At Work with The Ready

[Rebroadcast note: The Ready gathers for its next retreat next week, so there’s no better time to re-air this episode from December 2021.] Wait, haven’t we already covered retreats? Yes. But if the first one explored key dos and don’ts, this one imagines the retreat as a blank sheet of paper and invites you to ask: With unlimited options, what would you do? How would you take an off-site from good...

What exactly is OS coffee? It’s a specific meeting structure we use to explore topics related to our operating system (a.k.a. our OS). But OS coffee isn’t meant to be a formal, note-taking, let’s-finally-get-to-agreement-on-X kind of deal; rather, it’s about making space for different subjects to emerge and to do some shared sensemaking. In fact, it’s so casual that it’s less like a meeting and mo...

What’s going on in our brains when we have breakthroughs? Why do some of our most basic work habits and norms exhaust our minds rather than light them up? If feedback is essential for cognitive development, why can it freak us out and set our teeth on edge? These are some of the big questions David Rock, CEO and co-founder of the Neuroleadership Institute, ponders all of the time. David believes t...

[Rebreoadcast note: This episode originally aired in September 2021.] Patagonia’s purpose is clear: It’s in business to save our home planet. And that clarity’s been present almost since day one of the iconic outdoor clothing and gear company. But how and why was that anchoring mission adopted from the jump? And how has the nearly 50-year-old organization evolved its practices to support its resol...

Taking a break from work can look 1,000 different ways: You could learn how to make homemade pasta; you could visit five new countries; you could spend sunup to sundown swinging in a hammock. What constitutes a break should fit your specific context and needs. And in this way, taking a true, you-shaped vacation—for a week, a month, or even longer—dips into org design knowledge and territory. In th...

Where do our systems for organization and prioritization come from? How do we build discipline around new workflows? When and how do we learn how to work? And what happens when our systems have to gel with others’? Answers to these questions vary from person to person—and they should. Because when it comes to managing our time and tasks, it’s worth challenging “best” practices. In this episode of...

[Rebroadcast note: This episode originally aired in July 2021.] If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times: Meetings are the worst. Instead of being a meaningful work tool to help teams strategize efficiently, meetings more often block things—anything—from actually getting done. At The Ready, we’ve got a different method: action meetings. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan...

[Rebroadcast note: This episode originally aired in September 2021.] Today’s episode is a foundational survey class; we’re mapping the territory of the work we do, why we do it, what we’re all about—and why we’d love to talk to your boss. Whether you’re a systems design nerd like us or a newcomer who knows in their bones that work sucks but doesn’t have to, we’ve got answers to your big questions—...

The relationship between structure and impact is an important one for organizations to explore. The same goes for social movements. The Sunrise Movement is a youth-led coalition on a mission to stop climate change—and recently, they placed their own OS under a microscope: How should the org make decisions? How should its principles evolve? How could it balance centralization and decentralization?...

A big frustration we often encounter in our work concerns decision-making. Folks feel like their process is too slow; too fast; includes the wrong people; excludes the right people; is too big; is too small. No matter the specific organizational headaches, the headline basically stays the same: “We know this isn’t working but we can’t fix the problem.” In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dign...

Our ears perk up when we hear about different systems practicing self-management. That was the case with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, a Grammy-award winning group that rehearses and performs without a formal conductor. Instead, the orchestra decentralizes power and leadership among its members, who rotate in between positions and treat each other as equals. Collaborative decision-making; multi-fille...

Hey, how ya feeling? Exhausted? Stressed? Like a rubber band that’s finally snapped? Same. These days, the burnout paradigm seems to have shifted from the micro to the macro: Individual burnout has ballooned into collective burnout—into an overwhelming sense of being out of control and out of moves to help make things right. So, what can we do with those feelings? In today’s episode of Brave New W...

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the American legal landscape instantly changed. So did the business landscape, since more than half of Americans rely on their employers for healthcare—and that includes reproductive healthcare. Abortion as a critical workplace issue is now top-of-mind for organizations coming to grips with how they can and should respond to a post-Roe world. Emm...

We’re coming at you with part two of the intimate conversation Rodney and Aaron cracked open last week. (Haven’t listened to part one yet? Go back and check out that episode now!) Today on Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans continue exploring the ups and downs of their professional partnership; why they chose to start working with a coach; the big lessons and lingering worries they both...

In part one of a very special two-part episode from Brave New Work, Rodney Evans and Aaron Dignan talk about…themselves. Specifically, their partnership and why they decided to start working with a coach. Together, they dig into: The tensions, dynamics, and patterns that prompted them to seek outside help How they picked a coach and the skills and capabilities they wanted to level up on Why org de...

Helping big systems learn how to evolve and sustain themselves; designing for long-term endurance rather than long-term liability; disrupting the idea that unchecked growth is always a good thing; asking “What are we designing for?” to clarify tradeoffs from the jump. Those activities not only describe the organizational design work we do at The Ready, it also describes the work of Chuck Marohn at...

You keep having dope questions, so we keep offering our best answers. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans offer their two cents on some of our most recent—and most excellent—listener queries, including: What distinguishes our work from Agile and digital transformation The organizational symptoms that prompt leaders to give new ways of working a try How to stick with ex...

Why does it always feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day to get work done? How did we come to see time as a resource we could manipulate and exploit? Why does achieving “inbox zero” come with bragging rights? And how has the belief that we can command and control time totally warped not only our personal lives, but also our working lives? In today's episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan...

King-size is great when we’re talking about candy bars. But when it comes to designing impactful teams, we’re on team fun-size. That’s because the best teams share a clear purpose, have high trust, and are interdependent—which can be hard to pull off when you’re rolling 40 people deep. In today’s episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans size up how we think about team size and dig...

The Covid-19 pandemic marked a sea change in how most people think about work. The mind-numbing norms and deeply-rooted inequities that defined our day-to-day working lives were upended, exposed, and called out for being (let’s face it) what they’ve been all along: rigid, harmful, unacceptable, and unproductive. The good news: Many companies are acknowledging that how we work needs major upgrades—...

We can draw connections between org design at work and org design IRL all day, every day. And today's no exception, as Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans unpack what playing music and playing video games has taught them about working in complexity. In this episode of Brave New Work, they dig into: The reflex for planning and prediction that kicks in when we try something new The instincts that may run...

New Belgium Brewing company has been making great beer for decades. It also decided right from the jump to design a company OS that places its people smack-dab at the center of things. That core, human-powered philosophy has driven the wildly popular craft brewer’s business practices for more than 30 years. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak to New Belgium Brewi...

Fact: We’re self-management nerds. (And if you’ve been hanging out with us for a while, you probably are, too.) We could talk and think about the how of work all day, every day. But it turns out that for some, getting into the nitty-gritty of roles, working agreements, and governance isn’t their definition of a good time. Which begs some bigger questions: Does working in self-management demand bei...

This is the eleventh episode in a crossover mini-series between Brave New Work cohosts Rodney Evans and Aaron Dignan and Chase Chapman, builder of DAOs and host of the On the Other Side podcast. Each episode dives into a specific topic related to organizational design for Web3. Today, they talk about the strategic benefits of operating with greater role clarity, when codifying roles makes the most...

This is the tenth episode in a crossover mini-series between Brave New Work cohosts Rodney Evans and Aaron Dignan and Chase Chapman, builder of DAOs and host of the On the Other Side podcast. Each episode dives into a specific topic related to organizational design for Web3. Today, they talk about hiring strategies that aren’t reliant on hoarding power, striking a balance between org-wide particip...