At Work with The Ready

For decades, traditional consulting (think “management” or “strategy” varieties now synonymous with the Big Three) has been a go-to move for organizations looking for a shake up. Need a bulletproof vision for the future or a new org restructuring that’ll win over the C-suite and shareholders? You can’t beat their analytical prowess, strategy design, and slick presentation.

But too often clients wind up stuck with expensive change plans they can’t execute on their own. Without real coaching, structure, and experienced guidance, these efforts stand a high chance of fizzling out and collecting dust on a shelf. Facing that reality time and time again lead The Ready to study and understand how organizations actually work and evolve. Yes, we’re also consultants—but the processes, outcomes, and experiences we create differ greatly. And that can lead to a whole bunch of confusion.

In this episode of At Work With The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin delve into the stark differences between traditional consulting and how future-of-work firms like The Ready operate. Because not all consulting is created equal.

Get the full transcript and resources mentioned in this episode here: https://www.theready.com/podcast/episodes/awwtr8-traditional-consulting-vs-work-design-consulting

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04:37 Disclaimer: This isn’t a takedown episode of traditional consulting

06:33 The Pattern: Traditional consulting is a band-aid for a broken OS

10:20 The deliverable is often confused with an outcome

13:20 Executives and C-suite buy projects for the visible work, not the invisible work

15:31 Traditional consulting is a hedge for the CEO–Board of Directors relationship

17:52 Traditional consulting works around and outside a broken OS; it doesn’t fix it

25:30 Builds dependency on a third party for expertise or sensemaking the market

28:30 What to do instead: prioritize effectiveness even/over growth and extraction

31:34 Figure out where you’ll always want an outside partner, and where you want to learn to do it internally

34:19 Seek our partners you want to be positively disrupted by, if you want to be disrupted

37:57 Contract for the partnership you want and what your needs are

39:19 Decide for yourself what you need and then ask for it, rather than having a third party tell you what you need

42:42 Be clear about what you’re buying, and what it will require from you

45:50 Closing round: What did we learn?

49:10 Wrap up: share the show with your friends and coworkers!

Sound engineering and design by Taylor Marvin of ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Coupe Studios⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.

For decades, face-to-face working has been the default way of working. Launching a new project; untangling an OS problem; updating a team on progress made in the last week—our classic go-to for all those different kinds of work is blocking off time on a calendar. When in doubt, just corral everybody into a room, real or virtual.

But this “one-size-fits-all” approach is coming up short as work evolves. And while almost everyone dreads having a meeting-stuffed calendar, ideas for what to try instead can be in short supply. Plus, when 85% of leaders find it hard to trust that their employees are being productive, async work can look like a risky free-for-all.

In this episode of At Work With The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin explore how our attachment to synchronous work is hampering performance and why asynchronous work is a mindset, not a tool stack.

Looking for other ways to asynchronously enjoy this episode? Check out our Youtube channel for the live video version, or email [email protected] to get a transcript for reading.

Mentioned references:

We’re on LinkedIn! Follow Rodney, Sam and The Ready for more org design nerdery and join the conversation around episodes after they air.

Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox? Sign up for our newsletter.

We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Read the book that started it all at bravenewwork.com.

Every time something changes at work, someone’s bound to be upset. Digital transformations take resources from analog teams; restructuring a department can take authority from one group and give it to another; removing a step from a workflow can eliminate a role altogether. Any change, including those meant to make things better, will create winners and losers and that’s bound to kick up a hornet’s nest of feelings.

Here’s the puzzling part: Despite years of research showing us that surfacing and processing these feelings is key to unlocking a company’s ability to be adapt, many workplaces often treat emotions as taboo. They’re messy, unpredictable, and nobody wants to touch them—even when ignoring them does more harm that good. Playing pretend isn't getting us anywhere.

In this episode of At Work with The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin explore why we have negative feelings about big feelings and how it’s holding our organizations back from evolving into the places they could be.

We're on Youtube! An extended video version of this episode (with extra Rodney and Sam moments) is available to watch there.

Mentioned references:

Love the show? Leave us a review and share this episode with your coworkers!

We’re on LinkedIn! Follow Rodney, Sam and The Ready for more org design nerdery and join the conversation around episodes after they air.

Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox twice a month? Sign up for our newsletter.

