some of these case studies where total entities came in.

How were you?

Like, what, what's an example of a company who may not have been having as much success, but then they were able to come in and leverage what industrious provides in your settings and that was able to either help them maybe close more deals, build more efficiency, like deliver a real bottom line result.

Because I'm thinking there may be some naysayers out there and be like, yeah, if I had an extra 200 grand, sure I would come into industrious, but I can't afford to think about that.

But maybe they're not thinking about the bottom line possibilities.

Industrious is not for everyone.

And it is for leaders and business units of big companies and teams who care most about their people's experience.

And that means that yes, you could go get an office anywhere in the world for less than you can be in an industrious.

That's okay.

This is not about racing to the bottom on price.

This is about where do you come in and feel seen and welcomed and like you can do your best work.

And that's true for big companies and small companies.

I mean, I met two members in Pittsburgh the other day.

One is a Lawyer and one is a PR professional.

They met at Industrious and then formed their own business together that has now grown by leaps and bounds over the last eight years.

That's also true for huge companies.

I mean, we host the better part of the Fortune 100 in our spaces because most large companies similarly do not want to commit themselves to a 10 year lease that they're locked into for the next decade in a world of uncertainty out there.

But they want an amazing place for their teams, especially outside of their headquarters, to feel at home and feel like they can do their best work.

And so those teams, you know, our teams of 20, 30, 40 people, and if they go above that, we have a product where we'll build an office and design and run it for you wherever you need it, called managed suites.

So I'm not trying to sell this to everyone.

I want to sell it to leaders who are like, you know what?

I really deeply at the core of my business strategy care about how my team feels when they come to work and that we can deliver, deliver.

I, I want to keep going down that path, but also I want to jump to a different area right now because we don't have a ton of time left.

But in your career before Industrious, you were doing some really cool stuff too, but complete, but it seems like completely differently so your early career running Born Free Africa to co founding Run for America.

And my question to you is, is there a single conversation with a mother, a doctor, a young leader that has stayed with you to this day and still shapes how you lead others?

Well, there's a moment, I mean there were many incredible moments across those experiences.

They were both huge privileges.

But there was a moment that has stuck with me, which is that I'm trying to remember what country I was in.

It was during the Born Free years, I think I was in Nigeria basically.

I met this woman who was working in public health in Nigeria and we basically were working together on a consulting basis.

I was running Born Free, which was a time limited organization designed to prove that leadership in public sector public health programs in sub Saharan Africa matters and gets better results, which was not necessarily the in vogue way to spend foreign aid money at the time.

And I met this woman named Angela who was already working in public health and HIV AIDS over there.

And I remember sitting with her at a cafe one day, we were just like pit stop between visits to clinics or something.

And I forget how we got onto the topic, but I remember her saying that the most important part of her day, and this was A woman who spent her days trying desperately to reform the Nigerian healthcare system, which is a beast of a system, I mean a massive public health care system.

She said, the best part of my days are when I get to sit down at night and read to my daughter before bed.

And I think many parents feel that.

So it wasn't so much that the sentiment was new or novel, just that despite everything she had going on, she had the perspective to share with me.

I was not yet a parent, you know, to share with me that that was what mattered deep down for her and she could have been someone for whom that wasn't true.

You know, she, her day to day work was so impactful and so important and for some reason that moment has stuck with me.

And so I, you know, I now have three little boys.

I'm at home every single night, but I definitely try to be.

We obviously fight over how many books we should read before bed.

They're stalling.

I'm ready to get on with my evening.

But I think about that often and how special it is that, that she shared that with me.

Such a human moment.

It's a good reminder.

Like what unifies us all is not political, doesn't unify us right?

Or different religion, spiritual.

What walks of life, but what do we want?

A lot of times we want to better life for the neck for our kids and just like to be with them and have great moments.

That's a part that we can all relate to.

And darn it, as a leader is easy to forget that because about the bottom line and it's, it's easy to forget what your team wants, what your clients really want.

And I, I love that.

And it really connects to where we started this interview with.

Not the humor part per se, but the, but the part about helping people, being senior, like that's the ultimate hospitality.

If you can make people feel that and you can relate to them on a human level, it allows you to be a more effective leader and I would argue a more effective person.

What's your, what are your closing thoughts for our listeners?

And there are literally so many directions we could take this thing.

And I got like 20 more questions, but we ain't got time.

So where do you want to land the plane?

Closing thoughts, no pressure.

A few things.

Then as we edit it, we can figure it out.

We'll figure this out.

Like, I am finding that I have no idea what I'm doing as a parent.

Now you're really parenting.

I'm like trying to make the best decisions I can in the moment with the information I have, I'm trying to our point on hospitality, I'm trying to make my kids feel seen without having all the answers, without doing everything for them.

And I think the same is true in business.

You know, in hard moments in a business, I often think like, oh, I wish I knew exactly what to do.

And I've come to feel over the years like the game is not knowing exactly what to do.

It's hoovering up information as it's available, trying to organize it, making a decision, explaining that decision and keeping moving forward, kind of rinse and repeat.

And that realization that there isn't anyone out there that has all of the answers every time for every question that comes up in business seems so vanilla, like, of course no one does.

And of course also you build pattern recognition over time.

And I know more now than I did 20 years ago and I 20 years from now, I'll know more than I do now.

But I think I'm still coming to terms with the fact that it's okay that I and everyone else don't know the answers all the time as a parent, as a leader.

And that's not a problem.

That's, that's a, you know, it's a feature, not a bug, which then requires a team to be a team and everyone to step up together to figure it out.

So good.

It's so, it's so.

It's like leading with humility.

Because if you're not willing to admit you don't know something, then you're not going to truly learn or create a learning growth minded organization.

And that's where the learning starts is by saying, hey, we don't know, we don't have the answer.

Let's work together.

And it's been a fun one today.

Thank you for joining us.

And y' all check out Industrious.

Sounds like a fun one.

Good place to go and let us know how it goes.

Thanks, Anna.

Yeah.

Come see us.

I'd love to have you all.

And Ben, I need to hook you up with a visit in Charleston.

Let's go, let's go.

Shrimp egrets.

We're there.

I love it.

Thank you so much.

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