At Work with The Ready

This is the first in a series of short episodes devoted to teams in transition due to the Novel Coronavirus. It's about more than simply adapting to remote work—it's about adopting (in the midst of this chaos) a way of working that will make you ready for anything. This Brave New Work miniseries with Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans is based on The Ready's OS Canvas which is featured in Brave New Work. References mentioned: The OS Canvas Send the questions you'd like to see answered in this series to [email protected] Does your team need help navigating this moment? Email us at [email protected]

The one-on-one meeting, often between a manager and their "direct report" is among the most common and popular meetings in existence. But it may also be the most harmful. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans debate and discuss the best and worst ways to hold this meeting. Later, they're joined by the author of The Coaching Habit, Michael Bungay Stanier, to figure out how to show up to one-on-ones as a coach rather than a boss. Learn more about Michael and his work on LinkedIn and his website. Learn more about Box of Crayons on their website and on Youtube. Resources mentioned: The Ready's Tension and Practice Deck "Radical candor": Episode 13 with Kim Scott "Dunbar's number" "First 90 days of self-management": Episode 11 with Doug Seacrist "Rockefeller Habits": Mastering the Rockefeller Habits by Verne Harnish The Practice of Adaptive Leadership by Ronald Heifetz Immunity to Change by Robert Kegan and Lisa Lahey Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

It's been many years since the release of Frederic Laloux's groundbreaking book Reinventing Organizations. In some ways the world is different—more ready, more radical—and in other ways, not much has changed. More adaptive and soulful ways of working are still fringe. The way forward isn't clear. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Frederic about where we stand, where we're heading, and why this moment feels like the last gasp of authoritarianism, extractive capitalism, and all the other -isms. Learn more about Frederic and Reinventing Organizations at his website and his Youtube video series. Mentioned resources: Ken Wilber, specifically stages of development, orange and teal organizations, and Spiral Dynamics The work of Parker Palmer Brave New Work by Aaron Dignan (if you haven't read it yet, now's your chance!) Brian Robertson's theory of "evolutionary purpose" Ricardo Semler, CEO of Semco and author/speaker Taylorism Douglas McGregor, management professor and author of The Human Side of Enterprise Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Facing a pandemic, many of the world's institutions are finally giving remote work, agility, responsiveness, and basic human decency some deep consideration. Meanwhile, it's becoming clear that organizations who have already been prioritizing adaptivity and humanity at work are surprisingly well prepared to face this challenge. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans explore what we can learn from a moment like this, and why creating a culture built on autonomy, transparency, and decentralization makes sense with or without a crisis. In this moment of disruption and anxiety, it felt good to sit down and focus on what we can do, rather than second guessing the past, or predicting the future. Stay safe out there people. Mentioned resources: "Enabling and governing constraints" from Dave Snowden's Cynefin framework "Learn by Doing episode" - Ep. 9 with Ben Kaufman "Tom's episode" - Ep. 16 with Thomas Thomison Get more information about COVID-19 from the CDC and the WHO. Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Our job is to keep the organization safe, right? And in order to do that we need to predict the future, see around corners, and avoid unnecessary risk. We need to be able to list all the ways the idea we're considering can go wrong. Or... do we? In this episode, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about a concept The Ready calls "future tension," which is what happens when we let our worries about the future hijack the present. Later, they’re joined by Thomas Thomison, founding partner of Encode.org, who takes us deep into the origins of the concept and teaches us how to overcome it. Learn more about Thomas on LinkedIn. Learn more about Thomas' work at Encode.org, HolacracyOne, and PowerShift Capital. Resources mentioned: David Allen and "Getting Things Done" Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

The most common question we hear is, "What can I do if I'm not the one in charge?" So many of us—including leaders and managers—want to eradicate bureaucracy. But, we're not the head honcho. In this episode on Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about the simple moves anyone can make to start moving toward a better way of working. Because we have a lot more authority than we think we do. And the power we don't have can be enlisted. Later, they're joined by Sarah Devereaux from Google, who shares what she's learned about sparking change after more than fourteen years inside Google. Learn more about Sarah on LinkedIn. Mentioned Resources: Episode 8 of Brave New Work feat. David Marquet Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your guest ideas and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

