July 21, 2022 • 44 mins
Ousted WeWork CEO Adam Neumann built a company culture that drew employees in a relationship with their workplace that they loved - but that many on the inside and outside clearly saw as - narcissistic. As one of the top community managers at WeWork, Ugo Mbawuike had a front row seat to the rise and demise of the co-working tech unicorn that was supposed to transform the corporate office as we know it. From the love bombing of perks and community, to the future faking of Adam’s grand vision, and the gaslighting of the company’s subsequent financial problems, we look at Ugo’s experience through a narcissistic framework to recognize red flags of a employer.
#NavigatingNarcissism
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare
professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. The
(00:22):
views and opinions expressed are solely those of the podcast
author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not
represent the opinions of Red Table Talk Productions, I Heart Media,
or their employees. Each building had that energy. Obviously, the
energy is created by the people in the building, but
(00:45):
then the building lent itself to also creating this magical
energy where you never wanted to leave. In this episode,
we are going to hear the story of Ugo umba week.
Ugo had the full wee Work experience. He started his
journey at the Global coworking Space as a member in
two thousand fourteen and loved working there so much that
(01:07):
he got a job as a community manager, working his
way up to managing multiple buildings, including the West Coast headquarters,
a big job due to his close work with the
company's top executives. He was at we Work in the
early days of hyper growth through its height at a
forty seven billion dollar valuation, all the way through to
(01:30):
when things started to decline. He experienced firsthand what it
was like to manage the impact and fall out of
a narcissistic leader on the members and employees of we Work.
Ugo was caught in the balancing act of seeing the
genius of the concept, the vision of the leader, and
the chaos and harm that ensue when the grandiosity and
(01:53):
entitlement got out of control. In this interview, Ugo shares
his personal story and ex variance of working at we Work.
His opinions reflect his personal interactions with people at the
company during the period of time he spent as a
member and an employee. He is no longer employed with
(02:15):
we were, nor do his opinions represent the company. So welcome, Ugo,
Thank you, so happy to have you here. This entire
story obviously has focused on the founder and you know,
the personalities involved. To me, what's more important is the
experience of somebody who's in that system. So welcome, and
I have to say you probably have one of the
(02:38):
most well rounded experiences in your journey with we Work.
He started as a member in the early days then
you loved it so much you became an employee. So
talk to us. Paint a picture of what it was like.
What these we work buildings were like, why was it
so electric to be there? Great question? Okay, So I'm
(02:59):
a generally from Boston, Massachusetts, and I was born and
raised there. I decided that I wanted to do something
different with myself and not just be a towny. So
I asked my cousin, who lived in San Francisco, if
I should just work for her. She started to start up,
and she was an army of one. She's like, all right,
(03:20):
we're going to the office. It seems so nice. We
go inside and we're greeted by what we then called
the front desk associate. It felt so warm immediately. It's
my second day in California, ever, and I felt so
impressed by the greeting and the building. So automatically I
(03:41):
thought my cousin was hiding money from the family because
this place was so nice. I was like, what is
going on? Anyway? We go upstairs to the office and
everything is glass. You could see people working. There's bear tabs,
there's a pool table in the middle of the room.
There's TV and they're actually playing like African music in
the common space. I said, this is wild, this is
(04:04):
not where you really work. She took her keys out,
she opened her office. It had the logo of her
company name on there, and I was just totally impressed.
I couldn't believe I was working here. And that was
before I knew what we Work was, And that was
my first day at a WE work. I think this
may be the very first time I heard about a
space love bombing someone. Usually it's a person love bombing you,
(04:27):
but it was the space. It's the space, yeah, And
that's what the beauty of we Work was. It was
familiar every we work you would go to, whether you
were in Soul, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, Boston, or San Francisco,
where I was, they were all unique but similar, and
so you felt the love because you felt a community.
(04:51):
And before we Work, I don't even think I'm Nigerian,
and so we have our village community, but I don't
think I heard that word in American culture before we Work.
All of this energy then lead you to want to
actually no longer be a member, which for people listening
to this, a member is almost I mean it's a
less glamorous word I'm about to use is like a tenant,
you know, I mean member sounds more belonging, but in essence,
(05:15):
you paid a monthly fee to access to space and
use the facilities within a WEE work location. Correct, Yeah,
that's a member. So then that could be any of us.
Any of us could have come and paid that monthly fee,
but then you actually found a job within the company.
One subtle red flag in a workplace is when the
(05:36):
employees are called community or team members or family. In
a good workplace with fair pay and benefits and realistic expectations,
it's just a word, but in a narcissistic workplace, it
can be a way to create a false sense of belonging,
like you have in a family. But at the same time,
(05:59):
it may be a workplace that's toxic and triangulated. I
was a member. I loved it. I asked the people
at the front desk, hey, this is my resume. And
at the time I didn't know we work was going
to expand like that because it was still very, very small.
I believe I joined when we had about twenty something
buildings globally. By the time I left, we had hundreds right.
(06:22):
It just struck me. And again, everything you're saying is
bringing up these new insights in me. It's it's so
unusual because they were providing the space, but they also
needed a workforce, and in a way, you were almost
like this, I don't know, like this a farm league
or like a training camp where they could see people
swinging and playing and I want that one and that
(06:43):
one because they were actually able to see your energy
and action, which no employer in the world would ever
have access to. So that was really unique. So not
only did you transition from being a member or a
tenant into actually working for the company, it sounds like
you really loved your job. Why did you love your
job there so much? So worked very hard and very
long hours, but there was an energy in the building.
(07:06):
As you said, this is the first time of building
loved on me so hard. As I came into San Francisco,
each building had that energy. Obviously, the energy is created
by the people in the building, but then the building
lent itself to also creating this magical energy where you
never wanted to leave. One thing. I want to stand too.
(07:26):
When people work hard, and let's just focus on you,
because you don't know what other people, I think you
worked hard. Why what was the carrot on the stick
where all human I would say money and we work
was a unicorn at the end of the day. And
the people who were working at the beginning, in the middle,
and at the end saw what was formulating in this
in this equation of community plus shared work space that
(07:51):
was cheap enough for the average Joe, but good enough
for a fortune company to share in the space as well.
And so we worked hard because we thought we were
in this unicorn company that was going to make us
a million dollars. Here's what's interesting about that answer around money,
because that's actually the logical thing. Certainly I was thinking,
(08:11):
and probably everyone else listening to this is thinking, like, Okay,
everyone's working real hard because they're making money. But what's fascinating, Hugo,
is that it was a long game on the money, right,
It's not like you're working hard and getting paid then.
So somehow the dream seemed plausible to you, that you
really were convinced it was a unicorn, because in a
way you were. And I'm trying to think of this
(08:32):
like a psychologist would, right, And when we think about
behavioral science, we think of the rat and the maze.
The only reason the rat is hustling down the maze
because there's cheese and it's going to get the cheese
right away. All of you were willing to say, we're
convinced there's going to be a whole ton of cheese behind.
You know, if we keep walking down this maze hard
every day. We don't know when that will be, but
we're confident it would be there. So this sense of
(08:56):
not only confidence, but in the short term, you were
in this really fun space with really incredible networking opportunities.
Like I said, I'm going to use the narcissism framework again,
I'm sort of I love you go because you sort
of brought this way. I've never thought about something like
this before. We talked about how the Space love bombed
you right well, in a way ago, the job did
(09:17):
something called future fake to you, and future faking is
when there is a promise like oh, hey, you know,
I'm gonna take care of you someday, or if you
just do this for me, then down the road we're
gonna move here, we're gonna get married, or whatever it is. Right,
that's what they were doing. They're like today, baby, we're
gonna get married, I'm gonna have a big ring, and
we're going to live in a big house. So they
future faked you, which is a classical part of a
(09:38):
narcissistic relationship. Future faking again, it's it tends to be
what we see in a narcissistic relationship. It only works
when the future faking is plausible. Right, So if somebody's
really down on their lock and then sort of just
making it living close to the bone and says, hey,
one day we're going to live in a big mansion,
You're like, okay, I think you're high. That's not happening.
So you're sort of looking at them sideways. That's not plausible.
