At Work with The Ready

It’s no surprise that we’re fans of self-management, and we talk a lot about its benefits and transformative potential. But sometimes we forget just how much traditional hierarchy is baked into the operating system of our work cultures—and of our personal lives. So when self-management and hierarchy smash into each other, there can be a steep, sometimes uncomfortable learning curve. In this episod...

Say (or sigh) it with us now: burnout. As a physic state, it can be hard to precisely diagnose but you know it when you see it—and when you feel it. As remote work becomes a larger presence in our lives, it’s more important than ever to recognize why and when we need meaningful breaks. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to Anne Helen Petersen, author of Can’t Eve...

Instead of talking about Unicorn companies, we should be spending more of our energy on Zebras—companies that are black and white, that pursue both purpose and profit. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to Mara Zepeda of Zebras Unite, a founder-led co-op, about how to build a community with your company, collective ownership, and what the future of capital invest...

Let's talk about succession. No, not the show, but the concept. How do progressive, human-centric organizations deal with succession, and role changes, and new management, all while maintaining a high level of success? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to Michael Bungay Stanier and Shannon Minifie of Box of Crayons—about Michael stepping down and handing the rei...

With his organization Sociocracy for All, Ted Rau is helping organizations empower their members, and put a spotlight on equity. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to Ted about his book, Many Voices One Song, consent-based decision-making, and the challenges of getting the ball rolling with large orgs. Learn more about Ted and his work: On LinkedIn Sociocracy For...

There are elephants in the room, and then there are "Moose Heads on the Table." This book, by Lisa Gill and Karen Tenelius, describes the concept as workplace taboos that are simultaneously ingrained and incredibly toxic for getting things done. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to Lisa about how to embrace this discomfort at work, and what self-managing organiz...

It's not a question, but a fact: the conventional legal doctrine governing the 21st century workplace is woefully far behind. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to attorney Jason Wiener about the incredible disconnect between current legal norms and modern business, and how he works to ensure equitable business ownership to the forefront of the conversation. Lear...

In the past two weeks, Basecamp—a software company with a general track record of outspoken, progressive values—has lost a sizable chunk of its workforce. The reason? A memo from the company's CEO that banned "societal and political discussions" in workplace channels. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans break down what this all means—the (impossible) concept of "separa...

We're opening up the mailbag. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans tackle the topics of some of your most fascinating questions, from gossip to peer feedback to all-hands meetings. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans dive into our mailbag and answer some of the top questions we're hearing from our listeners. Questions featured in this episod...

Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of WIRED Magazine, has spent years documenting and photographing life in the furthest corners of the Asian continent—and in the process, he's recorded a way of living that is quickly disappearing in the face of the continent's bracing visions for the future. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to Kevin about what we, in our work, c...

Changing the way we work is a difficult task at a company with 150 employees. But what about one with. say, 100,000? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to Bill Anderson, CEO of Roche Pharmaceuticals, about his recent work in reshaping the company's structure and processes, change at such a large scale, and the surprising challenges that come along with such a mas...

Work is all about agreements—policies, processes, principles, goals, workflows, etc. So if you're starting a company from the ground up, how do you give teams the power to align on all of these things in a clear and inclusive way? What if there's already a company out there that's documented the exact policy you're looking for? And when, inevitably, that agreement needs some tweaking, how do you i...

One of the most important aspects of organizational change and complexity is embracing fluidity. Rather than be mired in rigid lines and forced structure, we want to be dynamic, adaptive and—in a certain sense—poetic. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to Gayle Karen Young, an organizational development consultant and former Chief Cultural and Talent Officer at W...

What's it like to onboard at a company where you don't have a boss? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to The Ready member Alastair Steward about his experience onboarding at the company, the concept of a "prologue," and how to situate yourself effectively in a self-managed organization. You can find Alastair here on LinkedIn. Mentioned references: "Oculus boxing...

It's a time-honored tradition: the company retreat. But when that conjures the specter of Ramada Inn basements and conference rooms and three-hour presentation blocks, it's clear that an update is in order. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans strategize the most efficient and effective ways to reconnect and recharge with your organizations, as well as ways we might go...

The workplace is a wealth of knowledge. Each member of an organization is a master in their own specialized field, and in the 21st-century workplace, we're often exchanging knowledge, teaching and learning by equal measure. But in a future where self-management is key, how do we ensure this is done in a healthy way? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans discuss how to cu...

Leaders in the workplace often talk about experimenting within the existing structures. But in the excitement and flurry of change, we often forget the goal of experimentation: to make it a real learning practice. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans discuss how to plan, structure, and assess change experiments with the right intentions, and for the best outcomes. Read...

It's one thing to talk about what we'd like the future of work to look like—but what about the people who'll actually make up that workforce? Wha do they want out of their work, and how do they want to shape their organizations? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to lecturer Todd Jick at the Columbia Business School about his class on Advanced Organizational Chan...

There's a thing that often happens when we try to add complexity our systems: in an effort to implement procedure and reduce "risk," we often massively overcomplicate the system at its core. It seems the more we try to distance ourselves from the humans working in our systems, the more we ruin what made the systems work well in the first place. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and R...

If there's one structure in the modern workplace that feels particularly resistant to change, it's the hiring process. For years, we've followed the same basic structure: whittle down vast pools of potential, qualified candidates down to one lucky winner. But as we consider adapting our workplaces for the future, we might consider tools to reinvent the way we hire, and thus, the way we fill out ou...

You’ll often hear us talking about collectivism, balance, and sustainability on this show—to the point that you may well wonder, do these socialists even care about growth and profit? We do. But not in the unchecked way that has become normal in the last half century. In this episode, we let our entrepreneurial ambition out to discuss the moral case for sustainable, humane growth, and explore why...

It's been quite a week for the United States of America. And as Americans, we tried to do what we always do: keep working. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans discuss the volatile, unprecedented political situation we now find ourselves in, as well as ways to take a step back and recognize that some things might just be more important than business as usual. Mentioned...

It's the end of the year! And for many of us, that also means the return of the dreaded performance review. As we strive to make our workplaces and organizations more human, how can we reinvent this outdated tradition into something... actually useful? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans discuss how the standard performance management cycle fails both managers and empl...

When we begin to reckon with inequality in the workplace, a useful place to start is the concept of "epistemic injustice"—what we know, how we know, and who gets to decide and influence our reality. This concept goes deeper than simply who is in the room. This is about the stories we bring with us, the ones we build together, and how bias and representation shape the possibility of what can be. In...

While we often throw around terms like "the future of work" and "new ways of working," the reality is that much of the wisdom about how to self-organize and self-manage has been around for a long, long time. What we can learn from this is that there's really nothing new about this moment—except for the fact that more and more people are waking up to the fact that the status quo just isn't good eno...