At Work with The Ready

We recorded this episode in April, and to be honest, it kinda feels like April never left. All the themes that were present then are simply louder now. What has become clear in the meantime is that strategy (e.g. what is happening, what matters, and what are we doing about it) is more important than ever. But how should we think about strategy in an emergent and participatory system? Is it intuitive and built in to the very structure of the org? Is it something we have to do? How should we weigh reflection against action? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Lorin Thomas-Tavel, an executive at Kaplan, about the intersection between strategy and digital transformation, and how their strategy is changing and accelerating on the ground in the midst of the pandemic.Learn more about Lorin on LinkedIn and Twitter.Learn more about Kaplan at their website.Mentioned references: Graham Holding Company Berkshire Hathaway ----------------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

Prior to the 1940's, the word priorities (plural) was rarely used. Because the word priority means that which comes before anything else. It's one thing! But these days, it's not uncommon for leaders and boards to demand multiple, often contradictory outcomes at the same time. We want faster output AND higher quality. We want to grow market share in our core category AND open three new categories. We want to hit the impossible target AND have work life balance. But as the saying goes, if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. What we need is a way to make tradeoffs explicit and strategic. And that's exactly what "over" statements and "even/over" statements do. They ask us to put one good thing even over another good thing. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans discuss how to create and leverage even over statements, and how they can help any team at any level focus on what truly matters now.As promised, we've also included three of our even/over statements for the Brave New Work podcast here in the show notes: Authenticity e/o Polish (We keep it real, including the occasional curse word) Depth e/o Breadth (We'll do a whole episode—or five—on prioritization) Brevity e/o Freedom to Roam (We try to keep it snappy and we ask guests to do the same) Read our article on even/overs on Medium.Mentioned references: Tom Thomison: BNW Ep. 16 HolacracyOne The Cheesecake Factory menu Patagonia's "Don't Buy This Jacket" ad "Essential Intent" "Governance episode": BNW Ep. 43 "Teal context" - Teal organizations "Episode about hiring": BNW Ep. 14 ----------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----------00:00 Intro + Check-in: What’s a difficult trade off that you’ve made and did it pan out for you?04:49 What are even/overs and where did they come from?09:33 More is not always better11:14 Examples of good even/over statements19:25 Even/overs don’t necessarily mean you won’t get the second thing21:13 Using even/overs around Brave New Work principles29:30 Facilitating a team to get good even/overs35:00 Using even/overs when all decisions look like the right one39:20 Good even/overs can be counter-intuitive42:45 Wrap up: Leave us a review and send us your favorite even/overs!

Making decisions at work can be perilous. It's not always clear who has the authority to make them. And even when it is, it's usually just a chosen few that benefit. So, it's no surprise that making decisions about how we govern the organization—designing the rules and roles that underpin everything, is so hard that it's often avoided altogether.That's why one of our favorite things to share is a form of governance that has its roots in the Quakerism, Sociocracy, and more recently, Holacracy. But the best part is you don't have to completely reinvent your way of working to get started. If you believe in iterative progress AND the notion that everyone should have a voice in steering the organization, you're ready to play.In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans introduce the concept of participatory governance, and talk about its many benefits (and occasional challenges).Check out our article about participatory governance.Mentioned references: "JEDI episode" - BNW Ep. 40 with Sharan Bal Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun Dr. Akilah Cadet Quaker decision making Consent decision making Gerard Endenburg "Future Tension" - BNW Ep. 16 Thomas Thomison "Leading through transformation" - BNW Ep. 8 with David Marquet "Liberating structures" - BNW Ep. 49 with Keith McCandless McChrystal Group The Ready's Decision Proposal Template (no need to email us!) "Action meetings" "Retrospectives" - BNW Ep. 10 with Jordan Husney --------------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--------------00:00 Intro + Check-In: What have you done lately to contribute to a more just society or confront your own privilege?05:12 History of governance09:24 How tensions lead to proposals12:55 Understanding “safe to try”18:25 Judgement without experiencing is not the move21:03 Participatory governance process step by step29:13 How it’s a game changer to objections and getting things done33:31 How rounds disrupts power structures and dynamics in organizations40:56 When to start with participatory governance in your team48:53 Wrap up: Leave us a review!

The stories of self-management and decentralization from evolutionary organizations like Buurtzorg, Morning Star, FAVI, Haier, and others are often told breathlessly, as if it was "happily ever after." But, the truth has to be more... nuanced, right? Indeed it is. More adaptive and human ways of working are not without their own frustrations and tradeoffs. The question is: are they worth it?In this episode of Brave New Work, (technically the first "colleague-as-guest" episode though BNW is releasing it late), Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans are joined by Yehudi Meshchaninov to talk about what it's really like to work in a system like The Ready.Learn more about Yehudi on LinkedIn.Mentioned references: self-management holacracy sociocracy "the circles" [see "circle structure" in the holacracy link above] Roundabouts from the Brave New Work talk Dungeons & Dragons meritocracy Ali Randel, partner at The Ready 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-----------------------00:00 Intro + Check-In: What is one way your work self is different than the way you are at home with your family and friends?03:11 What inspired this discussion?06:44 The hard parts of a self-managing system16:02 Ways to replenish yourself and maintain discipline about how you show up21:07 Patterns and persistent dynamics in self-managing systems29:29 Role of fear in self-managing systems36:58 Where the broader culture sits on the future of work and its shadow sides41:54 Wrap up: Leave us a review!