(10:01):
But what we were created was something where the future
was plausible. And then what was even more clever was
everyone was in on the delusion. Everyone, So even if
you had a moment of doubt, everyone sitting next to
you was in on it. So then that, as we
know in human nature is always going to suck people
back in. And when we look at traditional, just one
on one narcissistic relationships, if a person is like, oh,
(10:23):
I don't know they're making these promises. If all your
friends I don't know, for example, are getting married just saying, oh,
come on, he's great, we're all getting married. So then
all of a sudden, the doubt gets silenced because whatever
that tribe is around you, whatever that community is around you,
they're in on it. So you think like, I can't
be the only one who's who's seeing this right, and
(10:43):
all of them must be right, and then the beat
goes on. You know, it makes you seem like you're
the crazy one, or you're not the intelligent one. When
a collective of people are saying one thing, or believing
in one thing, or doing one thing. If you see
the hole in the plan or you don't believe in
(11:04):
the plan, you make yourself believe that you're actually the
dumb one and everyone else is the smart one. So
with narcissistic behavior, if you have a narcissistic person that
can breathe life into a story, whether it's true or false,
if one person doesn't see it, then everyone thinks that
(11:26):
one person is crazy. And that's life now. And luckily
I went through that experience, whether it's traumatizing or not traumatizing,
that I now see that in everyday life. But what
you're also talking about is collective gas lighting. Right, Usually
we think of one person gas lighting one person at
a time. I never said that that never happened kind
of thing. But what you're talking about is collective gas lighting.
(11:47):
And there's it is a thousand times more potent when
it's collective than when it's one on one because you're thinking, Okay,
I can see that one person is not living in reality.
Who am I to say ten thousand people are aren't
living in reality? Right? And so, and that's not that's
not how people work. So they're all going to think that, Okay,
I'm wrong, I'm getting up atty. Who am I to
(12:08):
think this? And as you said, you go going through
something like this ends up being the sort of thing that,
sadly you have to go through sort of the loss,
the anger, the grief, the trauma. But that's sometimes really
I'm seeing this in narcissistic survivors of any kind, you
know who going through these relationships big or small, that
they say, okay, now I get it, And no one's
(12:29):
going to be able to convince me otherwise because I've
seen it first dance like seeing a UFO once the
aliens invite you in for dinner you're like, no, I
saw that, and you can tell me there's no such thing.
It sounds that one of the things that we work
was really pushing for was hustle. It was even if
I remember in the signage that I saw and that
that was depicted in the programs and all of that, hustle,
(12:49):
hustle harder, all of that in we work. Granted you're
already working what fourteen sixteen hour days, but what did
it mean there to hustle harder? I believed hustle harder
meant get shipped done. No matter what that ship was,
get it done, move on, and there's now another hurdle
to get through. So as a community manager, we had
(13:12):
it back in the early days, back in two thousand fifteen,
and prior, a community manager was a sales manager, a
property manager, a events manager. We literally had to do
everything in that building because we work was focused on
building out more buildings. So hustle hard and meant do
(13:32):
everything and do everything in your power to get shipped done.
So as all of this is happening, you're early on,
were there any red flags that were starting to pop
up for you when we started opening up buildings? Basically
right next to each other in various cities. And the
whole goal before that was to have each building open
(13:53):
up at a percent occupancy. How can you do that
when you're cannibalizing your own build thing that's next door.
It was very hard to continue the run rate that
we were experiencing before. So that was my clue, Like,
I think we're growing too quickly. How is this company
(14:14):
growing at such a fast pace. You could see a
few little cracks in the current buildings, but now we're
opening up so many more buildings. How are we going
to make sure those buildings don't have the same cracks
and flaws that the first buildings had. And I still
believe in the company now, like people need an expensive
coworking space around the world. But I stopped drinking the
(14:37):
kool aid in about two thousand nineteen, and that's when
news articles and social media and regular media started publicizing
the flaws that we're coming out. So interesting to hear
you say this because the narcissism person in me snaps
this into an individual relationship format. Okay, so let's treat
the entity of where you're working as a person. It's
(14:58):
like an individual person, right, So imagine you meet someone
are like, oh wow, how they kind of seem too
good to be true. But you want it to be true.
You want you like this, you're attractive this project. I
want these things to be true. So we suspend disbelief,
we silence the red flags because you're like, these things
being true works for me. So I'm going to pretend there,
(15:20):
or I'm going to go with the idea that they
could be true, right, not even pretend. And so that
idea of the high valuation and that the building sites
being close together, it's really like someone saying like, gosh,
this is what they do for a living, and yet
they live in this really nice place and they have
these cars and it doesn't add up, but it's kind
of fun hanging with this person. Yeah, so I'm just
(15:40):
gonna be like, hey, nor in that for now, a
little bit of a denial. It goes a long way
what gets interesting to me. And again, this is what
we see sometimes in narcissistic relationships is one day you
see things you can't unsee and then you can no
longer live in denial, and that's when the person in
the narcissistic relationship gets confused. How Ever, now, in that confusion,
(16:01):
we might even see the risk of self blame, self doubt, anger,
and anxiety. So what this was an entity doing this right,
It wasn't the person, and so a lot of people
wouldn't even think of that as sort of the narcissistic
abuse model, but it really fits it perfectly. The same
thing happens with individual people. I mean, I'm internally crying
(16:22):
right now for myself because you hit the nail on
the you know, on the head. It's literally the same psychology,
and I actually think what you experienced and obviously many
others in your position was harder because it was an entity.
Once again, it was believable because there's things, there's banks,
there's investors, and that you can't make that up, right,
(16:43):
Just like somebody might have nine credit cards that you're dating,
and you don't know that they have nine credit cards
that they're slowly maxing out. You just see that they're
living large and you're along for the ride. It sounds
though you're saying that around two nine is when your
opinion on the company changed, and that's when even the
rest of us who had nothing to do is we work.
We're starting to even see things in the news that
we're making us say what is this. It's almost like
(17:05):
when family business started becoming public. So I guess when
the media started voice in their opinions, I was like,
oh am, I not crazy, because now other people are
seeing some of the things that I saw in my head.
Like I said in two thousand and fourteen, when I
was a member and not even an employee, I stopped
(17:25):
drinking the kool aid when collectively a lot of other
people started opening their eyes. And I think though, that
that's where we see sometimes in these stories of power
of the media, you know, in an interesting way, it
even links back to sort of things other movements, even
like the Me Too movement right where a lot of
people were going through stuff and then people who felt untouchable,
you know, like you could not they're they're literally bulletproof.
(17:48):
Then the media comes along and all these people who
had suffered for a long time or saying, oh my gosh,
this one and that one and the other one went
through this too. So I think that's where the media
has a really interesting power, because like I said, it's
once the family business comes out into the street, all
of a sudden, a person might feel really vindicated, saying, oh,
I did see things the right way. Did the changes
(18:09):
in the company that were happening around this time? Everything
is growing almost out of control, and it's becoming clear
it might be too fast. How did these changes in
the company affect your mental health in any way? So
about two eighteen, I did start feeling the pressure at
the beginning. When you have unattainable goals, like I said,
you just put someone else to help and figure out
(18:30):
someone will attain that unattainable goal. Now when it's truly unattainable,
it was wearing on people. Then. Also, there were too
many cooks in the kitchen at that time. When we
got to our height, we had about sixteen thousand employees.
(18:52):
It's a difference, very big difference. And when you have
so many people in a kitchen that fits a about
twelve people, it's hard to keep things on track. And
so that was really making everyone feel the pressure at
that point, which makes sense. And you know what I
would guess, and I can only speculate. I always feel
(19:13):
like the staff, the rank and file, the employees and
an organization, they reflect the pressure from above, right, So
it's like it all transmits down the chain. And whether
it's the old saying of the fish stinks from the
head down. I just think it's that that pressure is transmitted. Correct.
This was very a community system, right, so as the
pressures were cracking at the top, that was being passed down,
(19:33):
but you were not getting a clear story on what
was going on, and none of you understood what those
balance sheets look like. There was no way. I was
just telling my friend before this, when you're opening a
building and when you're running a building and it's occupancy.
As a community manager, we had to be financially responsible
(19:54):
for our buildings, so we knew the p m L
of our buildings inside and out, but not of the corporation.
Lack of transparency is a feature of all narcissistic relationships,
whether it's in the workplace or even just two people
in a relationship. Simply put, narcissistic relationships feel shady. That
(20:15):
sort of blurs the relationship even more, and it makes
the self blame, the self doubt, and the confusion even
worse because you just can't get a straight answer on anything.
So sure, in the I guess isolated buildings, you are
drinking your kool aid. You know your building is profitable
(20:37):
or almost profitable, if your building is not profitable, you
still think maybe it's just your one building that's not profitable,
So you know you're living this truth, your own truth
of I know we work is successful even though my
building may not be, or I know we work as
successful because my building is successful at a time when
(21:02):
people did not know the real balance sheet of the
parent company, you can keep drinking the koolata and feel
like everything's fine. In my case, that was me until
I started managing our headquarters. Then I was privy to
things that regular community managers were not. So yeah, until
(21:25):
the media started showcasing we work in a negative light.