The Ready has a habit of disrupting the established way of doing things, but we've never really looked at our hiring process... until now. In the last few months, we've radically overhauled the way we making hiring decisions by asking questions like, "Can we design a process that reduces bias and homogeny? Can we design a process that focuses on what we want rather than what we don't?" In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about the inner workings of The Ready's new system, the rationale behind it, and what early results are telling us about the work ahead to make it better. Later, they're joined by Kate Glazebrook, cofounder of Applied, who deepens our understanding of the biases and cognitive gymnastics inherent in hiring, while making us feel a little better about our struggles thus far. If you make hiring decisions, this one is a must. Learn more about Kate on LinkedIn and Twitter. Learn more about Be Applied and their approach at their website. Mentioned Resources: Blink by Malcolm Gladwell Thinking, Fast and Slow by Daniel Kahneman Iris Bohnet, author of What Works: Gender Equality by Design Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your guest ideas and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Are you open to some feedback? Gulp. That one word is enough to send most of us packing. Why? Because we've endured far too many "conversations" that were infrequent, impersonal, critical, and one-sided. But, is it possible to do feedback right? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about three different waves of feedback at work, and why it's so critical to question our assumptions and reinvent this pervasive practice. Later, they’re joined by Kim Scott, author of Radical Candor, who teaches us how to balance caring personally and challenging directly. Learn more about Kim on her website, LinkedIn or Twitter. Learn More about Kim's book, Radical Candor, on the web and on Youtube. Resources mentioned: "Ego and identity" - Episode 5 of our podcast! 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Warner Klemp Lie 5: People Need Feedback by Marcus Buckingham The Hard Thing About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Any podcast that promotes busting bureaucracy and hobbling hierarchy is bound to stir up some questions. That's why this week we're going to let our listeners Ask Us Anything. For this episode, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans took to Twitter and the Brave New Work Wednesdays newsletter to find out what you're wondering about. And you came through big time. We plan on doing this every twelve weeks or so from here on out, so if you ever feel a question percolating as you're listening, just drop us a line at [email protected] Resources mentioned: The Peter principle Essentialism by Greg McKeown Organize for Complexity by Niels Pflaeging The Little Book of Beyond Budgeting by Steve Morlidge Drive by Dan Pink Nonviolent Communication by Marshall B Rosenberg Team of Teams by General Stanley McChrystal Rework by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson We the People by John Buck and Sharon Villines Many Voices One Song by Ted J Rau and Jerry Koch-Gonzalez Unboss by Lars Kolind and Jacob Bøtter 9 Lies About Work by Marcus Buckingham John Cutler's Twitter account Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

When we decide to start working differently, it often begins with just one or two teams taking the leap. For everyone involved, the first weeks and months are a rollercoaster of highs and lows. Not everyone has the courage to see things through. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about SLAM teams (self-managing, lean, audacious, multidisciplinary), the early days of a transformation, and why leaders should stay the course even when the going gets tough. Later, they’re joined by Doug Seacrist, from Bloomin’ Brands, who shares his story of reinventing the technology support function inside a huge system of restaurants. Learn more about Doug and his work on LinkedIn. Learn more about Bloomin' Brands at their website. Mentioned resources: "Philosophy problem replacing wood on a boat": The Ship of Theseus User manuals to me: Brave New Work, Episode 159 Scrum teams and Agile "Perspectives in a retro": Brave New Work, Episode 10 Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

We all know that faster learning loops are critical to success in complexity. Yet, we rarely (if ever) take the time to practice one of the most powerful learning moves in the game: the retrospective. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about the power of reflection—for the individual, team, and organization—and why we can't keep charging ahead without looking back. Later, they're joined by Parabol founder and CEO Jordan Husney, who shares what he’s learned hosting tens of thousands of retrospectives on their platform, including this gem: ”The only wrong way to have a retrospective is to not have one at all.” Learn more about Jordan on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Medium. Learn more about Parabol on their website. Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your guest ideas and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

When starting something new, most of us tend to research, analyze, plan, and procrastinate. Because we don't want to fail. We don't want to be exposed as imposters. And we don't want to take big risks. But in novel and complex spaces, that strategy doesn't help, it only slows us down without increasing our odds. Instead, we need to start by starting and learn by doing so that our ideas can make contact with reality as soon as possible. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans explore how to get on with it—by starting small and working iteratively—so that more good things make it out into the world. And speaking of good things, later they're are joined by Ben Kaufman, founder and CEO of the revolutionary toy store CAMP, who shares why he feels compelled to start impossible projects, and how he rushes in before all the reasons he shouldn't overwhelm him. Learn more about Ben on LinkedIn and Twitter. Learn more about CAMP at their website. Resources mentioned: -"The Marshmallow Test" from Tom Wujec's 2010 TedTalk "Build a tower, build a team": ------------------------------------ Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your guest ideas and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Leading a team through change is hard, but leading a team to a place without traditional leadership is far harder. If you ask people to step up... will they do it? And can you really mandate self-management? In this episode of Brave New Work, we talk about what it takes to realize a new way of working within a team or organization, and why that's so hard for—and so dependent on—those of us in charge. Later, they're're joined by former submarine commander David Marquet, author of Turn The Ship Around! and Leadership Is Language, who talks to us about the power of stepping back, the way language shapes the workplace, and how to create a "can think" (and do) culture. Learn more about David and his books on his website, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Resources mentioned: Setting The Table by Danny Meyer ("the salt shaker") Getting Past No by William Ury ("the balcony") ---------------------- Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your guest ideas and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

A diverse team doing important work is bound to disagree. But they’re also likely to avoid talking about it—because conflict makes many of us deeply uncomfortable. But, what if we simply lack the skills to do it well? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about why disagreement is so hard, what healthy disagreement looks and feels like, and why it’s so critical to success in complexity. Later, they’re joined by Buster Benson, author of Why Are We Yelling, who teaches us how to have disagreements so productive we might actually seek them out and enjoy them. Learn more about Buster on his website, on Linkedin, or on Mastadon. Learn more about Buster's book Why Are We Yelling? The Art of Productive Disagreement -------------------- Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

