Rethink Competition To Raise The Entire Game

• The rise of the WNBA can be likened to the growth of coworking spaces; both are based on collaboration, generosity, learning, and support.
• Despite the growth and global uptake of coworking spaces, they still constitute a small part of the work landscape.
• The focus should be on educating people about the benefits of coworking spaces, not just as places offering desks and wifi, but as environments where individuals can do their best work.

Recently the Las Vegas Aces won the 2023 WNBA Championship for the second year in a row. An emerging dynasty is the catchphrase that’s following the team around now.

The Aces beat the New York Liberty three games to one in a best-of-five series. And the Finals, played in both Las Vegas and New York City, were lit. Kids, moms, dads, young players, retired players, husbands, wives, coaches and hoopers from around the world witnessed a great series and rivalry between players who are so unbelievably good that it makes this one-time basketball player both intimidated by the level of talent these days and ecstatic about the future of women’s basketball.

When I was playing in college, there wasn’t a professional basketball option other than playing in Europe—which some of my friends and peers did. But a thriving women’s professional basketball league in the U.S. was still decades away.

To see the women from both WNBA teams be cheered on by packed arenas and celebrated across international media channels and outlets was truly remarkable.

But here’s the kicker: When the Aces head coach, Becky Hammon, was accepting the trophy after the title-clinching game, talking about how people are raising the level of the WNBA experience, she said to ESPN reporter Holly Rowe, “We’re going to continue to raise the level … It’s good for our sport, it’s good for women’s basketball, and we’re going to continue to grow it.”

She wasn’t just talking about her team. She was talking about all of the WNBA teams, owners, fans and players.

A rising tide lifts all boats — in women’s basketball and in coworking.

Coworking, from its inception, was built around a spirit of collaboration, generosity, sharing, learning and supporting each other. As the coworking pioneers would say, “Our competition is not each other, it’s people working from their kitchen table.”

And it was 10-plus years ago that I first heard that sentiment.

Before Covid, before the remote revolution, before … all of this.

And guess what? Your competition is still not each other. Your competition is still people working from their kitchen table.

Coworking, even with all the growth, adoption, publicity, experts, sectors and global uptake, is still a small part of the very big work landscape.

I meet people all the time who don’t know what “coworking” is.

I also regularly meet people who loathe working from home by themselves all day, but still won’t justify the cost of joining a coworking space because they “have an office at home.”

Ugh.

We have so much work (and educating) to do. 

So, let’s get after it. 

Together. 

And if you’re selling desks and wifi, please consider that people don’t need desks and wifi. They need a place to do their best work, to collaborate with their team, to level-up their company or entrepreneurship skills, to find connection and to experience belonging.

Let’s grow this thing together.