I don't think the majority of we work employees we're
seeing that. Except for those of us who worked in
the headquarters and saw it before the media or saw
it before everyday community managers in various buildings around the world,
(21:46):
it really makes sense. And I think that's the case
of many people who work for larger organizations. But in
this case it was more unique because people still again
the future faked piece of this is going to pay out,
and I believe in this thing that's bigger than me. Sure,
narcissistic relationships are smoke and mirrors, whether it is a
workplace that's spending money with abandon or an individual who
(22:09):
has the cars, the clothes, the whole look. Narcissistic folks
are the peacocks of the personality world. We often believe
they have the goods because they dress and behave and
look like they do. So maybe the bigger the feathers,
the less trusting we should be. My session with Ugo
(22:30):
will continue after this break. So let's talk a little
bit about narcissism, because I mean, there's no two ways
about it, and in fact, any podcast anything I've read,
all of them use that word. So is this not
some sort of unique observation that was very much what
(22:50):
characterized leadership? And so talk to us understanding the limitations,
But talk to us about Adam Newman. What was so
compelling about him. Adam Newman was a great influencer. Adam
knew how to influence people, truly by the words that
came out of his mouth. He has energy no matter what.
(23:13):
He's vibrant, and there's something that resonates with everyone when
he speaks. I don't know if it's because he says
he lived in a community and so people were longing
for community once again, being a Nigerian. I grew up
in a Nigerian community. I grew up in Boston, where
(23:34):
there's various immigrant communities, whether it's an Indian community, an
Irish community. But in America, there's no American community. I
never heard of that word. There's no community managers, there's
no community anything. And Adam I think, really was the
first person, in my opinion, that started this whole community
(23:57):
thing for American society's I think his words really inspired people,
whether they wanted to be inspired by him or not. Right,
I find it absolutely fascinating. We're currently in a period
of history. I think we're caught in the cult of charisma. Right.
I think I might be the only person on the
planet that when I meet a charismatic person, they might
as well be ready to mug me. How scared I
(24:19):
am of charisa. I am literally the only person who
feels that way. I am trying to convert people to be,
you know, to the the fortitude of the non charismatic
in our midst. Right, it's shocking to me. I think
Adam Newman is a case study in that. But I
don't think it's unique to him. That all of tech
was run on the cults of charisma. Even part of
(24:39):
the finance, certainly celebrity is run on the cult of charisma.
And I honestly think that's been around since time immemorial,
that if we look at historical figures, they were likely
really charismatic. We just don't have tape of them, right,
like Alexander the Great, Right, I'm sure, Yeah, I'm sure
all of these folks were charismatic. They were good speakers.
(25:01):
They would draw people to them. They knew how to
hit the zeitguys the energy of the time and sell it.
Whether or not they believed in it, we will never know.
All we know is that they could sell a message
at the right time, you know. And here's the ultimate though.
In every narcissistic workplace I have ever consulted with ever
in my career, they all feel cult like, right, That's
(25:21):
the nature of narcissistic workplaces. There's a CULTI feel. And
these cult like workplaces capitalize on creating this sense of community, closeness,
family belonging, and that can then lead people to accept
lower pay just so they can belong, as well as
a willingness to ignore red flags or even be shamed,
(25:44):
just like you would be in a family if you
talked smack about your family, right, So you're very protective
of that unit. And people so want to belong that
no one's going to question it, right. So I think
that what we were capitalized on intend only are not
was one of the most primal human needs, which was
the need to belong. Okay, And in that way, he
(26:08):
sold it not only to potential members, but also to
employees and even to investors. And as I look at
the story, I wonder how much of this is something
that mattered to the investors that they felt like they
weren't getting that they had a need to belong And
even though they weren't setting up their offices and we
work spaces that being a part of this. Yeah, they
were chasing the high of the you know, of the money,
(26:30):
but they were also getting that sense of belonging. And
this speaks to the machiavellianism of any narcissistic leader. They
figure out what people want at the most primal level,
They play on either desire or fear, and they get
it done. And that's what seemed to happen here. It
totally happened. And like I said, humans desire community, but Americans.
(26:52):
We didn't know that. You said your first generation. I'm
also first generation, so Adam is born in a different country.
So a lot of countries have this sense of community
that was missing here. Absolutely. I think though, if you
spend time in small town America, there is community, right.
I think that when you look at what we worked
(27:14):
was we work as an urban company, and so in
urban centers had lost community. So that's where you were
going to sell it, because if you walked into some
small town in the United States, but what are you doing, Like,
we're good, we got us, we got a church, we
got a place where people come together. I've spent enough
time in small towns to say, now, communities already there.
They don't need beer taps and kombucha and like wild
(27:35):
Friday night parties to create that. But by putting these
in urban centers, you actually hit that existential isolation. And
it's so now there's something that Scott Galloway said when Massa,
a soft bank, invested in We Work, he said, and
I'm quoting quote, if you tell a thirty year old
(27:56):
he is Jesus Christ, he's inclined to believe you. When
one of the smartest investors in the world valued the
company more than the Ford Motor Company, then said they
were not crazy enough and invested billions of dollars more.
And the press loves you, JP Morgan Chase loves you. C.
(28:19):
NBC loves you. It is hard not to believe that
their love is warranted and justified. End. What are your
thoughts on that? I agree, I totally agree. And once again,
it takes a narcissist sometimes to create a cult like following.
(28:39):
If no one believes a narcissist, you can't be a narcissist.
I mean, we're talking about enabling right right exactly exactly.
So when you tell a particular type of person who
I am a gay black mail. There's a hierarchy in
society and cis white males are at the top of
(28:59):
that hockey. Absolutely. So if someone comes and tells assists
white male that you have one of the most brilliant
minds and ideas ever, yeah, they're gonna think they're better
than every single other person in the world and they're
going to do whatever they want to do. Enablers are
(29:19):
the army that make the narcissistic folks possible. And this
story reminds us that enablers may not just be people
without power like the employees that we work. In fact,
the greatest enablers of this particular narcissistic fever dream were
the most powerful folks of all the bankers and the investors.
(29:42):
It's a reminder that nothing, all the smarts, all the money,
all the power in the world are enough to give
a person clarity on narcissism in any relationship. It's all
a reminder that anybody can be played, because these dudes
in this story really were You know what's fascinating is
(30:03):
I think that you know, charisma is that sort of
to me one of the core pillars of this story, right,
How all these people who were really smart about money,
who knew a lot about business, how they were all
drawn in by this charisma. And I sometimes wonder how
much it is that, especially in the business world, where
people already have so much privilege and power, that they're
drawn to a characteristic that they themselves don't have. That
(30:26):
they have other bits of genius, right, they understand finance
and how to grow money and how to manage it
and all of that, but the charisma is almost a
blind spot for them, because again it's something they don't have,
and I often I sort of observed that about with
Massa of soft Bank, who I think he saw something
he didn't have, and it was sort of like, I
want to be near this, you know, as though it's
infectious or it'll rub off, or simply that you admire it,
(30:48):
you know, listen in a well run world, and if
the smart money would just listen, So smart money, if
you happen to be listening to this Podcastny smart Money,
because here's what you want to know is that I
totally agree that it's the charismatic people who are often
visionary in a way that's so grandiose that none of
(31:08):
us what we cant stop ourselves saying, nobody wants like
to stay in someone's house and call it a hotel,
you know, like nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants
like to get into a stranger's car. So these charismatic
leaders were visionary. But what the smart money again needs
to figure out is a way to get the baton
from that visionary person and then get the right kind
(31:29):
of financial We're with all around it, yes, right exactly.
So It's like I think, actually, sometimes seven year olds
have great ideas. I don't know that I want to
give him a seat on the stock exchange, but sort
of like, all right, seven year old, you know what
seven year olds wants. This actually might be a winner.
But this has happened a couple of times now, a
couple of times the charismatic folks have gotten something over
(31:50):
the finish line, but have still been removed as CEO.
But I think that we've overestimated how much that cult
of personality and charisma can actually do the day to
day stuff of running a business. Again, charisma works great
when you're first dating. Charisma is interesting in bed. What
charisma is not good at is the day to day
(32:12):
drudgery that's involved in running a massive company. And it's
at that point p and L statements, all of that,
it's sort of like, don't show me this. This is
puncturing the grandiose solution that seems to be something that
if somehow the charismatic people and the dull, smart money
people could figure out a way to play nice, a
lot of people would be making a lot of money.
It's hard, it's hard to tame the charismatic actor in that.
(32:34):
I mean that's true in every facet of life, right,
like if the Democrats and Republicans would listen to each other,
as the charismatic and the pragmatic people would listen to
each other, the old people and the young people, the
minorities and the majority. But it's not like that, Unfortunately,
no it's not. And you nailed it. I loved how
(32:55):
you just said, beautifully, Ugo. The charismatic and the pragmatic,
it's those two groups if you could get them into bed,
but god knows, they never sleep together ever. So I
think it's always the charismatic and the enablers. And I
don't know, maybe the bagmatic people aren't having sex. I
think yes. The narcissistic people create a culture that people
(33:21):
want to believe it and people want to follow right right.
