Fancy clothes. Beef Wellington. Movies until midnight. We really are having lovely holiday breaks—which we’re still on! But we’d be lying if we said we didn’t miss you, so Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans are back again with another Brave New Work bonus mini-sode, the “Happy New Year!” edition.This one packs a punch because we have an exciting announcement to share: The Ready is releasing its first-ever mobile course next week! Tune in for the good stuff—like what the course is called, who it’s for, why we made it, and what participants will learn—and sign up for up-to-date launch details right here: https://thereadyacademy.ck.page/We’re back in action next Monday with a fresh, full-length episode. See you then!Mentioned in this episode: Rodney's favorite end-of-year "carol": https://bit.ly/3v73ZzE Aaron's go-to beef Wellington recipe: https://bit.ly/3Wig29h 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 podcast crew is taking a two-week holiday break for some R&R—but if you thought we’d say goodbye to 2022 without saying goodbye to y’all, you’d be wrong. That’s why we made this bonus mini-episode (a.k.a. a mini-sode—and yes, it’s a real thing).In our first-ever Brave New Work mini-sode, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans check out of the year with an extra-special, two-part check-in round. So slip on your fuzziest socks, grab a wintery beverage of choice, and tune into some of our 2022 reflections, highlights, and musings. We’ll be back next week—next year!—with another mini-sode. Happy holidays, everyone.Bonus check-in questions: As the next year rolls around, what are you letting go of? What’s the biggest surprise this year brought your way? What’s a lesson from this year you want to carry into the next? Fill in the blank: “In 2023, I’m looking forward to more _______________ and less _______________.” What’s the nicest gift you gave yourself this year? What's your Brave New Work highlight from 2022? What’s something you got really good at this year? 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

Being influential sounds great, even desirable. But doing influence? That’s when alarm bells go off in our brains—because we tend to imagine the act of influencing as manipulative, coercive, and 100% transactional. And sure, we’ve all had icky experiences with influence. But when we flatten its inherent complexity, we risk missing out on influence’s ability to instigate positive impact. Yale School of Management professor and author Zoe Chance believes influence is an untapped superpower; that’s why she recently published the book, Influence Is Your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen. And it’s why we asked her onto the show to help us break down some common misconceptions about influence, better harness its power to catalyze systemic change, and learn how to ask what she calls the “Magic Question.”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 won’t mince words: Layoffs suck. They heap very real stress and chaos onto very real people’s lives. And as we’ve seen reported lately, big waves of layoffs are hitting several companies—and thousands of people—hard right now. This pile of not-good news sparked some questions for us, like: Why are layoffs a go-to cost-cutting lever? What pre-layoff org design decisions put employers and employees in this gnarly position? And why does every CEO letter announcing mass layoffs sound like it was written by the same robot?In today’s episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans, who’ve been on both sides of the layoff aisle, spend time with these queries and dig into: The all-around messiness of the traditional layoff process Why companies default to short-term thinking when the boom times boom Dehumanizing layoff practices we should shelve for good Creating clear containers and agreements for handling layoffs How we could design a layoff moment that’s truly people-positive 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

“Power.” It’s a loaded word that can conjure up feelings of negativity, fear, and general ickiness. And with good reason. If our default definition of power is all about authority and control, then the less of it, the better—right? But if we tilt our head a little and instead see power as the ability to move energy through a system, then it becomes a powerful (sorry, had to) ingredient in making big change. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans invited former Ready member Larissa Conte—a coach, rites-of-passage guide, and founder of the consulting organization, Wayfinding—onto the show to help us navigate this collective head-tilt, unpack power’s many different flavors, any explore why power literacy is a critical skill in the future of work.And as a special bonus to the Brave New Work community, Larissa is offering our listeners a discount for her “Power at Work” program. Simply head to wayfinding.io/power-at-work to learn more and apply code BNWFRIENDS at checkout to receive 20 percent off. Now, go get your power on.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

