At Work with The Ready

Get the AI Coffee Club toolkit to start one at your own organization: Download here! AI isn’t coming—it’s here. Every organization is already feeling its impact, whether through new tools, shifting expectations, or the quiet panic of not knowing where to start. But most companies are doing what they always do: treating transformation like a plan instead of an experiment. And as AI reshapes how wor...

How do you change the way work happens when everyone agrees on what to do—but no one wants to change how it’s done? In this mini episode of At Work with The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin tackle a listener question about navigating change inside legacy systems where authority, tradition, and “the way we’ve always done it” still rule. They explore why emotional loyalty to old processes can sta...

Burnout has become the quiet epidemic of modern work. We tell people to “set better boundaries” or “take more time off,” but the real problem isn’t a lack of self-care—it’s that most organizations are designed to exhaust their people. Fear-based cultures, unclear priorities, and performative busyness have turned overwork into a badge of honor, leaving even the most capable teams running on fumes....

What happens when your promotion puts you in charge of your former boss? In this mini Ask Us Anything episode of At Work with The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin answer a listener’s question about one of the trickiest transitions a leader can face—managing the people who used to manage you. They explore how to navigate power shifts, handle ego and shame dynamics, and reset team expectations wi...

Every worker has a bad boss story—but why are they so common? In this two-part series, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin dig into the archetypes of dysfunctional leaders and the systems that keep them in power. Because bad bosses aren’t accidents—they’re often a predictable response to organizational pressures. In Part 2, they take on the Ghost—the slippery, conflict-avoiding boss who’s always hard to...

We’re trying something new: mini Ask Us Anything episodes! Instead of waiting for our quarterly Q&A roundups, we’ll drop shorter conversations into your feed every other week where Rodney and Sam tackle one great listener question at a time. This week’s question: How should OD and change consultants handle unfavorable peer feedback in 360 reviews—especially when it’s happening among the leaders ju...

Every worker has a bad boss story—but why are they so common? In this two-parter, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin dig into the archetypes of dysfunctional leaders and the systems that keep them in power. Because bad bosses aren’t accidents—they’re often a predictable response to organizational pressures. In Part 1, they take on the Micromanager, the Rager, and the Martyr. From obsessive control and v...

Producer Note: Hey there! We’re on vacation this week, but we didn’t want to leave your feed empty. Some of our most popular conversations this past year have been about the Midnight Zone and that’s why we’re sharing this fantastic episode from our friends over at Fixable. We hope it gives you some fresh strategies for navigating (and even embracing!) conflict in your organization, and we’ll see y...

Most of us think we know ourselves (and the people we work with) pretty well. But when tensions rise, deadlines loom, or feedback lands wrong, the truth comes out: we’re all running on a set of deep, often invisible patterns. What if we could see those patterns clearly, and choose something better? Enter the Enneagram: a framework that maps nine core motivations, survival strategies, and ways of s...

In most companies, mergers and acquisitions (M&A) is treated like a finish line. But the truth is, signing the deal is just the start—and if you haven’t thought deeply about how two operating systems, cultures, and teams will actually work together, you’re already behind. The vast majority of M&A efforts fail to deliver long-term value, not because the deal was bad, but because the integration nev...

It’s reorg season…again. And for many companies, it always is. Every 12 to 18 months, another wave of layoffs, leadership swaps, and org chart redraws rolls through the system. And yet, little changes. Strategy stalls. Trust erodes. Work doesn’t get better, just messier. So why do so many organizations keep reaching for the reorg lever first? This week, Rodney and Sam unpack the seductive logic (a...

The extended leadership team (those just below the C-suite) often finds itself stuck between translating strategy and triaging dysfunction. They’re tasked with cross-functional execution, but are rarely equipped, empowered, or aligned to pull it off. And in most organizations, this group is caught in a cycle of managing up, managing down, and managing chaos all around—with very little time or clar...

For years, the conversation around remote work has been stuck in binary debates. Home vs. office? Productivity vs. flexibility? Control vs. chaos? But what if we zoomed out and asked a better question: What kind of future is possible if people could actually work from anywhere? This week, Rodney and Sam sit down with Raj Choudhury (Harvard Business School professor and author of The World Is Your...

In a year marked by tighter budgets, leaner teams, and growing uncertainty, more organizations than ever are choosing to go it alone. DIY transformation feels safer, cheaper, more in control. But that instinct to do more with less is often the very thing that stalls progress. Because without the right structure, support, and space, most internal change efforts don’t just slow down… they spin out....

We talk a lot about doing less to get more—but in practice, most organizations end up doing the opposite. When priorities pile up, and nothing gets removed or finished, the result is a familiar kind of chaos: too many projects, too little focus, and an endless loop of adding more in hopes of getting unstuck. This week, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin unpack one of the most common organizational dynam...

Despite an explosion of frameworks, toolkits, and “best practices,” the success rate of organizational change hasn’t improved in over a decade. For all the decks, comms plans, and transformation initiatives being sold, most companies still find themselves stuck, repeating the same plays and hoping for different results. This week, Rodney Evans welcomes back Michael Bungay Stanier—best-selling auth...

In this miniseries, we’re exploring Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges. This week, Rodney and Sam reflect on what they’ve learned over the course of this eight-part miniseries—about the framework, their own Midnight Zones, and what it means to navigate complexity amidst uncertainty. They share how their think...

In this miniseries, we’re exploring Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges. This week, Rodney and Sam dive into one of the most pivotal (and misunderstood) aspects of the framework: stewardship. Depthfinding is built on the idea that organizations are like oceans, not aquariums. That means leaders have to show up...

In this miniseries, we’re exploring Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges. This week, Rodney and Sam zoom out. Because here’s the truth: the experience the last few months in the U.S.? It’s not an exception. It’s the environment we’re working in now. From top-down compliance crackdowns to the resurrection of fiv...

Rebroadcast note: With everything happening in the world right now, we're taking a quick break from our miniseries to reshare this episode about layoffs. Because sometimes large layoffs are necessary, but they shouldn't be the norm and those being let go should still be treated like humans, rather than a line on a spreadsheet. If you listened the first time around, share this episode with someone...

In this miniseries, we’re exploring Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges. This week, Rodney and Sam dive into the Midnight Zone—the deepest layer of organizational life, where the lived experiences, emotions, and unspoken reactions of individuals shape everything that happens above. While many organizations foc...

In this miniseries, we’re exploring Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges. This week, Rodney and Sam step into the Twilight Zone—the often-overlooked but deeply influential space where teams navigate the “how” of work—the “how” of collaborating, meeting, deciding, and experimenting. Many organizations put all or...

In this miniseries, we’re exploring Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges. This week, Rodney and Sam dive into the Sunshine Zone—the highly visible work of organizations, from strategy decks and OKRs to mission statements and financial targets. While these elements are easy to track and refine, spending too much...

In this miniseries, we’re exploring Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges. This week, Rodney and Sam look at the Sky—the external forces like market shifts, technological disruptions, and political changes that shape your organization. While most companies are comfortable staying heads-down in the day-to-day, fa...

Over the last decade at The Ready, we’ve seen firsthand that the most significant organizational challenges are nearly all cross-functional. But most company structures? Very much not cross-functional. Adding more project managers, looking to external partners for one-and-done silver bullets, or assembling yet another task force just isn’t cutting it as the world changes faster than most organizat...