And the challenges though that ultimately the narcissistic individual is
very self serving and and sort of ingrained in them
is the willingness to throw everyone under the bus so
they can walk off with the most toys. Right. This
is not the person who is going to, you know,
sort of go down with the ship. They're going to say,
(33:42):
give me the best life vote and I'm out of here.
So I think that challenge is that I don't disagree
with you, and we know there's a lot of work
on this. Narcissism is correlated with leadership. Narcissistic people are
more likely to pursue leadership. But what we also know
is that toxic leadership can bring down a company. And
we've seen it happen that was and thousands of thousands
of times, whether they're small businesses, big businesses, multinational businesses,
(34:05):
it's all the same, you know, Hugo, tell me what
you think you said. I have my definition. Tell me
what you believe narcissistic behavior to be. Narcissists by my
own definition, is someone who has extremely high self worth
of themselves, but they also have low regard for other
people and their opinions and their feelings, which half the
(34:28):
time is probably more accurate than that own narcissistic view.
And so the problem is if we take away that,
you know, what you're saying is no regard for others.
So I would say that's probably a lack of empathy
for others. When you have somebody who has high regard
for themselves and values themselves and thinks well of themselves
and accounts for other people's opinions and input, that's just
(34:52):
called a really healthy person, right, I mean, that's what
that is. Narcissism doesn't get to get cut up like
it's the whole package of, you know, having an almost
delusional and distorted sense of self esteem that's not based
in truths, plus their lack of regard for others. And
what's tricky in the story we've been talking about, the
narcissistic leader at the top of this actually had some
real gifts. I mean, say what you will, say what
(35:15):
you will, But as I read the story, I'd say
this person actually had a vision that really captured the
zeitgeist in the energy of the time, particularly in a
certain age group, in a way no one had before.
I am the first one to say that. Then I
wouldn't be self aware if I didn't acknowledge that he
really did see something and and he enacted it. I
actually think that he was that unicorn. The problem is,
(35:37):
it's real hard to hook a unicorn up to a carriage.
They just want to run free. They don't want to
be attached to anything, and that was really it. So
do you think narcissism is a useful quality in a leader.
I mean, yeah, Unfortunately, I do think that sometimes a
narcissistic viewpoint, gathers the herd to come and ride with
(35:59):
you or coming back you. Now I could see a
little bit different that a narcissist is a great leader
minus qualities of a great leader, so minus the empathy
of others, minus the point of pragmatism. But yeah, I
(36:20):
think a narcissistic leader is a good thing to have
prior to my discussion with you now talking to you,
I think narcissists is that great leader, but they're missing empathy. Yeah.
What I'm hearing from you though, is narcissistic leaders are
great motivators, they're great visionaries, they're great idea generators. But
(36:42):
what they're not good as good managers, you know, and
they're also tend not to be particularly fiscally responsible. We
will be right back with this conversation with Hugo so
Ugo again. So I'm just sort of obsessed with talking
with you about this because so, I mean, you know
(37:04):
why everything I talked about narcissum is individual. Like a
couple people go in to marriage a mother, uh, you know,
or a parent or a friend. But to think of
it at this scale, and yet all the dynamics are
kind of the same. It's really it's so compelling, and
yet it was this magical moment. So it's like that
magical moment. Obviously it was portrayed in films and we
(37:26):
sort of have to go on good faith, but like
the parties and the fun and the summer camp and
that this and then then that, it was love bombing, right,
and just like every love bombing always falls apart on
the back end. So I would love to know, though,
after this really fascinating journey you've had it we work,
what was the biggest learning experience you'd say you took
(37:48):
away from working there. I think one of my largest
takeaways was that I actually believe in myself because half
the time that I saw these signs Eider in life,
other people saw those times, and later in life a
collective supported what I was thinking, and then everyone else
(38:08):
believed it. So if I just stand true in my
own faith and beliefs, then I will be Okay. What
I'm really hearing is that you learn to not gaslight
yourself after working there? Yes, exactly. And you know what, Ugo,
I gotta tell you this. I know it was a
hell of a wild ride if you got that lesson
(38:28):
out of this. I think the time there was well
spent totally because some people never learned that lesson. Yeah,
it's a big one, as long as you can hold
onto it. That's the key is that is how do
we let ourselves not be gaslighted. It means that you
have to have a lot of the capacity for resistance.
And so when people say, oh, come on, ugo, or
like you're not being cool, or say I hear you,
I feel you, and I see you, and I make
(38:49):
this is my there's a reality. So I'm cool, goodbye,
and I'm going to have to set this line down.
I've seen this movie before and I'm good. I know
how this one ends. I've been asking you questions for
a long time. Do do do you have anything you want
to run by me? What exactly draws people to a narcissist?
Same things that drew people too? We work, charisma, charm, promise, hope.
(39:13):
I think that's sort of what attracts people. But I
also think that there's confidence. There's the idea of for
a moment in time, belonging to something special. That is
sort of the healthy stuff that attracts us. That's the
above the line stuff. Below the line stuff is actually
even more pernicious, and that's the stuff like trauma bonding.
Some of the experience you're having is the same experience
(39:34):
somebody had with their own rejecting parent or rejecting sibling
or invalidating family system. And as an adult, there's a
real familiarity there, and familiarity is very intoxicating. But also
the idea that this time I can get it right
and there's a final piece which is that. And I
think that this comes up not only in charismatic leaders,
but just even in one on one relationships. Is this
(39:56):
idea that the narcissistic person is often like when they're
on their A game. It's like no a game you've
ever seen. It is like triple A. The sun only
shines on you, and then they withhold it, they get distracted,
they're not interested, and you're forever chasing that like I
want that again. I want the sun on me, and
I know it's possible because we had that, and that
(40:18):
sort of backing and forthing again is part of that
is part of that trauma bond. And like I said,
we were captured this. We're always chasing the unicorn. Nobody
chases a sort of an old pony, but they chase
the unicorn because they think that they can have it,
be with it, right it, I guess. But it's that
back and force between the excitement and then when they
pull away, people want that back, so they try harder
(40:41):
and harder to win them over. So I think the
fascination now is that so many people have been hurt
by people with these personalities and using this framework, people
saying that's what just happened to me. And it's like,
you just said that narcissism has these good things if
you will and put that good in quote, because it
always has the bad things, And what people are saying
is can I just have the good things? I'm like, yeah,
(41:02):
then it's not narcissist, you know, Like then it's just
a good person. But that rejecting part plays on that
below the line sort of trauma stuff that sometimes unless
people recognize, like how compelling it is to be drawn
to something where we work things through. But the point
of this podcast is to say to educate people to say,
these things, these red flags are real, and these stories
(41:24):
never end well. Ever, never end well. There maybe every
so often there was that one person in that company
who dumped their stock at exactly the right moment. That's
not different than me driving to a liquor store right
now buying a lottery ticket. You know, it's the same psychology.
So that's luck, you know. But by and large, I
have never ever seen one of these things. These stories
(41:45):
end well. So the key is to not walk in
the gateway in the first place. Boom, that's it. That's
why we're drawn to them a lot. Good. Yeah, I
think that idea of good narcissism, I ain't buying it.
The word has baked into it, the good and the bad.
Good narcissism is simply being that rarest of things in
our world, a confident, self aware, authentic, compassionate, kind, respectful,
(42:09):
cooperative individual. And let me tell you you want a unicorn,
it's that. Here are some takeaways after that conversation with Ugo.
Balancing our aspirations and our ideals was being able to
see red flags and also protecting ourselves can be really
(42:29):
challenging in the presence of a charismatic but self serving leader.
No matter how enthralled we are by their vision, we
always have to keep checking in with ourselves on whether
something really feels right. In our next takeaway, let's consider
that a relationship with a narcissistic leader can be just
as confusing as any narcissistic relationship. Even when things go wrong,
(42:55):
there may still be things that we valued about the experience,
but it's horton to remember that is okay to admire
their vision but not sign off on their bad behavior.
One thing we know, and this is supported by the research.
Even after a disappointing and demoralizing work experience, there can
still be tremendous possibilities when you join forces or continue
(43:19):
to support and be supported by your former healthy colleagues
that walk through the fire with you. And for my
last takeaway, charismatic leaders can do so much harm, but
not all of them are intentionally sadistic. They can get
so single minded in their grandiose pursuit of their vision
(43:40):
for the world that the harm to other people simply
becomes collateral damage for them, but it's real damage. This
can be confusing for people who admire the vision or
even the leader, but who are at the same time
being harmed by or watching other people be armed by
the charismatic leaders single minded focus on domination, power and control.
