Free Time with Jenny Blake

081: DAOing and Prioritizing Progress over Perfection with Aaron Dignan


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Leadership and org design always involve tradeoffs. Which ones are you willing to make? Are you building traffic lights in your business or roundabouts? Do you want to maintain power and control, deriving identity from your role, or are you interested in exploring and creating a self-managing organization where there is no CEO?

Today we’re talking about the new wave of Decentralized Autonomous Organizations (DAOs), bolstered by the blockchain, but something Aaron Dignan has been practicing for over a decade.

More About Aaron: Aaron Dignan is the author of Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?, host of the Brave New Work podcast, founder of The Ready, and his new company Murmur, a collaborative decision-making tool that gives everyone a voice in how to make work better, no meetings required. He is also a cofounder of Responsive.org, an investor in purpose-driven startups, and a friend to misfit toys. He lives in Colorado with his wife and son, and their dog Kaiser.


🌟Key Takeaways:

  • Prioritize progress over perfection, the adjacent possible.
  • Decide what you are creating from the outset. Is it a community garden, a whole foods, a living room? What you want to create should dictate how you organize it.
  • Aim for solutions that are safe to try. Ask, “What will it cost us to find out?”

  •  📝Permission: To not have all of the answers. Ask more, listen more, talk less.


     ✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Instead of trying to get 100% buy-in for your next group decision, ask if a proposal is safe to try


    📘Books Mentioned:

    • Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business 
    • Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
    • Brave New Work: Are you Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?

    • 🔗Resources Mentioned

      • Aaron on the web, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn
      • Aaron’s Podcast: Brave New Work
      • Video: The Murmur Method and Walkthrough
      • Company: Basecamp, Article: Basecamp Blowup: Banning Politics At Work Prompts Over A Dozen Employees To Quit
      • Company: Outdoor Voices, Article: Ty Haney Speaks Out About Outdoor Voices’ Missteps - and What Comes Next
      • HBR Article: Who’s Got The Monkey?

      • Related Podcast Episodes: 039: Permission to Glow with Kristoffer (KC) Carter)


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