At Work with The Ready

Retailers around the country—and around the world—are facing complex challenges. One of the industry’s main reckonings: Many job openings; very few applicants. Recruitment has also been top-of-mind for CAMP, a toy and family experience store that looks to hire artists, actors, musicians, magicians, singers, and camp counselors rather than those with traditional retail experience. So…how do you reinvent the landscape to attract and keep that talent? On this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to CAMP’s cofounder and Chief People Officer, Nikki Kaufman, about recent work CAMP did with The Ready to design and launch new boundary-pushing hiring and compensation practices—like making pay 100% transparent, ditching resumes, and creating crystal-clear career paths.You can explore CAMP’s progressive principles in action—and its current open positions—at camp.com/careers.Learn more about Nikki on LinkedIn.Mentioned references: goldendoodle Ben Kaufman CAMP episode: BNW Ep. 9 with Ben Kaufman role charter Firms of Endearment, book of Raj Sisodia, Jag Sheth, and David B. Wolfe Action Meeting episode: BNW Ep. 80 with Sam Spurlin check-in Our book is available now at bravenewwork.comWe want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.comLooking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

[Rebroadcast note: This episode originally aired in March 2020.]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 of Brave New Work, 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, we’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 Thomison and Encode.org at https://encode.org/Our book is available now at bravenewwork.comWe want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.comLooking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Think “union” and what comes to mind? Collective agreements and community building? Power struggles and strikes? Sepia-toned photographs of early-20th century factory floors? If you’ve never been in or around a union, they can carry a whiff of mystique—even old-fashionedness. That’s why we asked Ready member Tanisi Pooran, who’s worked in the field of labor organizing and workers’ rights, to help us demystify the process a bit. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk with Tanisi about the common people-positive practices both unions and The Ready uphold, how our two worlds could cooperate and help each other evolve, and why anti-union feelings still persist at even the most progressive and forward-thinking organizations.Learn more about Tanisi and their work here on LinkedIn and Twitter.Mentioned references: spaetzle "the five boroughs" IDM episode: BNW Ep. 43 experimentation episode: BNW Ep. 62 "Nietzsche quote" from Beyond Good and Evil by Fredrich Neitzsche, Chapter 4,146 "Gimlet and union kerfuffle" American Factory, documentary Our book is available now at bravenewwork.comWe want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.comLooking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming to bring you an exciting announcement. The Ready is hiring a first-rate Market Maker, someone who can orchestrate explosive growth in service of our purpose and steward The Ready’s approach to sales and growth. If creating a diverse pipeline of leads, building relationships with target clients, and reinventing the traditional craft of sales (among other related responsibilities) sounds like a party you—or someone spectacular in your orbit—should join, check out the full role posting and application below. We’re excited to meet you! Now let’s grow something together.Read all about the role here: https://www.notion.so/theready/Growth-The-Ready-6a9e364d59854874a9fbae8d1e3a01afApply here: https://theready.typeform.com/to/mvh71Zb1

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 resolute pledge to sustainability? Luckily, there’s someone with answers to these questions: Vincent Stanley is Patagonia’s Director of Philosophy and co-author with Yvon Chouinard of The Responsible Company. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak to Vincent about Patagonia’s better-known successes, lesser-known failures, the experiments it’s had to flex during the pandemic, and what a responsible company of the future can and should look like.Learn more about Vincent and Patagonia: On LinkedIn At Patagonia's website By reading The Responsible Company Mentioned references: X-Acto knife B Corp Yvon Chouinard tagua nuts beginner's mind greenwashing 9/80 work week Andy Rivkin, environmental writer Unilever Danone Let My People Go Surfing, book by Yvon Chouinard Our book is available now at bravenewwork.comWe want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.comLooking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