(44:09):
A big thank you to our executive producers Jada Pinkett
Smith Fallon, Jethro Ellen Rakaton and Dr Rominey Dr Vassola,
And thank you to our producer Matthew Jones, associate producer
Mara Dela Rosa and consultant Kelly Evelyn, and our editors
and sound engineers Devin Donnahy and Calvin Bailiff
This podcast should not be used as a substitute for
medical or mental health advice. Individuals are advised to seek
independent medical advice, counseling, and or therapy from a healthcare
professional with respect to any medical condition, mental health issue,
or health inquiry, including matters discussed on this podcast. The
(00:22):
views and opinions expressed are solely those of the podcast
author or individuals participating in the podcast, and do not
represent the opinions of Red Table Talk Productions, I Heart Media,
or their employees. Each building had that energy. Obviously, the
energy is created by the people in the building, but
(00:45):
then the building lent itself to also creating this magical
energy where you never wanted to leave. In this episode,
we are going to hear the story of Ugo umba week.
Ugo had the full wee Work experience. He started his
journey at the Global coworking Space as a member in
two thousand fourteen and loved working there so much that
(01:07):
he got a job as a community manager, working his
way up to managing multiple buildings, including the West Coast headquarters,
a big job due to his close work with the
company's top executives. He was at we Work in the
early days of hyper growth through its height at a
forty seven billion dollar valuation, all the way through to
(01:30):
when things started to decline. He experienced firsthand what it
was like to manage the impact and fall out of
a narcissistic leader on the members and employees of we Work.
Ugo was caught in the balancing act of seeing the
genius of the concept, the vision of the leader, and
the chaos and harm that ensue when the grandiosity and
(01:53):
entitlement got out of control. In this interview, Ugo shares
his personal story and ex variance of working at we Work.
His opinions reflect his personal interactions with people at the
company during the period of time he spent as a
member and an employee. He is no longer employed with
(02:15):
we were, nor do his opinions represent the company. So welcome, Ugo,
Thank you, so happy to have you here. This entire
story obviously has focused on the founder and you know,
the personalities involved. To me, what's more important is the
experience of somebody who's in that system. So welcome, and
I have to say you probably have one of the
(02:38):
most well rounded experiences in your journey with we Work.
He started as a member in the early days then
you loved it so much you became an employee. So
talk to us. Paint a picture of what it was like.
What these we work buildings were like, why was it
so electric to be there? Great question? Okay, So I'm
(02:59):
a generally from Boston, Massachusetts, and I was born and
raised there. I decided that I wanted to do something
different with myself and not just be a towny. So
I asked my cousin, who lived in San Francisco, if
I should just work for her. She started to start up,
and she was an army of one. She's like, all right,
(03:20):
we're going to the office. It seems so nice. We
go inside and we're greeted by what we then called
the front desk associate. It felt so warm immediately. It's
my second day in California, ever, and I felt so
impressed by the greeting and the building. So automatically I
(03:41):
thought my cousin was hiding money from the family because
this place was so nice. I was like, what is
going on? Anyway? We go upstairs to the office and
everything is glass. You could see people working. There's bear tabs,
there's a pool table in the middle of the room.
There's TV and they're actually playing like African music in
the common space. I said, this is wild, this is
(04:04):
not where you really work. She took her keys out,
she opened her office. It had the logo of her
company name on there, and I was just totally impressed.
I couldn't believe I was working here. And that was
before I knew what we Work was, And that was
my first day at a WE work. I think this
may be the very first time I heard about a
space love bombing someone. Usually it's a person love bombing you,
(04:27):
but it was the space. It's the space, yeah, And
that's what the beauty of we Work was. It was
familiar every we work you would go to, whether you
were in Soul, Rio de Janeiro, Sydney, Boston, or San Francisco,
where I was, they were all unique but similar, and
so you felt the love because you felt a community.
(04:51):
And before we Work, I don't even think I'm Nigerian,
and so we have our village community, but I don't
think I heard that word in American culture before we Work.
All of this energy then lead you to want to
actually no longer be a member, which for people listening
to this, a member is almost I mean it's a
less glamorous word I'm about to use is like a tenant,
you know, I mean member sounds more belonging, but in essence,
(05:15):
you paid a monthly fee to access to space and
use the facilities within a WEE work location. Correct, Yeah,
that's a member. So then that could be any of us.
Any of us could have come and paid that monthly fee,
but then you actually found a job within the company.
One subtle red flag in a workplace is when the
(05:36):
employees are called community or team members or family. In
a good workplace with fair pay and benefits and realistic expectations,
it's just a word, but in a narcissistic workplace, it
can be a way to create a false sense of belonging,
like you have in a family. But at the same time,
(05:59):
it may be a workplace that's toxic and triangulated. I
was a member. I loved it. I asked the people
at the front desk, hey, this is my resume. And
at the time I didn't know we work was going
to expand like that because it was still very, very small.
I believe I joined when we had about twenty something
buildings globally. By the time I left, we had hundreds right.
(06:22):
It just struck me. And again, everything you're saying is
bringing up these new insights in me. It's it's so
unusual because they were providing the space, but they also
needed a workforce, and in a way, you were almost
like this, I don't know, like this a farm league
or like a training camp where they could see people
swinging and playing and I want that one and that
(06:43):
one because they were actually able to see your energy
and action, which no employer in the world would ever
have access to. So that was really unique. So not
only did you transition from being a member or a
tenant into actually working for the company, it sounds like
you really loved your job. Why did you love your
job there so much? So worked very hard and very
long hours, but there was an energy in the building.
(07:06):
As you said, this is the first time of building
loved on me so hard. As I came into San Francisco,
each building had that energy. Obviously, the energy is created
by the people in the building, but then the building
lent itself to also creating this magical energy where you
never wanted to leave. One thing. I want to stand too.
(07:26):
When people work hard, and let's just focus on you,
because you don't know what other people, I think you
worked hard. Why what was the carrot on the stick
where all human I would say money and we work
was a unicorn at the end of the day. And
the people who were working at the beginning, in the middle,
and at the end saw what was formulating in this
in this equation of community plus shared work space that
(07:51):
was cheap enough for the average Joe, but good enough
for a fortune company to share in the space as well.
And so we worked hard because we thought we were
in this unicorn company that was going to make us
a million dollars. Here's what's interesting about that answer around money,
because that's actually the logical thing. Certainly I was thinking,
(08:11):
and probably everyone else listening to this is thinking, like, Okay,
everyone's working real hard because they're making money. But what's fascinating, Hugo,
is that it was a long game on the money, right,
It's not like you're working hard and getting paid then.
So somehow the dream seemed plausible to you, that you
really were convinced it was a unicorn, because in a
way you were. And I'm trying to think of this
(08:32):
like a psychologist would, right, And when we think about
behavioral science, we think of the rat and the maze.
The only reason the rat is hustling down the maze
because there's cheese and it's going to get the cheese
right away. All of you were willing to say, we're
convinced there's going to be a whole ton of cheese behind.
You know, if we keep walking down this maze hard
every day. We don't know when that will be, but
we're confident it would be there. So this sense of
(08:56):
not only confidence, but in the short term, you were
in this really fun space with really incredible networking opportunities.
Like I said, I'm going to use the narcissism framework again,
I'm sort of I love you go because you sort
of brought this way. I've never thought about something like
this before. We talked about how the Space love bombed
you right well, in a way ago, the job did
(09:17):
something called future fake to you, and future faking is
when there is a promise like oh, hey, you know,
I'm gonna take care of you someday, or if you
just do this for me, then down the road we're
gonna move here, we're gonna get married, or whatever it is. Right,
that's what they were doing. They're like today, baby, we're
gonna get married, I'm gonna have a big ring, and
we're going to live in a big house. So they
future faked you, which is a classical part of a
(09:38):
narcissistic relationship. Future faking again, it's it tends to be
what we see in a narcissistic relationship. It only works
when the future faking is plausible. Right, So if somebody's
really down on their lock and then sort of just
making it living close to the bone and says, hey,
one day we're going to live in a big mansion,
You're like, okay, I think you're high. That's not happening.
So you're sort of looking at them sideways. That's not plausible.
(10:01):
But what we were created was something where the future
was plausible. And then what was even more clever was
everyone was in on the delusion. Everyone, So even if
you had a moment of doubt, everyone sitting next to
you was in on it. So then that, as we
know in human nature is always going to suck people
back in. And when we look at traditional, just one
on one narcissistic relationships, if a person is like, oh,
(10:23):
I don't know they're making these promises. If all your
friends I don't know, for example, are getting married just saying, oh,
come on, he's great, we're all getting married. So then
all of a sudden, the doubt gets silenced because whatever
that tribe is around you, whatever that community is around you,
they're in on it. So you think like, I can't
be the only one who's who's seeing this right, and
(10:43):
all of them must be right, and then the beat
goes on. You know, it makes you seem like you're
the crazy one, or you're not the intelligent one. When
a collective of people are saying one thing, or believing
in one thing, or doing one thing. If you see
the hole in the plan or you don't believe in
(11:04):
the plan, you make yourself believe that you're actually the
dumb one and everyone else is the smart one. So
with narcissistic behavior, if you have a narcissistic person that
can breathe life into a story, whether it's true or false,
if one person doesn't see it, then everyone thinks that
(11:26):
one person is crazy. And that's life now. And luckily
I went through that experience, whether it's traumatizing or not traumatizing,
that I now see that in everyday life. But what
you're also talking about is collective gas lighting. Right, Usually
we think of one person gas lighting one person at
a time. I never said that that never happened kind
of thing. But what you're talking about is collective gas lighting.