We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Ask anyone about organizational silos and they’re bound to tell you they’re bad. When we run Tension and Practice exercises with clients, “We work in silos” often shows up as Tension No. 1 holding a team back. Yet like a moth to a flame, we keep gravitating toward them, building walls that are higher and more insurmountable than ever before. What gives?

In this episode of At Work with The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin dive into the bottomless ball pit that is organizational silos, exploring why we think they’ll solve all our problems, how they’re actually sabotaging organizations from being effective, and why trying to build bridges between them (rather than designing something new from the ground up) is one of the worst things we can do.

Mentioned references:

We’re on LinkedIn! Follow Rodney, Sam and The Ready for more org design nerdery and join the conversation around episodes after they air.

Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox twice a month? Sign up for our newsletter.

We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Read the book that started it all at bravenewwork.com.

You can’t throw a stone on LinkedIn without hitting at least one post about return-to-office policies. From CEOs to employees, from thought leaders to maybe even your mayor, everyone is taking a side, doubling down, and yelling into the void as loud as they can. Where people work is being treated as the most important issue—the existential sea change that will either make or break a company.

In reality, the RTO debate is the superficial fight we have instead of addressing the deeper, tougher, and way more complex issues that really matter (think questions around purpose, trust, "productivity", and communication). And here’s a fun fact: You can’t work well anywhere (in person or remotely) if confusion and misalignment is swirling around your company.

In this week’s episode of At Work With The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin unpack why we’re still debating where people work, what that obsession costs our organizations, and how to start breaking free of the cycle.

Mentioned references:

We’re on LinkedIn! Follow Rodney, Sam and The Ready for more org design nerdery and join the conversation around episodes after they air.

Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox twice a month? Sign up for our newsletter.

We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

1:1s (or one-on-ones) are a ubiquitous part of our daily working lives. These two-person meetings (a manager + a direct report = a classic 1:1) are meant to be a space for diving into individual challenges, fostering trust, building stronger relationships, and providing a forum for feedback and recognition. When designed with intention, they can be great.

But at some point, 1:1s jumped the shark. Today, we see more and more companies with an overwhelming “1:1 culture,” where calendars are packed with a million two-person meetings (on top of lots of other meetings), leaving precious little time to get work done. Worse still, most 1:1s include our worst meeting habits: over-indexing on status updates, information hoarding, and bureaucratic theater. What gives?

In this episode of At Work with The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin meet one-on-one (see what we did there?) to explore why 1:1 cultures take hold in organizations, the cost that comes with doing them poorly, how to rely on them less, and how to start making the ones you do keep count.

Mentioned references:

We’re on LinkedIn! Follow Rodney, Sam and The Ready for more org design nerdery and join the conversation around episodes after they air.

Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox twice a month? Sign up for our newsletter.

We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected].

Read the book that started it all at bravenewwork.com.

It's January! New beginnings? Ambitious plans? Giant commitments to change? They’re on everyone’s mind. Companies included—since now’s the time when glossy PowerPoint decks are so eagerly rolled out. And those PowerPoints? They’re always brimming with promise for the year ahead.

But there's a glaring disconnect between those slides (all 73 of them) and eventual success we often don’t address. Because how frequently do those meticulously crafted plans pan out? Does the new agenda account for the day-to-day running of the company? Is the plan flexible enough to handle economic curveballs? (We remember 2020, right?)

The reality is that “traditional strategy” often resembles New Year's resolutions; they’re imbued with good intentions but ultimately destined for disappointment.

In this episode of "At Work with The Ready," (new year, new podcast name!) co-hosts Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin explore our deep-rooted conditioning toward conventional planning methods (despite their shortcomings), share what a more complexity conscious approach to strategy looks like, and give you moves to start busting up the annual cycles of frustration, stagnancy, and finger-pointing.

Get the full transcript and resources mentioned in this episode here: https://www.theready.com/podcast/episodes/awwtr2-your-powerpoint-deck-is-not-a-strategy

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Ready to change your organization? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Let's talk.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

Get our newsletter: ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Sign up here⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

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00:00 Intro + News

03:34 Check-In: What’s your personal relationship with planning?

07:18 Bad strategy patterns we see in organizations

12:18 Why “traditional” strategy feels comfortable

15:47 The costs of traditional strategy

21:31 New strategy moves

22:29 Build a strategy stack

28:00 Explore Scenario planning

30:47 Where leaders are falling short

34:52 How to get started: Sam’s first move

37:26 How to get started: Rodney’s first move

40:07 Wrap up: Leave us a review and share this show with a friend!