Any podcast that promotes busting bureaucracy and hobbling hierarchy is bound to stir up some questions. That's why this week we're going to let our listeners Ask Us Anything. For this episode, we took to Twitter and LinkedIn to find out what you're wondering about. And you came through big time. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans hear questions about check-in rounds, leadership, and the post-pandemic move back to work. If you ever feel a question percolating as you're listening, just drop us a line at podcast@theready.com and we'll include you in a future episode.Mentioned references: Arnold Palmer Maker's Mark Miranda Priestly, from The Devil Wears Prada Gordon Gekko saying "Greed is good" from Wall Street (1987) with Michael Douglas A Hitchhiker's Guide to a Permanently Flipped Workplace by Allison Baum Gates Starbucks store design 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-------------------00:00 Intro + Check-In: If you were a beverage of any kind, what would you be?03:00 Question 1 - Do check in rounds always need to be fun? Should I be making them more serious?06:26 Question 2 - Why is the type of leader who only takes and is mostly interested in themselves typically over-represented in a company’s leadership, vs those who give and focus on collaboration?14:07 Question 3 - What should leaders and teams be thinking about as they transition towards “return to office” discussions?21:58 Wrap Up: Send us your questions!

It's been six weeks since George Floyd was murdered, and activism around the Black Lives Matter movement has reached new heights. For many of us, it's triggered incredibly challenging conversations and reflections about who we are and who we want to be. It feels like now is the time for real change—but what kind? How can each of us play our part without blame or shame? And where do we begin?In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans are joined by their colleague and resident JEDI knight, Sharan Bal to talk about the peril and promise of this moment, and what change agents like us ought to do about it. We don't have all the answers, but we're starting anyway.Learn more about Sharan on LinkedIn.Mentioned references: US Climate Action Network Cornel West Tiye Sherrod-Robinson Black Lives Matter The Ready's OS Canvas "implicit bias" Frederick Winslow Taylor ("Taylorism") scientific management The Ready's hiring process: BNW Ep. 14 "the Boston Review article": How Slavery Inspired Modern Business Management (2018) Henry Gantt, creator of the Gantt chart Kenneth Jones and Tema Okun, authors of the Dismantling Racism Workbook -----------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-----------00:00 Intro + Check-In: What should our listeners know about us and our social identities?04:02 What is JEDI10:04 The Ready’s position in this moment12:16 Thinking about change using the OS Canvas20:51 Is it the people or the system or both?25:29 The real learning doesn’t happen in the training. It happens in the work31:35 All “modern” work practices predate the civil Rights movement36:24 What might “different” actually look like49:29 What’s next for The Ready’s JEDI journey55:41 Wrap Up: Leave us a review!

We recorded this episode almost two months ago, and while so much has changed since then (look for an upcoming episode on DEI and BLM), the challenges we face sitting down at our computers every morning have not. They've only intensified. How are we supposed to move our work forward with everything that's going on out there in the world? And what is productivity when it's not defined by economists but by us?In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, about how to define and achieve progress in a period of chaos and distraction.Learn more about David Allen on LinkedIn and Twitter, or by reading his book Getting Things Done (2015 rev.).Learn more about the Getting Things Done at the website.Mentioned references: Brian Robertson, co-founder of HolacracyOne The law of requisite variety holacracy Ready for Anything (2004) by David Allen Marie Kondo The Organized Mind (2014) by Daniel Levitin Successful Aging (2020) by Daniel Levitin Getting Things Done Workbook --------------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

Remote facilitation has become crucial as teams navigate virtual collaboration. The hosts share personal anecdotes about long video meetings and how to keep participants engaged. They stress the importance of structured participation and suggest tools for enhancing interaction. Fun and social dynamics are explored, emphasizing the need for connection amidst remote work. The discussion includes tips for managing latecomers and the balance of video use, ensuring meetings remain vibrant and effective.

Aaron Dignan, co-founder of The Ready and a thought leader in organizational transformation, teams up with Rodney Evans, an expert in collaborative work environments. They dive into the art of crafting and applying principles that guide decision-making beyond traditional corporate values. Discussing the importance of transparency, discomfort in growth, and collective agreement on team principles, they highlight how actionable guidelines can align teams and promote positive collaboration while leaving space for judgment and experimentation.

Not that long ago, we were living in a grow-grow-grow economy where stock options in a hot venture-backed startup were what most employees coveted. Today, a profitable bootstrapped company that shares its profit with its own employees feels like a revelation. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Nathan Barry, founder and CEO of ConvertKit, about how his bootstrapped software company shares profit with its employees, and while we're at it, how they think about compensation more generally. Hopefully, some of our listeners will follow in their footsteps.Learn more about Nathan on LinkedIn and Twitter.You can read the thread that sparked this episode here: https://twitter.com/nathanbarry/status/1231227172238422016Learn more about ConvertKit at their website.Mentioned references: ConvertKit's publicly available financial metrics Coinbase's decision making framework (PPS and RAPIDs) Radford Global Compensation Database "Joel and the transparency episode": BNW Ep. 6 nathanbarry.com/uncertainty -----------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-----------00:00 Intro + Check-In: Share one way in which you are difficult to work with, and one way in which you are easy to work with.04:21 Nathan’s ConvertKit story05:56 ConvertKit’s profit sharing approach13:16 Walking away from tying performance intro profit sharing17:03 Calculating what profit is available to share20:20 Shadow of profit sharing24:09 ConvertKit’s transparency principles27:07 The other components of compensation33:06 Trade-offs to reach philosophical outcomes36:37 Nathan’s advice for leaders navigating this moment39:44 Wrap Up: Leave us a review!