Sometimes, Rodney and Aaron stop by other people’s podcasts to nerd out on the hits we know and love: new ways of working, self-management, breaking down the binary between chaos and bureaucracy, the future of work—the list goes on and on. So today, we’re actually bringing one of those awesome conversations right to your ears.Rodney recently joined Jonathan Westover on his show, Human Capital Innovations, for an epic chat about adaptive organizational design and a whole lot more. We hope you enjoy the exchange and we’ll return with a fresh episode of Brave New Work next Monday.To tune into more episodes of Jonathan’s show, head to his website or search "Human Capital Innovations" wherever you get your podcasts.----------This episode originally aired on September 26th, 2022 on the Human Capital Innovations (HCI) Podcast with Dr. Jonathan H. Westover.In this HCI Podcast episode, Dr. Jonathan H. Westover talks with Rodney Evans about adaptive organization design and the future of work.Rodney Evans is a pioneer in adaptive organization design and the future of work. With 20 years of experience in all things transformation, she has researched, developed, and taught new ways of working in dozens of complex environments including Airbnb, Cooper Hewitt Museum, Macy’s, Intuit, and Johnson & Johnson. The Ready is a self-managed change agency that helps you discover a better way of working. Rodney works with companies around the world to modernize traditional practices and bust bureaucracy.About the Human Capital Innovations (HCI) Podcast:Maximize your personal and #OrganizationalPotential with the Human Capital Innovations (HCI) Podcast! We're your source for personal, professional, and #OrganizationalGrowth and development. We share our own original #Research, explore #IndustryTrends, and interview executives and thought leaders from across the globe. Join us for practitioner-oriented content around all things #Leadership, #HR, #TalentManagement, #OrganizationalDevelopment, and #ChangeManagement.

We’ve covered feedback before on the show, because learning how to give and receive it is a key part of team growth and success. But establishing an entire system that lets different flavors of feedback flourish? That’s a different can of worms. So, how do we cultivate feedback-related agreements and norms in a self-managing culture? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans have some solid ideas—and some spicy questions: Why creating a feedback-rich culture is hard—and why not having one is harder Why experiences in and around feedback can feel so perilous and panicky How to build containers in which intense, even critical feedback can happen safely The three different types of feedback we most often run into at work How power dynamics and personal preference play a part in this game 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

Picture it: Your company’s landed on an important and shiny new project and it needs a team to bring it to life. Cue the barrage of big questions—questions like: “So…who’s on this team? What support will they receive? When will they meet? Wait, is this extra work or something different?”Welcome to the wonderful world of cross-functional teaming. Standing up a cross-functional team is a place where plenty of organizations stumble—because it’s asking most systems to play a game they aren’t designed to play well. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans team up (see what we did there?) to answer questions like: How should cross-functional teams—as well as the projects they work on—be chartered? Should the size and scope of an idea impact how a team is designed? What level and kind of authority should cross-functional teams be given? What are the first moves cross-functional teams always need to make? How can we bake experimentation into this cake? 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

Spoiler alert: Your organization already has a Digital HQ. Because whether you’re back in an office Monday through Friday or working remotely in your fluffiest slippers, every team now operates with a mesh of digital tools and systems that constitute where real work gets done day in and day out. But how can you help your already-existent Digital HQ unlock greater team flexibility, collaboration, and productivity? Cue insights from Ali Rayl, Slack’s SVP of product management. As part of Slack’s sponsorship of Brave New Work, Ali tells Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans all about the Digital HQ: what it is, how it can incentivize more human ways of working, and how you can start intentionally building a digital-first workplace today. Visit slack.com/dhq to learn more.And if this week’s convo sparks a big question of your own, we’re all ears! Please send it to podcast@theready.com with the subject line “Q about Digital HQs” for a chance to have your query answered in a future episode.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

Show us a podcast that gets better questions than ours, we dare you. Listeners, you’re crushing the question game these days—so we’re heading back to the mailbag (there’s just so much mail there!) to address three juicy ones. And please keep the queries and head-scratchers coming! Because we’ve got more AUA sessions lined up for the future. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans crack into: How does resourcing work in a world of consent and participatory governance? How do we bring two opposing cultures together (think large bureaucratic behemoth buys small, innovative business to bolster their portfolio) without getting stuck in a standoff? How can an operating rhythm help support and model more org-wide inclusion? 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