Whether it’s in front of clients or in front of a mic, we talk about change all day long. Having fewer, better meetings; learning to productively disagree; overhauling and evolving the HR function; exploring four-day work weeks—the podcast has covered miles and miles of transformational ground in 4 years.

However we don’t often talk about how we’ve changed. And after six seasons and 162 episodes, how could we not be different? We used the show’s hiatus to reflect on where we’ve been and where we want to go—and we reached some bittersweet conclusions. But if we resisted change and all the learning and joy that can come with it, we wouldn’t be The Ready.

In this very special episode, Aaron Dignan, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin talk about Brave New Work’s origin story, what they’ve learned making all these episodes (it was 162, right?), and what the show’s future may hold. Trust us, you won’t want to miss it.

This episode was recorded with video, so you can see our smiling faces on The Ready’s Youtube channel.

Mentioned references:

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Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to [email protected]

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

In July, we began exploring what HR’s current reality looked like and how People teams could evolve into a better, brighter, more adaptive future. Thirteen episodes, three guest interviews, a record breaking AUA, and lots of unexpected hot dog talk later, we’ve reached the end. And while endings can be bittersweet, this miniseries, proudly co-hosted by two org design nerds, is transforming that feeling into a sweet retrospective.

In today’s final Future of HR episode, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin look back on the three months they spent in the deep end of the HR pool and talk about they’ve learned, what’s surprised them, and where their opinions have shifted. Plus, we pull out all the stops with one of the funniest check-in rounds of the series and a little something extra at the end as a thank you for tuning in. Buckle up, brave listeners. Because this isn't really an ending; it's a launchpad for all the exciting adventures HR is truly ready for.

Mentioned references:

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Learn more about The Future of HR at our website.

Curious where your company sits on our 5-stage maturity model? Take our assessment and find out!

Have a burning HR question for Rodney and Sam to answer? Email us at [email protected].

Ready to get started moving your HR department into the future? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected].

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00:00 Intro + Check-In: When you were a child, what TV show or movie do you wish you could have been a part of in real life?

05:04 Goals of the FoHR miniseries

12:44 Reception of the miniseries from HR folks

16:51 How Rodney and Sam’s views have changed (or not) since episode 1

25:48 Convictions that are stronger now than when we started

29:52 Final takeaways: If you remember nothing else, remember this one thing

32:38 What’s next on your FoHR journey

34:42 Thank-you

35:31 Blooper + humor reel

HR departments struggle to be all things to all stakeholders while delivering on the most strategic priorities of the business. But when we dig into the OS of HR, we find a resource-constrained function that contains multitudes. Long range people priorities are deemed negotiable, HR’s domain expertise isn’t respected, and the function acts as a service-provider when it should be guiding the organization's evolution.

This week, Rodney Evans sits down with HR industry giant Josh Bersin to discuss his book Irresistible: The Seven Secrets of the World’s Most Enduring, Employee-Focused Organizations and dig into how HR must transform itself to enable a shift to more profitable, resilient, human organizations. They explore what makes a company “irresistible,” the tidal wave that is AI, and the critical role HR plays in shifting a workplace’s culture.

(Editor’s note: This episode was recorded in July, so many things Josh talks about as “upcoming” are already out in the world! Look below for a full list of current references.)

Learn more about Josh Bersin on his website, LinkedIn, and Twitter (X).

Learn more about Josh’s book here.

Learn more about the Josh Bersin Company at their website and explore the courses offered in Josh Bersin Academy.

Mentioned references:

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Learn more about The Future of HR at our website.

Curious where your company sits on our 5-stage maturity model? Take our assessment and find out!

Have a burning HR question for Rodney and Sam to answer? Email us at [email protected].

Ready to get started moving your HR department into the future? Email us at [email protected] or [email protected].

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00:00 Intro + Check-In: What’s something that you’re trying to learn right now?

03:33 Story behind the origins of Josh’s book

09:58 The shift behind “Coach, Not Boss”

16:17 Concept of “success” in Irresistible companies vs traditional companies

21:20 How irresistible companies are transforming their HR departments

30:11 HR leader Interview tips to identify an irresistible company

33:49 HR and AI and how to think about it

40:23 Where HR should start engaging with AI

43:04 Wrap up: Share this episode with your HR friends!