(11:47):
And there's it is a thousand times more potent when
it's collective than when it's one on one because you're thinking, Okay,
I can see that one person is not living in reality.
Who am I to say ten thousand people are aren't
living in reality? Right? And so, and that's not that's
not how people work. So they're all going to think that, Okay,
I'm wrong, I'm getting up atty. Who am I to
(12:08):
think this? And as you said, you go going through
something like this ends up being the sort of thing that,
sadly you have to go through sort of the loss,
the anger, the grief, the trauma. But that's sometimes really
I'm seeing this in narcissistic survivors of any kind, you
know who going through these relationships big or small, that
they say, okay, now I get it, And no one's
(12:29):
going to be able to convince me otherwise because I've
seen it first dance like seeing a UFO once the
aliens invite you in for dinner you're like, no, I
saw that, and you can tell me there's no such thing.
It sounds that one of the things that we work
was really pushing for was hustle. It was even if
I remember in the signage that I saw and that
that was depicted in the programs and all of that, hustle,
(12:49):
hustle harder, all of that in we work. Granted you're
already working what fourteen sixteen hour days, but what did
it mean there to hustle harder? I believed hustle harder
meant get shipped done. No matter what that ship was,
get it done, move on, and there's now another hurdle
to get through. So as a community manager, we had
(13:12):
it back in the early days, back in two thousand fifteen,
and prior, a community manager was a sales manager, a
property manager, a events manager. We literally had to do
everything in that building because we work was focused on
building out more buildings. So hustle hard and meant do
(13:32):
everything and do everything in your power to get shipped done.
So as all of this is happening, you're early on,
were there any red flags that were starting to pop
up for you when we started opening up buildings? Basically
right next to each other in various cities. And the
whole goal before that was to have each building open
(13:53):
up at a percent occupancy. How can you do that
when you're cannibalizing your own build thing that's next door.
It was very hard to continue the run rate that
we were experiencing before. So that was my clue, Like,
I think we're growing too quickly. How is this company
(14:14):
growing at such a fast pace. You could see a
few little cracks in the current buildings, but now we're
opening up so many more buildings. How are we going
to make sure those buildings don't have the same cracks
and flaws that the first buildings had. And I still
believe in the company now, like people need an expensive
coworking space around the world. But I stopped drinking the
(14:37):
kool aid in about two thousand nineteen, and that's when
news articles and social media and regular media started publicizing
the flaws that we're coming out. So interesting to hear
you say this because the narcissism person in me snaps
this into an individual relationship format. Okay, so let's treat
the entity of where you're working as a person. It's
(14:58):
like an individual person, right, So imagine you meet someone
are like, oh wow, how they kind of seem too
good to be true. But you want it to be true.
You want you like this, you're attractive this project. I
want these things to be true. So we suspend disbelief,
we silence the red flags because you're like, these things
being true works for me. So I'm going to pretend there,
(15:20):
or I'm going to go with the idea that they
could be true, right, not even pretend. And so that
idea of the high valuation and that the building sites
being close together, it's really like someone saying like, gosh,
this is what they do for a living, and yet
they live in this really nice place and they have
these cars and it doesn't add up, but it's kind
of fun hanging with this person. Yeah, so I'm just
(15:40):
gonna be like, hey, nor in that for now, a
little bit of a denial. It goes a long way
what gets interesting to me. And again, this is what
we see sometimes in narcissistic relationships is one day you
see things you can't unsee and then you can no
longer live in denial, and that's when the person in
the narcissistic relationship gets confused. How Ever, now, in that confusion,
(16:01):
we might even see the risk of self blame, self doubt, anger,
and anxiety. So what this was an entity doing this right,
It wasn't the person, and so a lot of people
wouldn't even think of that as sort of the narcissistic
abuse model, but it really fits it perfectly. The same
thing happens with individual people. I mean, I'm internally crying
(16:22):
right now for myself because you hit the nail on
the you know, on the head. It's literally the same psychology,
and I actually think what you experienced and obviously many
others in your position was harder because it was an entity.
Once again, it was believable because there's things, there's banks,
there's investors, and that you can't make that up, right,
(16:43):
Just like somebody might have nine credit cards that you're dating,
and you don't know that they have nine credit cards
that they're slowly maxing out. You just see that they're
living large and you're along for the ride. It sounds
though you're saying that around two nine is when your
opinion on the company changed, and that's when even the
rest of us who had nothing to do is we work.
We're starting to even see things in the news that
we're making us say what is this. It's almost like
(17:05):
when family business started becoming public. So I guess when
the media started voice in their opinions, I was like,
oh am, I not crazy, because now other people are
seeing some of the things that I saw in my head.
Like I said in two thousand and fourteen, when I
was a member and not even an employee, I stopped
(17:25):
drinking the kool aid when collectively a lot of other
people started opening their eyes. And I think though, that
that's where we see sometimes in these stories of power
of the media, you know, in an interesting way, it
even links back to sort of things other movements, even
like the Me Too movement right where a lot of
people were going through stuff and then people who felt untouchable,
you know, like you could not they're they're literally bulletproof.
(17:48):
Then the media comes along and all these people who
had suffered for a long time or saying, oh my gosh,
this one and that one and the other one went
through this too. So I think that's where the media
has a really interesting power, because like I said, it's
once the family business comes out into the street, all
of a sudden, a person might feel really vindicated, saying, oh,
I did see things the right way. Did the changes
(18:09):
in the company that were happening around this time? Everything
is growing almost out of control, and it's becoming clear
it might be too fast. How did these changes in
the company affect your mental health in any way? So
about two eighteen, I did start feeling the pressure at
the beginning. When you have unattainable goals, like I said,
you just put someone else to help and figure out
(18:30):
someone will attain that unattainable goal. Now when it's truly unattainable,
it was wearing on people. Then. Also, there were too
many cooks in the kitchen at that time. When we
got to our height, we had about sixteen thousand employees.
(18:52):
It's a difference, very big difference. And when you have
so many people in a kitchen that fits a about
twelve people, it's hard to keep things on track. And
so that was really making everyone feel the pressure at
that point, which makes sense. And you know what I
would guess, and I can only speculate. I always feel
(19:13):
like the staff, the rank and file, the employees and
an organization, they reflect the pressure from above, right, So
it's like it all transmits down the chain. And whether
it's the old saying of the fish stinks from the
head down. I just think it's that that pressure is transmitted. Correct.
This was very a community system, right, so as the
pressures were cracking at the top, that was being passed down,
(19:33):
but you were not getting a clear story on what
was going on, and none of you understood what those
balance sheets look like. There was no way. I was
just telling my friend before this, when you're opening a
building and when you're running a building and it's occupancy.
As a community manager, we had to be financially responsible
(19:54):
for our buildings, so we knew the p m L
of our buildings inside and out, but not of the corporation.
Lack of transparency is a feature of all narcissistic relationships,
whether it's in the workplace or even just two people
in a relationship. Simply put, narcissistic relationships feel shady. That
(20:15):
sort of blurs the relationship even more, and it makes
the self blame, the self doubt, and the confusion even
worse because you just can't get a straight answer on anything.
So sure, in the I guess isolated buildings, you are
drinking your kool aid. You know your building is profitable
(20:37):
or almost profitable, if your building is not profitable, you
still think maybe it's just your one building that's not profitable,
So you know you're living this truth, your own truth
of I know we work is successful even though my
building may not be, or I know we work as
successful because my building is successful at a time when
(21:02):
people did not know the real balance sheet of the
parent company, you can keep drinking the koolata and feel
like everything's fine. In my case, that was me until
I started managing our headquarters. Then I was privy to
things that regular community managers were not. So yeah, until
(21:25):
the media started showcasing we work in a negative light.
