x+why: A community and workspace dedicated to supporting better business
From Simon Sinek’s ‘just cause’ which is a vision to seeing the world as a better place to CEO’s pursuing B Corp status and the Climate Cocktail Club… read how innovative workspace can help shift mindsets and change business behaviour with purpose driven entrepreneurs, businesses and leaders. In conversation with Rupert Dean, Co-founder and CEO of x+why.
1. What inspired you to start X+Why and what is the vision behind the company?
I was an uninspired lawyer for a long time working long hours and satisfied only by the above average salary. In return I was expected to love my job enough to work very long hours (in the office; not from home!).
I decided to go on a slight journey of working out how to resolve this and helped start a property business operating in East Africa. Amongst other things it operated a really successful flexible workspace business where people would come to really amazingly designed offices, enjoy work and avoid the issues of long term lease liability. Each office centre became a hub for innovation and happy employees (from large business to the solopreneur) and there was an enormous sense of satisfaction in that.
However, what I also came to understand was that we were not focussing enough on the positive social impact we were creating. We were creating jobs, providing instant access to wifi for so many, business between borders, mentoring between members etc.
That is when I came to understand the power of ‘purpose’ driven business. Those companies who have a reason for being beyond pure profit alone.
Purpose driven business was a huge zeitgeist driven by the issues we faced a s a planet from Climate Change to Poverty yet there was no physical community for these businesses. When I saw that thousands of private jets had flown to Davos to listen to David Attenborough talk about Climate Change we decided to combine the benefits of innovative workspace on flexible leases with a physical community of likeminded purpose driven entrepreneurs, businesses and leaders; where people could come to be inspired but also understand the benefits of being purpose driven and see if we could help shift mindsets and change business behaviours.
2. We are clearly in such a pivotal decade where purpose and social impact is the key driver across business. Tell us more about how you support those emerging purpose-led businesses in your space and share any success stories that stand out.
The first thing is that we try and make sure all materials are sustainable and services and suppliers are all responsible where possible to set the tone for members.
We then run events to help unite and inspire our community including Climate Cocktail Club, our Debate Series, Escape the City Demo Days, Meet the Author event with Simon Sinek and Holly Branson and try and cover topics from Diversity in the Workspace, Climate to Women in Finance, Art, wellbeing and activism.
Finally we try and help our members create an impact assessment score. We run a partnership with B Corporation UK to bring CEO’s together from businesses who are looking to become a certified B Corporation. We bring them together in our inspiring work environment and combine with B Leaders to help these CEO’s complete a B Impact Assessment Form to see how impactful they are and what steps they can take to improve.
I can’t tell you about any single member but stories which make me proud are those where members have become a certified B Corporation; where members have collaborated together on projects or when any one of our team tell me about their meetings.
3. Holly Branson and Simon Sinek have both sat on your couch. Tell us more about the key takeaway from this exciting meeting?
Simon Sinek has inspired me for a long time and his ‘finding your why’ was a bit inspiration behind our brand and business name ‘x+why’. So, as you can imagine it was pretty exciting to have him come in and talk about his new book The Infinite Game.
There are several key pillars to his infinite game include finding your just cause which is a vision of the future for your business which you can strive for and use to motivate your stakeholders and employees. A vision which sees the world as a better place which is not just to be the biggest or best quality.
The other key point which is relevant today is the concept of existential flexibility. It is the capacity to make a dramatically huge shift in an entirely new direction to advance your just cause even if it means changing your business totally. Right now, during COVID-19 crisis, there are a lot of companies who are looking at just this. It may cause significant short term pain but will help you get closer to your just cause and success.
4. What do you feel will be most significant accelerator in the future to get more brands behind the B-Corp movement?
I think it’s about awareness and the B Lab team are dong an amazing job but they will need the support of business and state to amplify the message and the benefits.
There are increasing number of mentors supporting companies in their impact models and I think the Government will likely end up incentivising companies to be more impactful as the nature of the global issues increases and we move towards the UN SDG’s 2030.
According to a Unilever Consumer Study an estimated $1.2 trillion opportunity exists for brands that make their sustainability credentials clear so I think there is enough incentive even for the most profit focussed businesses!
So it will likely be a combination of business, charity and state hopefully all working together.
5. What global brands or businesses do you feel do a stand-out job in communicating their purpose to be a force for good and why?
There are some great ones from established companies including Unilever and Patagonia to exciting relatively new ones including Monzo, Innocent, Allplants, Bulb and Ella’s Kitchen.
The trick to them all is that they have committed to changing their industry or products for good. They all have great products and they all have positive messages which are backed up by authentic considerations for their just cause, their staff, supply chain, planet etc.
6. What is on your agenda for this year and how do you see your business evolving in the future?
Our purpose is to change the way the world works for good. We really want to continue creating inspiring physical spaces and communities from which we can support the idea of helping to shift mindset and change business behaviour. There are a couple of new sites opening this year.
In particular though we really want to see how we can get these members to work with and support each other and we have a number of initiatives in this area which we hope to be able to talk about over the coming months.
7. What are your thoughts on what lies ahead for us post Covid-19 and how it has impacted your business model?
That is a big question and I honestly couldn’t say. However, I hope that businesses consider offices not as hubs for productivity but for the fulfilment, progression and mental stability of their employees. I hope we start to see an end to the glass boxes with desks shoved next to each other with a culture of work work work in return for an average salary and a subsidised gym membership.
Offices must become a destination for more than just work and companies must act for more than just profit and shareholder returns alone. From this, productivity will flow, employees will be fulfilled, businesses successful and hopefully business will then help find and be instrumental in some solutions to many of the critical issues we face as a society and planet.
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