At Work with The Ready

Fact: We’re self-management nerds. (And if you’ve been hanging out with us for a while, you probably are, too.) We could talk and think about the how of work all day, every day. But it turns out that for some, getting into the nitty-gritty of roles, working agreements, and governance isn’t their definition of a good time.

Which begs some bigger questions:

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans dig into these important questions and more.

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

This is the eleventh episode in a crossover mini-series between Brave New Work cohosts Rodney Evans and Aaron Dignan and Chase Chapman, builder of DAOs and host of the On the Other Side podcast. Each episode dives into a specific topic related to organizational design for Web3.

Today, they talk about the strategic benefits of operating with greater role clarity, when codifying roles makes the most sense, and the teachable set of skills that help anyone with any role thrive in self-management.

This is the tenth episode in a crossover mini-series between Brave New Work cohosts Rodney Evans and Aaron Dignan and Chase Chapman, builder of DAOs and host of the On the Other Side podcast. Each episode dives into a specific topic related to organizational design for Web3.

Today, they talk about hiring strategies that aren’t reliant on hoarding power, striking a balance between org-wide participation and circle-run process, and filtering for skills rather than experience to bake more equity into hiring.

The past two-plus years have been defined by uncertainty and upheaval—so it’s safe to say that we’ve been having some feels. Specifically, big feelings—feelings like anger, despair, and burnout, all of which are often pegged as “negative” or “bad.” We tell ourselves lots of stories about these emotions: that we should be strong enough to override them; that our feelings are more intense than others’; and that they have individual (versus structural) solutions. But in the new book Big Feelings: How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay, co-authors Mollie West Duffy and Liz Fosslien rewrite that narrative. According to them, the more we can name and understand our toughest emotions, the more we can use them to fuel larger-scale transformation.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans chat with Mollie about why becoming more feelings fluent in the workplace is critical for realizing a more human future of work.

Order Mollie and Liz's book here: https://bookshop.org/books/big-feelings-how-to-be-okay-when-things-are-not-okay/9780593418239

Learn more about Mollie's work here: https://molliewestduffy.com/

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

[Rebroadcast note: This episode originally aired in August 2021.]

Odds are you’ve seen an article (or 20) about some company somewhere testing out a four-day workweek. And if you’ve scrolled past the story to the comments, you’ve probably spied a few cheers…and plenty of jeers. Punching in five days a week might seem like the natural working order—but it’s less a fixed and unchallengeable fact and more a human-shaped choice we can, you know, shape differently.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan asks Rodney Evans about lessons learned from her own four-day workweek experiment, how to navigate relationships with coworkers on different schedules, and why a four-day workweek is labor’s next evolutionary leap forward.

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

It’s an open secret that many organizations’ parental leave policies in the U.S. are subpar—if they exist at all. And if you ask someone why grappling with parental leave is so fraught, you’re bound to get a firehose of frustrating answers. That’s because most organizations approach parental leave as a benefit that costs the company itself rather than as a strategic opportunity for greater learning and development.

Enter Dr. Amy Beacom and Sue Campbell from the Center for Parental Leave Leadership and co-authors of the book The Parental Leave Playbook. They believe the parental leave transition is the most overlooked opportunity for professional growth—and they teach organizations how to tap into its potential.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans learn from Amy and Sue about the future of parental leave policies, including:

Learn more about Amy and Sue's work here: https://cplleadership.com/

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

Adopting new ways of working can come with a lot of excitement and buzz. It’s thrilling to move from having nothing to having something to having something that really sings. Then different questions pop up: How do you sustain the new-ways-of-working spark over time? What ingredients does a system need to avoid slouching toward staleness and mediocrity? What practices might you be propping up past their prime?

It’s easy to default to complacency—to accept that what’s working is good enough. But if you want an organization that’s always leveling up, always evolving its work to feel more joyful and energized, and always sensing into the next thing, it starts with asking these questions.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about how to stay in pursuit of what’s possible, and stay excited along the way.

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

Social networks aren’t new. Humans have always gathered together and forged communities. But deliberately organizing those networks around shared principles, shared context, and a shared purpose is a powerful way we can help address some of the world’s most complex problems. A system that brings individuals and organizations together for learning and collaborative action is what David Ehrlichman calls an “impact network,” a scaled-out (rather than scaled-up) approach to creating greater change. In fact, David wrote the book on the subject—Impact Networks: Create Connection, Spark Collaboration, and Catalyze Systemic Change—which is why we invited him onto the podcast to talk about planning for emergence, unlearning command-and-control models, and the five activities all impact networks leverage to successfully co-create at scale.

Learn more about David's work and Converge here: https://www.converge.net/

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 world faces enormously complex and existential challenges. While specific solutions might feel elusive, it’s safe to say that in order to address the most polarizing issues of our time, we’ll need more and better collaboration—more and better tools to help us work together across deep differences and make progress.

According to Adam Kahane, a director at Reos Partners, that means the world requires more and better facilitators. In his most recent book, Facilitating Breakthrough: How to Remove Obstacles, Bridge Differences, and Move Forward Together, Adam proposes a theory and practice of what he calls “transformative facilitation,” which focuses less on getting (or forcing) people to do things and more on removing obstacles to greater contribution, connection, and equity.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Adam shares with Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans how he’s reimagining this work and who we think of as “facilitators” in the first place.

Find out more about Reos Partners and Adam's work here: https://reospartners.com/

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’ve talked a lot about action meetings on the show. And retrospectives. And governance. And strategy sessions. Maybe you’ve wondered, “What do these meetings have to do with one another? How do they actually interact? Do they?”

We’re glad you asked. Because when woven together, they constitute an organization’s operating rhythm—or heartbeat. And sweating the design of that pulse—intentionally building the structural relationship from beat to beat—is what allows teams to unlock their most important work and make progress.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans break down an OG operating rhythm’s fundamental parts, explore how it enables a system to move work forward, and dish about the fruits (greater clarity, efficiency, and accountability to name a few) of this labor.

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