In a complex and dynamic world, sharing information on a "need to know" basis is misguided, because it perpetuates ignorance and bias. No one needs to know everything all the time, but we need the right (and the ability) to find what we need when we need it. And while many teams and organizations are coming around to the principle of transparency, when it comes to sharing more sensitive data—like compensation—many people freak out and start to backpedal. In this episode Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about why traditional organizations and teams (and even the two of us) covet and hoard information, and what it looks and feels like to let information flow. Later, they’re joined by the cofounder and CEO of Buffer, Joel Gascoigne, who shares how Buffer made "defaulting to transparency" a core value and never looked back. Learn more about Buffer and their commitment to transparency at https://buffer.com/ and https://buffer.com/about#transparency Learn more about Joel at his website or via LinkedIn or Twitter. Resources mentioned: Dave Snowden's Principles for Managing Knowledge ----------------------------- Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com We want to hear from you. Send your feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Self-awareness in the workplace is hard to come by—because our egos are so good at “protecting” us from reality. For many of us, our identity is so tied up in who we are at work that deep down we worry, “If not for my title... who am I?” In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about how our egos get the better of us, and why reinventing organizations often means reinventing ourselves. Later, they’re joined by psychologist Dr. Gareth Holman (Rodney’s own coach) who shares how we can bring the inside out, to become better colleagues and better people. Learn more about Dr. Holman at his website or on Linkedin. References Mentioned: The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman, and Kaley Warner Klemp Principles: Your Guided Journal by Ray Dalio The Trusted Advisor by David H. Maister, Robert Galford, and Charles Green ---------------------- Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com. We want to hear from you. Send your feedback to [email protected]. Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com.

In almost every organization we visit, teams aren't just having bad meetings—they're having meetings to prepare for those meetings. The virus is spreading. And so we have to ask: when should we have a meeting? And how can we make them more effective when we do? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about why meetings are a symptom of other problems in the operating system and the path to a healthier meeting culture. Later, we’re joined by Dan Kim from Basecamp, who shares how the iconoclastic "calm company" delights in avoiding meetings unless they're absolutely necessary. Learn more about Dan by visiting his website or connecting with him on Linkedin. Resources mentioned: The Art of Gathering by Priya Parker Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule by Paul Graham ------------------------------------ Our book is available now at https://www.bravenewwork.com/ We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected] Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit https://theready.com/

Communication around organizational change is a prime example of a complicated approach (write an email that nineteen people edit!) to a complex situation (human beings and their feelings!). Most of us have been on the receiving end of messages that feel like they were designed to obscure any actual information. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans dive into the double talk that gets the better of so many of us, and what to do instead. Later, they're joined by Deirdre Latour, who has led communications at both GE and Pearson, to learn what it's like to fight for candor in the midst of crisis. Learn more about Deirdre on Linkedin. Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com. Have an idea for an episode, or the perfect guest? Reach out to [email protected]. Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com.

The best teams in the world don’t just agree on what they’re going to do, they agree on how they’re going to do it. In this debut episode, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about working agreements—what they are and why we need them—and explore which working agreements might be critical to success. Later in the episode, they’re joined by Mike Brevoort from Slack who takes us inside the norms and agreements that enable the company's “work hard and go home” ethos. Learn more about Mike at his website or connect with him on Linkedin. ----------------- Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com. Have an idea for an episode, or the perfect guest? Reach out to [email protected]. Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com. ----------------- 00:00 Intro & Check-In: If you could choose, what would your last meal be? 02:51 What are working agreements? 05:59 Foundational agreements for any team 14:02 What broken agreements actually mean 22:09 Mike's interview begins 23:08 What is Slack and what do you do there? 24:48 Slack's working agreements 29:39 Agreements around emojis and reactions 34:48 Working agreements are a moving target 38:02 Agreements outside of the digital space and IRL 42:23 Wrap up: Leave us a review!

Brave New Work is a podcast about reinventing our organizations and the search for a more adaptive and human way of working. But what does that really mean? In this brief introductory episode, we set the stage for what’s to come—covering everything from our theory of change to our reasons and plans for the show. Our first full episode is also available now. ---------------- Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com. Have an idea for an episode, or the perfect guest? Reach out to [email protected]. Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com. --------------- 00:00 Introduction and why we're making BNW 01:19 Getting to know Rodney 05:21 What is The Ready and what do they do? 09:55 Connection between Brave New Work and The Ready 16:00 How we're organizing the show

What’s stopping us from doing the best work of our lives? It’s the way we work. Whether you’re building a startup or reinventing a global enterprise, every day is a battle between chaos and bureaucracy. But, what if there’s a third way? Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans help teams all over the world discover a more adaptive and human way of working. Now it’s your turn. Each week, they’ll bring you a counterintuitive take on a common challenge at work—and you'll hear from guests who have been there and found their way to something better. This isn’t business as usual. This is Brave New Work.