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1“In the beginning the Universe was created.
2This has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move.”
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4― Douglas Adams, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
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7Why is this written
8Because I care. I am not personally affected by the way a business decides to spend its funds, and if I was, I wouldn’t need to evangelize to deal with that. I am, however, concerned with the well-being of the company I am a part of, and which, up to this incident, was evidently doing its best in regard to its employees. Said well-being appears to be taking a huge hit for no apparent good reason. I am also concerned with the intense peer pressure to toe the line most people in this company feel due to the way motivational aspects of HR are organized. I would like to present a vehicle for silent dissenters to latch on, should they so desire.
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11This document has been written over a couple of weekends, entirely by yours truly, XXXXX XXXXX.
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13Everything said here is my personal opinion, and everyone is welcome to agree or disagree in a civil manner.
14What the issue is
15WeWork as a company has decided to commit to a certain meat-free conditions. Said conditions prohibit company funds to be used to purchase meat (including pork and poultry) as a food option at company-run (and/or hosted?) events, and as a food option at expensable meals during business travel or business functions and meetings.
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17This has been abruptly announced by Adam Neumann without any clarifications at the end of the latest all-hands meeting, and later reconfirmed in two emails from Miguel McKelvey sent on behalf of the Culture team. Neither opposing/dissenting opinions nor constructive options suggested by concerned employees have been addressed in any form, to the best of my knowledge, beyond suggestions to contact Global Policy for personal documented exceptions of medical or religious type.
18Why I think it’s a problem
19To start, let me get a some facts straight. 
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21I consider it to be self-evident that a private company and its effective owners are fully entitled to use or not use their funds in ways they think best. I do not, however, think that’s an excuse to free the decision makers from consequences nor is it an excuse to say “but it is only for XXX and thus doesn’t force anyone to do anything”. Anyone espousing the latter ignores the fundamentally asymmetrical relationship between employers and employees.
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23I also freely concede that the actual issue at hand, namely, ecological impact of unsustainable factory farming not only of various forms of meat but of largely any mass-produced food types today - exists, and is definitely worthy of consideration. Moreover, some of the myths prevalent in fighting this opinion, such as “natural volcanism dwarfs CO2 output of farming”, are demonstrably false.
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25I also would like to give our leadership the benefit of the doubt and consider that they intended, in good faith, to create meaningful social impact and set an example for others to follow, similarly to other commendable social initiatives WeWork has done in the past, and not just made a flashy PR stunt.
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27However, I think that the means by which this has been approached and executed led to a spectacular HR failure, and unless mitigated, will have significant negative impact on the company culture and success.
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29Let’s start with the announcement. It has been done in the last minutes of an all-hands meeting, with zero explanations of scope or impact or reasoning, beyond “hey why not, it’s cool”. That immediately sent a number of people who were attentive enough to listen to Adam closely, reeling. Some even thought meat is about to be banned outright, including for personal consumption at work. After some behind-the-scenes minor backlash and hasty attempts at clarification from local management, there was the first email from Miguel/Culture team affirming what was said, quoting “research” and using motivational filler and inflated figures of dubious origin to promote the decision. Internal communication channels boiled. There was much heated debate, with pros and cons and, importantly, rational reasoning and alternatives. There was also a mountain of questions. After some time, during which no official response to anything was ever furnished, there has been a second Miguel/Culture email, which has a) reconfirmed the commitment b) used the same motivational filler and half-heartedly quoted “research” then proceeding to offer unexplained figures of potential successful impact c) confirmed the expansion of the commitment to SummerCamp and T&E policy. No mention of even the existence of opposing opinions was made.
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31All of this left me completely baffled and sad. Literally everything in that process, both form and content, goes against the grain of everything else WeWork and its leadership have been doing and saying. At the root of it lies the obvious fact: the leadership has – and excuse me but it is a bit futile to argue this point as it has been confirmed by deeds not words – demonstrated that it does not trust its employees to make a right choice on their own, as responsible individuals, and it does not want to spend effort on educating and explaining, but prefers to rule by decree, twisting everyone’s arm, or else. Yes it’s not a very painful twist, yet, but it kinda ruins the relationship. Moreover, there are problems at every link of this chain.
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33The much vaunted Culture team, if it has been consulted for this, seem to have completely missed the, well, cultural part. To start meddling with other people’s food, one would probably pause to gauge the possible impact. At that point, it would become evident that food is not just yet another topic. It is deeply embedded in human psyche and anchors any number of deepest cultural and personal circles and memories. Wantonly messing with that immediately raises the hackles of anyone who has an identity. Cultural insensitivity implied is also gaping. Yes, USA has three times average meat consumption compared to other places on the globe and has a huge percentage of unsustainable factory farming. But isn’t WeWork a global company? What has happened with the awareness of other cultures, where people eat meat less but produce it better? Where meats are an indispensable part of a daily diet? Take India, where many different people do not eat different types of meat for a variety of cultural reasons, and did so long before Europeans, let alone Americans of today, had enough turnips to eat; why have they now been a subject of a wholesale ban? And last but not least, why would anyone want to shove an arbitrary decision on such an instantly divisive topic as food and dieting? Guaranteed discord, and for what?