I don't think the majority of we work employees we're
seeing that. Except for those of us who worked in
the headquarters and saw it before the media or saw
it before everyday community managers in various buildings around the world,
(21:46):
it really makes sense. And I think that's the case
of many people who work for larger organizations. But in
this case it was more unique because people still again
the future faked piece of this is going to pay out,
and I believe in this thing that's bigger than me. Sure,
narcissistic relationships are smoke and mirrors, whether it is a
workplace that's spending money with abandon or an individual who
(22:09):
has the cars, the clothes, the whole look. Narcissistic folks
are the peacocks of the personality world. We often believe
they have the goods because they dress and behave and
look like they do. So maybe the bigger the feathers,
the less trusting we should be. My session with Ugo
(22:30):
will continue after this break. So let's talk a little
bit about narcissism, because I mean, there's no two ways
about it, and in fact, any podcast anything I've read,
all of them use that word. So is this not
some sort of unique observation that was very much what
(22:50):
characterized leadership? And so talk to us understanding the limitations,
But talk to us about Adam Newman. What was so
compelling about him. Adam Newman was a great influencer. Adam
knew how to influence people, truly by the words that
came out of his mouth. He has energy no matter what.
(23:13):
He's vibrant, and there's something that resonates with everyone when
he speaks. I don't know if it's because he says
he lived in a community and so people were longing
for community once again, being a Nigerian. I grew up
in a Nigerian community. I grew up in Boston, where
(23:34):
there's various immigrant communities, whether it's an Indian community, an
Irish community. But in America, there's no American community. I
never heard of that word. There's no community managers, there's
no community anything. And Adam I think, really was the
first person, in my opinion, that started this whole community
(23:57):
thing for American society's I think his words really inspired people,
whether they wanted to be inspired by him or not. Right,
I find it absolutely fascinating. We're currently in a period
of history. I think we're caught in the cult of charisma. Right.
I think I might be the only person on the
planet that when I meet a charismatic person, they might
as well be ready to mug me. How scared I
(24:19):
am of charisa. I am literally the only person who
feels that way. I am trying to convert people to be,
you know, to the the fortitude of the non charismatic
in our midst. Right, it's shocking to me. I think
Adam Newman is a case study in that. But I
don't think it's unique to him. That all of tech
was run on the cults of charisma. Even part of
(24:39):
the finance, certainly celebrity is run on the cult of charisma.
And I honestly think that's been around since time immemorial,
that if we look at historical figures, they were likely
really charismatic. We just don't have tape of them, right,
like Alexander the Great, Right, I'm sure, Yeah, I'm sure
all of these folks were charismatic. They were good speakers.
(25:01):
They would draw people to them. They knew how to
hit the zeitguys the energy of the time and sell it.
Whether or not they believed in it, we will never know.
All we know is that they could sell a message
at the right time, you know. And here's the ultimate though.
In every narcissistic workplace I have ever consulted with ever
in my career, they all feel cult like, right, That's
(25:21):
the nature of narcissistic workplaces. There's a CULTI feel. And
these cult like workplaces capitalize on creating this sense of community, closeness,
family belonging, and that can then lead people to accept
lower pay just so they can belong, as well as
a willingness to ignore red flags or even be shamed,
(25:44):
just like you would be in a family if you
talked smack about your family, right, So you're very protective
of that unit. And people so want to belong that
no one's going to question it, right. So I think
that what we were capitalized on intend only are not
was one of the most primal human needs, which was
the need to belong. Okay, And in that way, he
(26:08):
sold it not only to potential members, but also to
employees and even to investors. And as I look at
the story, I wonder how much of this is something
that mattered to the investors that they felt like they
weren't getting that they had a need to belong And
even though they weren't setting up their offices and we
work spaces that being a part of this. Yeah, they
were chasing the high of the you know, of the money,
(26:30):
but they were also getting that sense of belonging. And
this speaks to the machiavellianism of any narcissistic leader. They
figure out what people want at the most primal level,
They play on either desire or fear, and they get
it done. And that's what seemed to happen here. It
totally happened. And like I said, humans desire community, but Americans.
(26:52):
We didn't know that. You said your first generation. I'm
also first generation, so Adam is born in a different country.
So a lot of countries have this sense of community
that was missing here. Absolutely. I think though, if you
spend time in small town America, there is community, right.
I think that when you look at what we worked
(27:14):
was we work as an urban company, and so in
urban centers had lost community. So that's where you were
going to sell it, because if you walked into some
small town in the United States, but what are you doing, Like,
we're good, we got us, we got a church, we
got a place where people come together. I've spent enough
time in small towns to say, now, communities already there.
They don't need beer taps and kombucha and like wild
(27:35):
Friday night parties to create that. But by putting these
in urban centers, you actually hit that existential isolation. And
it's so now there's something that Scott Galloway said when Massa,
a soft bank, invested in We Work, he said, and
I'm quoting quote, if you tell a thirty year old
(27:56):
he is Jesus Christ, he's inclined to believe you. When
one of the smartest investors in the world valued the
company more than the Ford Motor Company, then said they
were not crazy enough and invested billions of dollars more.
And the press loves you, JP Morgan Chase loves you. C.
(28:19):
NBC loves you. It is hard not to believe that
their love is warranted and justified. End. What are your
thoughts on that? I agree, I totally agree. And once again,
it takes a narcissist sometimes to create a cult like following.
(28:39):
If no one believes a narcissist, you can't be a narcissist.
I mean, we're talking about enabling right right exactly exactly.
So when you tell a particular type of person who
I am a gay black mail. There's a hierarchy in
society and cis white males are at the top of
(28:59):
that hockey. Absolutely. So if someone comes and tells assists
white male that you have one of the most brilliant
minds and ideas ever, yeah, they're gonna think they're better
than every single other person in the world and they're
going to do whatever they want to do. Enablers are
(29:19):
the army that make the narcissistic folks possible. And this
story reminds us that enablers may not just be people
without power like the employees that we work. In fact,
the greatest enablers of this particular narcissistic fever dream were
the most powerful folks of all the bankers and the investors.
(29:42):
It's a reminder that nothing, all the smarts, all the money,
all the power in the world are enough to give
a person clarity on narcissism in any relationship. It's all
a reminder that anybody can be played, because these dudes
in this story really were You know what's fascinating is
(30:03):
I think that you know, charisma is that sort of
to me one of the core pillars of this story, right,
How all these people who were really smart about money,
who knew a lot about business, how they were all
drawn in by this charisma. And I sometimes wonder how
much it is that, especially in the business world, where
people already have so much privilege and power, that they're
drawn to a characteristic that they themselves don't have. That
(30:26):
they have other bits of genius, right, they understand finance
and how to grow money and how to manage it
and all of that, but the charisma is almost a
blind spot for them, because again it's something they don't have,
and I often I sort of observed that about with
Massa of soft Bank, who I think he saw something
he didn't have, and it was sort of like, I
want to be near this, you know, as though it's
infectious or it'll rub off, or simply that you admire it,
(30:48):
you know, listen in a well run world, and if
the smart money would just listen, So smart money, if
you happen to be listening to this Podcastny smart Money,
because here's what you want to know is that I
totally agree that it's the charismatic people who are often
visionary in a way that's so grandiose that none of
(31:08):
us what we cant stop ourselves saying, nobody wants like
to stay in someone's house and call it a hotel,
you know, like nobody wants to do that. Nobody wants
like to get into a stranger's car. So these charismatic
leaders were visionary. But what the smart money again needs
to figure out is a way to get the baton
from that visionary person and then get the right kind
(31:29):
of financial We're with all around it, yes, right exactly.
So It's like I think, actually, sometimes seven year olds
have great ideas. I don't know that I want to
give him a seat on the stock exchange, but sort
of like, all right, seven year old, you know what
seven year olds wants. This actually might be a winner.
But this has happened a couple of times now, a
couple of times the charismatic folks have gotten something over
(31:50):
the finish line, but have still been removed as CEO.
But I think that we've overestimated how much that cult
of personality and charisma can actually do the day to
day stuff of running a business. Again, charisma works great
when you're first dating. Charisma is interesting in bed. What
charisma is not good at is the day to day
(32:12):
drudgery that's involved in running a massive company. And it's
at that point p and L statements, all of that,
it's sort of like, don't show me this. This is
puncturing the grandiose solution that seems to be something that
if somehow the charismatic people and the dull, smart money
people could figure out a way to play nice, a
lot of people would be making a lot of money.
It's hard, it's hard to tame the charismatic actor in that.
(32:34):
I mean that's true in every facet of life, right,
like if the Democrats and Republicans would listen to each other,
as the charismatic and the pragmatic people would listen to
each other, the old people and the young people, the
minorities and the majority. But it's not like that, Unfortunately,
no it's not. And you nailed it. I loved how
(32:55):
you just said, beautifully, Ugo. The charismatic and the pragmatic,
it's those two groups if you could get them into bed,
but god knows, they never sleep together ever. So I
think it's always the charismatic and the enablers. And I
don't know, maybe the bagmatic people aren't having sex. I
think yes. The narcissistic people create a culture that people
(33:21):
want to believe it and people want to follow right right.