What exactly does joy have to do with software development? If you ask Rich Sheridan, CEO and Chief Storyteller of Menlo Innovations, the answer is pretty simple: Everything. According to Rich, joy is central to inspiring, sustaining, and steering the Ann Arbor, Michigan-based software company, which has been experimenting with new ways of working for more than two decades. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Rich about the personal struggles that first led him to future-of-work thinking; how some of Menlo’s vital practices—like pairing two developers together daily and having them work on a shared computer—have evolved over the years; and why “Make mistakes faster” is a longtime Menlo mantra.Learn more about Rich Sheridan and Menlo Innovations: On LinkedIn Reading his books Joy, Inc. and Chief Joy Officer Visiting Menlo Innovation's website Mentioned references: Peter Drucker Tom Peters Peter Senge Kent Beck and "extreme programming" Nightline episode on IDEO Simon Sinek's "Start with Why" video Our book is available now at bravenewwork.comWe want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.comLooking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Today’s episode of Brave New Work 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, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans have got answers to your big questions—about implementing self-management at your own organization; about assuaging fears of team effectiveness or brittleness; about leader’s becoming more power-literate and less ego-filled; and a whole lot more. So…how does this apply to you? We’ll put it this way: If you’re involved in a complex system with more than two human beings (spoiler alert: you are!), you’re already doing this work—and we’re here to help make it awesome.Our book is available now at bravenewwork.comWe want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.comLooking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Talking about compensation at a job (a.k.a. the total pay and benefits you get in exchange for your labor) can be excruciating. But why? It’s not because compensation designers are inherently evil, argues David Buckmaster, Nike’s Director of Global Retail Compensation. Rather, it’s because our system of pay is broken and neglected. When it comes to pay, Buckmaster believes the greater sin is inertia, not malevolence. That’s why he wrote a book—Fair Pay: How to Get a Raise, Close the Wage Gap, and Build Stronger Businesses—busting open compensation’s black box. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak to David about pay transparency, accessible data, exciting compensation experiments, and why the so-called labor shortage is really a wage shortage.Read David's book, Fair Pay.Learn more about David on LinkedIn, Instagram, or his website.Mentioned references: Oculus (now Meta Quest) "Wonderwall" Bracken Bower Prize Pave Carta The Ready’s OS Canvas Widgets, by Rodd Wagner Maslow’s hierarchy Fight for $15 movement The Good Jobs Strategy, by Zeynep Ton The Good Jobs Institute at MIT "Katie Porter and Jamie Dimon congressional testimony" "PayPal net disposable income" Dan Price of Gravity Payments Buffer: BNW Ep. 6 with Joel Gascoigne "Norway transparent pay" Morning Star: BNW Ep. 54 with Doug Kirkpatrick ”Wells Fargo fraud” Range, by David Epstein Our book is available now at bravenewwork.comWe want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.comLooking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

[This episode originally aired in May 2020] Most of us are working remotely. But we’re just treading water, we haven’t really mastered it. That’s why it’s important to talk about remote work after the novelty wears off—when the home office is just... the office. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Sid Sijbrandij, Cofounder and CEO of GitLab, about how their 1,290 team members work remotely in support of a $2.75B business. For Sid’s team, remote work is a way of life. What can we learn from them?Learn more about GitLab at https://about.gitlab.com/ and find Sid on Twitter at https://twitter.com/sytsesYou can read GitLab's guide to remote work here: https://about.gitlab.com/company/culture/all-remote/guide/Our book is available now at bravenewwork.comWe want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.comLooking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Throughout the past year, many organizations have taken long-overdue looks in the mirror and started the hard but necessary work of examining how they perpetuate systemic injustice. (That includes us.) The Ready works in systems design, which means that in a world wracked—and in some ways defined—by inequity, it’s our job to look at how the systems we build contribute to supremacist thinking and behavior. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans learn (and unlearn) from Dr. Akilah Cadet, an executive coach and the founder and CEO of Change Cadet, about the overlap between dominant systems and white supremacy, what being an antiracist company actually means, and how to still hold space for lightness and humor.Learn more about Akilah and her organization, Change Cadet, here on her website.Mentioned references: Capri-Sun Clueless "Rolling with the homies" JEDI: BNW Ep. 40 with Sharan Bal human centered design "culture as an iceberg" Browndages I-580 truck ban Olivia Pope, from Scandal NAACP Legal Defense Fund Our book is available now at bravenewwork.comWe want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.comLooking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com