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35For rational people, the question of why specifically this issue has even been chosen is wide open. Miguel’s latest email quotes “research”. The link to the research is actually a link to an article in The Guardian, which in turn links to a Science publication. While an idea of making a decision affecting the lives of 6k+ people based on a mass media article quoting a single source seems fishy from the start, I have taken the trouble of reading through the said article, through the Science publication and through at least some of its bibliography. I can’t claim I did any real scientific work with that, there simply isn’t the time, but from what I managed to see, facts from the research in question and their interpretation in The Guardian are wildly taken out of context when used in the “why” presented to us. Moreover, all the sound advice in both the article and the conclusions of the actual research are ignored in favour of a cavalier policing action, and much of that sound advice and scientific recommendations resonate heavily with the constructive criticism presented in Slack channels and elsewhere by concerned employees. To add some salt to the wound, there is absolutely no explanation for the figures presented as “can save”. Estimates are good, but they usually require some grounds. None were given. Why? Are we not worthy the effort to do so? Are figures illusionary? Sad.
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37Continuing on the mystery of this choice, was there any research? Right at the all-hands meeting, Adam has conceded that we have not yet learned how to turn off electricity for the night in our buildings. What is the CO2 equivalent of that wasted energy? Have we banned one-use plastic cutlery? Are our buildings carbon-neutral? Rooftop gardening and solar deployed? HVAC optimized? Heck, we don’t have separate garbage collection in TLV HQ. Almost all of that is easy to quantify (as opposed to mysterious numbers in the emails), relatively straightforward to fix, often via technology that we already possess, and most importantly - you don’t need to twist anyone’s arm, people will voluntarily rally to these causes, do 36 hours hackathons, you name it. Why wasn’t any of that chosen for an impactful announcement and/or commitment? Why, of all things, meat? Can we get an answer?
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39Let’s imagine for a minute that there actually was factual research backing this commitment and decision, and that it was determined beyond reasonable doubt that it is the most impactful move we can make. Why, then, it was decided that it should be a top-down decree, propped up by FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt) propaganda and no facts (no, sorry, quoting an article in The Guardian doesn’t count as facts, please see verbiage above)? Why wasn’t the decision assessed in the enlightened way WeWork used to apply, as in: let’s educate people! Let’s invite ecologists and nutritionists and sustainable farmers to speak at an All-Hands. Let’s subsidise nutritional advice for employees. Let’s do cooking workshops (hey, we have cooking channels on Slack, how about using the community everyone loves to talk about?), let’s invite sustainable food champions who actually know what they are talking about, like Jamie Oliver, to speak at SummerCamp! Let’s commit to sourcing food from sustainable, responsible farmers, including meat. Those are not hard to find, watch Chef’s Table on Netflix, for starters. Let’s call for volunteers for group commitments! Let’s lead by example, maybe leadership publicly commits to vegan diets for them and their families! No? Why?
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41Finally, the sum of above feels especially tragic because it directly contradicts most of the WeWork’s values. Together? No, you can’t be together by force. Inspired? No, ordered. Entrepreneurial? No, there’s no doing in this commitment, only a policing action. Grateful? Hardly, all of the employees feedback has been summarily ignored and not even acknowledged. Authentic? Only if the leadership are the only ones allowed the authenticity. The only value that resonates is Tenacious - as it is inevitable that you will get tenacious opposition. The great atmosphere of tolerance, inclusivity, cultural awareness and understanding - this action is directly against it all. Welcome home, but don’t you dare to eat meat. Being confronted with all this, there’s an unpleasant dilemma. EIther I should believe that all those values and all that great spirit and culture were hypocritical lies, or that this anti-meat thing was ill-conceived, not very well thought through, and, generally, a mistake. Allow me the luxury to choose the latter, and I invite you to join me.
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43Business-wise, and in consideration of the above, it is my humble opinion that skillful talented people do not like being disrespected in this way, do not like leadership that acts on decisions that have wide-ranging implications for no apparent gain and without any prep work, debate or facts, do not like employers reaching into their personal decision spaces, do not like gigantic bait-and-switches like this year SummerCamp (mind you, members can back out if they don’t like bait-n-switch tactics; employees can not), do not like employers that dictate what they can eat during business travel. Thus, some of these people will seethe for a time and perhaps leave; it will be be that much harder to attract fresh top talent because you can’t hide the bizarre news and can’t prevent conclusions people will come to, like this document.
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45I also very much pity the Finance and Accounting who will now have the unenviable job of policing the expense reports, peering at the receipts to detect mention of meat. 
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48What I think should be done
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50It is my heartfelt belief that errors happen. Especially in the context of a great company such as WeWork, with the incredible rate of growth, and a culture of change. You can’t change if you don’t make mistakes. But you also can’t succeed if you don’t meet your mistakes, look them in the face, admit them, fix them and move on.
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52I would very much like to see leadership consider the point of view exemplified in this document, consider multiple cases of constructive criticism in company’s communication channels, perform the research that must have been done before the plunge. And then (and rather sooner than later), repeal the restrictions as formulated now and admit to the workforce that this has been done badly. Not the premise, which is sound (see the very beginning), but the approach and the execution. Then we will all be better off, we will be able to regain the lost confidence in leadership, and we will be able to do many great things towards sustainability, together, in good spirits and in an enlightened, constructive way.
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54I would like to conclude with this excellent quote, which, beautifully, can be applied to both sides of a debate, provided a debate exists and both sides actually listen to each other.
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56“If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”
57-- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (around 170-180 AD)
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70Media links:
71Slate https://slate.com/business/2018/07/all-the-problems-with-weworks-no-meat-policy.html
72Bloomberg https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-13/wework-tells-employees-meat-is-permanently-off-the-company-menu
73Ken Wheeler’s Twitter https://twitter.com/ken_wheeler/status/1018245167164243968?s=21