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:

Mentioned references:

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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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:

[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.com

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

Looking 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%27sPrinciples

Learn more about Sunrise Movement's DNA: https://www.sunrisemovement.org/campaign/sunrise-re-launch/

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

Looking 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:

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

Looking 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.com

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

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

Hey, how ya feeling? Exhausted? Stressed? Like a rubber band that’s finally snapped? Same. These days, the burnout paradigm seems to have shifted from the micro to the macro: Individual burnout has ballooned into collective burnout—into an overwhelming sense of being out of control and out of moves to help make things right. So, what can we do with those feelings?

In today’s episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about:

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

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

When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, the American legal landscape instantly changed. So did the business landscape, since more than half of Americans rely on their employers for healthcare—and that includes reproductive healthcare. Abortion as a critical workplace issue is now top-of-mind for organizations coming to grips with how they can and should respond to a post-Roe world.

Emma Goldberg covers the future of work for The New York Times and has been asking big questions about abortion since the Supreme Court’s decision came down: “How will this decision reshape workplace policies? What influence will it have on the job market? How do employees want their employers to respond? How do consumers want businesses to respond? Why does this issue in particular feel so fraught?”

This week on Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans ask Emma about the answers she’s been hearing.

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

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

We’re coming at you with part two of the intimate conversation Rodney and Aaron cracked open last week. (Haven’t listened to part one yet? Go back and check out that episode now!)

Today on Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans continue exploring the ups and downs of their professional partnership; why they chose to start working with a coach; the big lessons and lingering worries they both sit with; and why seeking out help isn’t necessarily a sign that something’s broken, but rather that you’re actually ready to dig deeper.

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

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