And the challenges though that ultimately the narcissistic individual is
very self serving and and sort of ingrained in them
is the willingness to throw everyone under the bus so
they can walk off with the most toys. Right. This
is not the person who is going to, you know,
sort of go down with the ship. They're going to say,
(33:42):
give me the best life vote and I'm out of here.
So I think that challenge is that I don't disagree
with you, and we know there's a lot of work
on this. Narcissism is correlated with leadership. Narcissistic people are
more likely to pursue leadership. But what we also know
is that toxic leadership can bring down a company. And
we've seen it happen that was and thousands of thousands
of times, whether they're small businesses, big businesses, multinational businesses,
(34:05):
it's all the same, you know, Hugo, tell me what
you think you said. I have my definition. Tell me
what you believe narcissistic behavior to be. Narcissists by my
own definition, is someone who has extremely high self worth
of themselves, but they also have low regard for other
people and their opinions and their feelings, which half the
(34:28):
time is probably more accurate than that own narcissistic view.
And so the problem is if we take away that,
you know, what you're saying is no regard for others.
So I would say that's probably a lack of empathy
for others. When you have somebody who has high regard
for themselves and values themselves and thinks well of themselves
and accounts for other people's opinions and input, that's just
(34:52):
called a really healthy person, right, I mean, that's what
that is. Narcissism doesn't get to get cut up like
it's the whole package of, you know, having an almost
delusional and distorted sense of self esteem that's not based
in truths, plus their lack of regard for others. And
what's tricky in the story we've been talking about, the
narcissistic leader at the top of this actually had some
real gifts. I mean, say what you will, say what
(35:15):
you will, But as I read the story, I'd say
this person actually had a vision that really captured the
zeitgeist in the energy of the time, particularly in a
certain age group, in a way no one had before.
I am the first one to say that. Then I
wouldn't be self aware if I didn't acknowledge that he
really did see something and and he enacted it. I
actually think that he was that unicorn. The problem is,
(35:37):
it's real hard to hook a unicorn up to a carriage.
They just want to run free. They don't want to
be attached to anything, and that was really it. So
do you think narcissism is a useful quality in a leader.
I mean, yeah, Unfortunately, I do think that sometimes a
narcissistic viewpoint, gathers the herd to come and ride with
(35:59):
you or coming back you. Now I could see a
little bit different that a narcissist is a great leader
minus qualities of a great leader, so minus the empathy
of others, minus the point of pragmatism. But yeah, I
(36:20):
think a narcissistic leader is a good thing to have
prior to my discussion with you now talking to you,
I think narcissists is that great leader, but they're missing empathy. Yeah.
What I'm hearing from you though, is narcissistic leaders are
great motivators, they're great visionaries, they're great idea generators. But
(36:42):
what they're not good as good managers, you know, and
they're also tend not to be particularly fiscally responsible. We
will be right back with this conversation with Hugo so
Ugo again. So I'm just sort of obsessed with talking
with you about this because so, I mean, you know
(37:04):
why everything I talked about narcissum is individual. Like a
couple people go in to marriage a mother, uh, you know,
or a parent or a friend. But to think of
it at this scale, and yet all the dynamics are
kind of the same. It's really it's so compelling, and
yet it was this magical moment. So it's like that
magical moment. Obviously it was portrayed in films and we
(37:26):
sort of have to go on good faith, but like
the parties and the fun and the summer camp and
that this and then then that, it was love bombing, right,
and just like every love bombing always falls apart on
the back end. So I would love to know, though,
after this really fascinating journey you've had it we work,
what was the biggest learning experience you'd say you took
(37:48):
away from working there. I think one of my largest
takeaways was that I actually believe in myself because half
the time that I saw these signs Eider in life,
other people saw those times, and later in life a
collective supported what I was thinking, and then everyone else
(38:08):
believed it. So if I just stand true in my
own faith and beliefs, then I will be Okay. What
I'm really hearing is that you learn to not gaslight
yourself after working there? Yes, exactly. And you know what, Ugo,
I gotta tell you this. I know it was a
hell of a wild ride if you got that lesson
(38:28):
out of this. I think the time there was well
spent totally because some people never learned that lesson. Yeah,
it's a big one, as long as you can hold
onto it. That's the key is that is how do
we let ourselves not be gaslighted. It means that you
have to have a lot of the capacity for resistance.
And so when people say, oh, come on, ugo, or
like you're not being cool, or say I hear you,
I feel you, and I see you, and I make
(38:49):
this is my there's a reality. So I'm cool, goodbye,
and I'm going to have to set this line down.
I've seen this movie before and I'm good. I know
how this one ends. I've been asking you questions for
a long time. Do do do you have anything you want
to run by me? What exactly draws people to a narcissist?
Same things that drew people too? We work, charisma, charm, promise, hope.
(39:13):
I think that's sort of what attracts people. But I
also think that there's confidence. There's the idea of for
a moment in time, belonging to something special. That is
sort of the healthy stuff that attracts us. That's the
above the line stuff. Below the line stuff is actually
even more pernicious, and that's the stuff like trauma bonding.
Some of the experience you're having is the same experience
(39:34):
somebody had with their own rejecting parent or rejecting sibling
or invalidating family system. And as an adult, there's a
real familiarity there, and familiarity is very intoxicating. But also
the idea that this time I can get it right
and there's a final piece which is that. And I
think that this comes up not only in charismatic leaders,
but just even in one on one relationships. Is this
(39:56):
idea that the narcissistic person is often like when they're
on their A game. It's like no a game you've
ever seen. It is like triple A. The sun only
shines on you, and then they withhold it, they get distracted,
they're not interested, and you're forever chasing that like I
want that again. I want the sun on me, and
I know it's possible because we had that, and that
(40:18):
sort of backing and forthing again is part of that
is part of that trauma bond. And like I said,
we were captured this. We're always chasing the unicorn. Nobody
chases a sort of an old pony, but they chase
the unicorn because they think that they can have it,
be with it, right it, I guess. But it's that
back and force between the excitement and then when they
pull away, people want that back, so they try harder
(40:41):
and harder to win them over. So I think the
fascination now is that so many people have been hurt
by people with these personalities and using this framework, people
saying that's what just happened to me. And it's like,
you just said that narcissism has these good things if
you will and put that good in quote, because it
always has the bad things, And what people are saying
is can I just have the good things? I'm like, yeah,
(41:02):
then it's not narcissist, you know, Like then it's just
a good person. But that rejecting part plays on that
below the line sort of trauma stuff that sometimes unless
people recognize, like how compelling it is to be drawn
to something where we work things through. But the point
of this podcast is to say to educate people to say,
these things, these red flags are real, and these stories
(41:24):
never end well. Ever, never end well. There maybe every
so often there was that one person in that company
who dumped their stock at exactly the right moment. That's
not different than me driving to a liquor store right
now buying a lottery ticket. You know, it's the same psychology.
So that's luck, you know. But by and large, I
have never ever seen one of these things. These stories
(41:45):
end well. So the key is to not walk in
the gateway in the first place. Boom, that's it. That's
why we're drawn to them a lot. Good. Yeah, I
think that idea of good narcissism, I ain't buying it.
The word has baked into it, the good and the bad.
Good narcissism is simply being that rarest of things in
our world, a confident, self aware, authentic, compassionate, kind, respectful,
(42:09):
cooperative individual. And let me tell you you want a unicorn,
it's that. Here are some takeaways after that conversation with Ugo.
Balancing our aspirations and our ideals was being able to
see red flags and also protecting ourselves can be really
(42:29):
challenging in the presence of a charismatic but self serving leader.
No matter how enthralled we are by their vision, we
always have to keep checking in with ourselves on whether
something really feels right. In our next takeaway, let's consider
that a relationship with a narcissistic leader can be just
as confusing as any narcissistic relationship. Even when things go wrong,
(42:55):
there may still be things that we valued about the experience,
but it's horton to remember that is okay to admire
their vision but not sign off on their bad behavior.
One thing we know, and this is supported by the research.
Even after a disappointing and demoralizing work experience, there can
still be tremendous possibilities when you join forces or continue
(43:19):
to support and be supported by your former healthy colleagues
that walk through the fire with you. And for my
last takeaway, charismatic leaders can do so much harm, but
not all of them are intentionally sadistic. They can get
so single minded in their grandiose pursuit of their vision
(43:40):
for the world that the harm to other people simply
becomes collateral damage for them, but it's real damage. This
can be confusing for people who admire the vision or
even the leader, but who are at the same time
being harmed by or watching other people be armed by
the charismatic leaders single minded focus on domination, power and control.
(44:09):
A big thank you to our executive producers Jada Pinkett
Smith Fallon, Jethro Ellen Rakaton and Dr Rominey Dr Vassola,
And thank you to our producer Matthew Jones, associate producer
Mara Dela Rosa and consultant Kelly Evelyn, and our editors
and sound engineers Devin Donnahy and Calvin Bailiff
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