At Work with The Ready

What exactly is OS coffee? It’s a specific meeting structure we use to explore topics related to our operating system (a.k.a. our OS). But OS coffee isn’t meant to be a formal, note-taking, let’s-finally-get-to-agreement-on-X kind of deal; rather, it’s about making space for different subjects to emerge and to do some shared sensemaking. In fact, it’s so casual that it’s less like a meeting and more like a gathering. In this caffeinated episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans break down how to OS coffee, including: How to keep OS coffee conversations informal yet impactful How to ground the gathering in a “Yes, and…” headspace How to stand one up inside your own system without it feeling like mandatory fun How to use default agreements to create new group norms 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’s going on in our brains when we have breakthroughs? Why do some of our most basic work habits and norms exhaust our minds rather than light them up? If feedback is essential for cognitive development, why can it freak us out and set our teeth on edge?These are some of the big questions David Rock, CEO and co-founder of the Neuroleadership Institute, ponders all of the time. David believes that if we can increase our ability to think well at work (since, spoiler alert, most work is thinking work) and bake more neuroscience into the workplace, we can be more effective, build better habits, and have better interactions within our teams and organizations. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans ask David all about how brains behave at work.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

[Rebreoadcast note: This episode originally aired in September 2021.]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 The Responsible Company here: https://www.patagonia.com/product/the-responsible-company-what-weve-learned-from-patagonias-first-forty-years-paperback-book/BK233.htmlOur 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

Taking a break from work can look 1,000 different ways: You could learn how to make homemade pasta; you could visit five new countries; you could spend sunup to sundown swinging in a hammock. What constitutes a break should fit your specific context and needs. And in this way, taking a true, you-shaped vacation—for a week, a month, or even longer—dips into org design knowledge and territory. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans reflect on their recent breaks and what they learned, including: The signs and signals that tell us when it’s time to take a break Why breaks are important and how they contribute to system-wide resilience How taking time off in a self-managing system can look and feel different than in a more traditional one Parsing the key differences between a break, a trip, and a vacation How to think about and reimagine the OS of your next vacation Mentioned references: "therapy episodes": BNW Ep. 134 + 135 Muskegon Lake "gaming and music episode: BNW Ep. 128 "Gareth": BNW Ep. 5 with Dr. Gareth Holman Kuala Lumpur Arc de Triomphe Catacombs Guiding Light 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

Where do our systems for organization and prioritization come from? How do we build discipline around new workflows? When and how do we learn how to work? And what happens when our systems have to gel with others’?Answers to these questions vary from person to person—and they should. Because when it comes to managing our time and tasks, it’s worth challenging “best” practices.In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans unpack their own relationships to productivity and productivity culture, exploring: What people-positive and complexity-conscious workflows can look like The difference between work that’s important and work that’s urgent Why tools should fit the shape of your work and not the other way around The connection between the techniques you use and the tensions you feel The big costs that come with having too much work in progress Why thinking about what you do and how you do it is a critical use of your time

[Rebroadcast note: This episode originally aired in July 2021.]If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times: Meetings are the worst. Instead of being a meaningful work tool to help teams strategize efficiently, meetings more often block things—anything—from actually getting done. At The Ready, we’ve got a different method: action meetings. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans are joined by longtime member Sam Spurlin, who dispenses a step-by-step guide to implementing and scaling effective action meetings, breaks down the best ways to “get people what they need,” and reveals how to keep the action-meeting train chugging along into the future.You can find Sam here: https://www.samspurlin.com/

[Rebroadcast note: This episode originally aired in September 2021.]Today’s episode 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, we’ve 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.In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans give an overview of the new ways of working behind Brave New Work.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 relationship between structure and impact is an important one for organizations to explore. The same goes for social movements. The Sunrise Movement is a youth-led coalition on a mission to stop climate change—and recently, they placed their own OS under a microscope: How should the org make decisions? How should its principles evolve? How could it balance centralization and decentralization? Sunrise asked itself these questions to help design a structure capable of meeting our current climate moment. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans chat with Aru Shiney-Ajay and Dejah Powell from Sunrise Movement about the connection between internal and external change and how org design can help contribute to tackling the climate crisis.Learn more about Sunrise Movement's principles: https://www.sunrisemovement.org/principles/?ms=Sunrise%27sPrinciplesLearn more about Sunrise Movement's DNA: https://www.sunrisemovement.org/campaign/sunrise-re-launch/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

A big frustration we often encounter in our work concerns decision-making. Folks feel like their process is too slow; too fast; includes the wrong people; excludes the right people; is too big; is too small. No matter the specific organizational headaches, the headline basically stays the same: “We know this isn’t working but we can’t fix the problem.”In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans take a deep dive into decision-making indecision, exploring: The impediments that tend to block good decision-making The “problems” traditional, top-down decision-making processes are designed to deal with The myths we tell ourselves about who can decide what and when The difference between being non-directive and being indecisive The simplest moves teams can make to up their decision-making 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

Our ears perk up when we hear about different systems practicing self-management. That was the case with Orpheus Chamber Orchestra, a Grammy-award winning group that rehearses and performs without a formal conductor. Instead, the orchestra decentralizes power and leadership among its members, who rotate in between positions and treat each other as equals. Collaborative decision-making; multi-filled roles; shared ownership; clear feedback agreements—Orpheus embodies the very practices we love to talk about. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans ask James Wilson, a cellist with Orpheus and one of the ensemble’s three artistic directors, and Alexander Scheirle, Orpheus’s executive director, about the group’s democratic underpinnings and how it’s experimented with emergence for more than 50 years.Learn more about Orpheus Chamber Orchestra at orpheusnyc.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