At Work with The Ready

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

The sit-down-and-slowly-zone-out-while-Joe-describes-50-slides type of meeting isn’t at all fun…but it is extremely common. Most work gatherings happen because someone wants us to absorb, consume, or comply with information. But if you’re actually hoping to change behavior or get a team stoked about a new initiative, this push-style of gathering just won’t cut it (and no, it’s not Zoom’s fault). In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans ask Lindsey Caplan, a communication strategist and author of the forthcoming book The Gathering Effect, about why good gatherings aren’t one-size-fits-all, how to generate legitimate buy-in, and how to make your next all-hands meeting impactful and even, well, fun.Learn more about Lindsey on LinkedIn or by reading her book The Gathering Effect.Check out our other episodes about gatherings:–AWWTR Ep. 15Mentioned references: Friends reunion on HBO feedback: BNW Ep. 13 with Kim Scott Liberating Structures: BNW Ep. 49 with Keith McCandless Charlie Brown adults Oculus (now the Meta Quest) Hannah Gadsby 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

Odds are you’ve seen an article (or 20) about some company somewhere testing out a four-day workweek. And if you’ve scrolled past the story to the comments, you’ve probably spied a few cheers…and plenty of jeers. Punching in five days a week might seem like the natural working order—but it’s less a fixed and unchallengeable fact and more a human-shaped choice we can, you know, shape differently. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan asks Rodney Evans about lessons learned from her own four-day workweek experiment, how to navigate relationships with coworkers on different schedules, and why a four-day workweek is labor’s next evolutionary leap forward.Mentioned references: Wesley, from The Princess Bride Gilmore Girls S3E11 “I Solemnly Swear” Plinko boards Icelandic study around 4 day work week Anne Helen Petersen episode: BNW Ep. 77 with Anne Helen Petersen Henry Ford and the 40 hour work week Anne Helen Petersen article “Who’s Afraid of the Four Day Work Week?” op rhythm: BNW Ep. 118 retrospectives remote work episode: AWWTR Ep. 4 Joel at Buffer episode: BNW Ep. 6 with Joel Gascoigne Fosbury flop Atlantic “Kill the Five-Day Work Week” JEDI work: BNW Ep. 40 with Sharan Bal UBI (universal basic income) New Deal 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

In this episode, Sam Spurlin, an expert in implementing and scaling effective action meetings, joins Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans to discuss strategies for making meetings more productive. They cover topics such as engaging check-in rounds, metrics review, project updates, and the importance of metacognition in work meetings.

The discussion dives into the complexities of hybrid work, highlighting why half-hearted models may fail. Listeners will hear about the joy of reconnecting face-to-face after isolation, and the challenges organizations face in balancing flexibility and employee well-being. It also tackles the potential talent flight toward more flexible options and the importance of establishing team agreements for effective collaboration. The future of work is uncertain, but adaptability and inclusivity are key themes in navigating the evolving landscape.

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 episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk with Michael Y. Lee, an assistant professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD, about how orgs prepare and smartly scaffold for self-management, growing academic research into impactful org design, and how the pandemic presented a unique challenge for his work.Learn more about Michael on LinkedIn or at his website.Learn more about INSEAD on their website or on Youtube.Mentioned references: Oura ring Dave’s Hot Chicken in Denver, CO Voodoo Doughnut Zappos Holacracy ”mastery”: BNW Ep. 31 Valve, video game company The Ready's OS Canvas Doug Kirkpatrick and The Morning Star Company: BNW Ep. 54 with Doug Kirkpatrick Haier anti-fragility "Lisa Gill episode": BNW Ep. 73 with Lisa Gill Michael’s episode of Lisa Gill’s podcast 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

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 Even: How Millennials Became the Burnout Generation and the newsletter “Culture Study,” about the difference between setting boundaries versus guardrails, LARPing through your job, and what we can do to extinguish burnout.Learn more about Anne on LinkedIn, Twitter, or by subscribing to her newsletter.Read Anne's latest books: Can't Even Out of Office Mentioned references: Anne’s 2019 burnout article WHO’s classification of “burnout” as occupational phenomenon New York Times "Yolo Economy" article Cal Newport and "isolation from other minds" Ezra Klein John Herrman “LARPing your job” Anne’s 2021 "4 Day Work Week article" Charlie Warzel 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

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 investment should—and will—look like.Learn more about Mara on her website, on LinkedIn, and at Zebras Unite.Mentioned references: Boyz II Men "Zebras fix what unicorns break” SOCAP Shel Silverstein Margaret Wheatley Hopi Nora Bateson Reinventing Organizations: BNW Ep. 18 with Frederic Laloux sociocracy: BNW Ep. 74 with Ted Rau "terra incognita" Ari Weinzweig Depth psychology Warm Data "symmathesy" Baháʼí Faith Saint John of the Cross Saint Teresa of Ávila Charles Eisenstein Drivers Cooperative Tony Hsieh Nathan Schneider, UC Boulder Gumroad Audra Lorde 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