Prior to the 1940's, the word priorities (plural) was rarely used. Because the word priority means that which comes before anything else. It's one thing! But these days, it's not uncommon for leaders and boards to demand multiple, often contradictory outcomes at the same time. We want faster output AND higher quality. We want to grow market share in our core category AND open three new categories. We want to hit the impossible target AND have work life balance. But as the saying goes, if everything is a priority, then nothing is a priority. What we need is a way to make tradeoffs explicit and strategic. And that's exactly what "over" statements and "even/over" statements do. They ask us to put one good thing even over another good thing.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans discuss how to create and leverage even over statements, and how they can help any team at any level focus on what truly matters now.

As promised, we've also included three of our even/over statements for the Brave New Work podcast here in the show notes:

Read our article on even/overs on Medium.

Mentioned references:

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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

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00:00 Intro + Check-in: What’s a difficult trade off that you’ve made and did it pan out for you?

04:49 What are even/overs and where did they come from?

09:33 More is not always better

11:14 Examples of good even/over statements

19:25 Even/overs don’t necessarily mean you won’t get the second thing

21:13 Using even/overs around Brave New Work principles

29:30 Facilitating a team to get good even/overs

35:00 Using even/overs when all decisions look like the right one

39:20 Good even/overs can be counter-intuitive

42:45 Wrap up: Leave us a review and send us your favorite even/overs!

Making decisions at work can be perilous. It's not always clear who has the authority to make them. And even when it is, it's usually just a chosen few that benefit. So, it's no surprise that making decisions about how we govern the organization—designing the rules and roles that underpin everything, is so hard that it's often avoided altogether.

That's why one of our favorite things to share is a form of governance that has its roots in the Quakerism, Sociocracy, and more recently, Holacracy. But the best part is you don't have to completely reinvent your way of working to get started. If you believe in iterative progress AND the notion that everyone should have a voice in steering the organization, you're ready to play.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans introduce the concept of participatory governance, and talk about its many benefits (and occasional challenges).

Check out our article about participatory governance.

Mentioned references:

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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

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00:00 Intro + Check-In: What have you done lately to contribute to a more just society or confront your own privilege?

05:12 History of governance

09:24 How tensions lead to proposals

12:55 Understanding “safe to try”

18:25 Judgement without experiencing is not the move

21:03 Participatory governance process step by step

29:13 How it’s a game changer to objections and getting things done

33:31 How rounds disrupts power structures and dynamics in organizations

40:56 When to start with participatory governance in your team

48:53 Wrap up: Leave us a review!

The stories of self-management and decentralization from evolutionary organizations like Buurtzorg, Morning Star, FAVI, Haier, and others are often told breathlessly, as if it was "happily ever after." But, the truth has to be more... nuanced, right? Indeed it is. More adaptive and human ways of working are not without their own frustrations and tradeoffs. The question is: are they worth it?

In this episode of Brave New Work, (technically the first "colleague-as-guest" episode though BNW is releasing it late), Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans are joined by Yehudi Meshchaninov to talk about what it's really like to work in a system like The Ready.

Learn more about Yehudi on LinkedIn.

Mentioned references:

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

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00:00 Intro + Check-In: What is one way your work self is different than the way you are at home with your family and friends?

03:11 What inspired this discussion?

06:44 The hard parts of a self-managing system

16:02 Ways to replenish yourself and maintain discipline about how you show up

21:07 Patterns and persistent dynamics in self-managing systems

29:29 Role of fear in self-managing systems

36:58 Where the broader culture sits on the future of work and its shadow sides

41:54 Wrap up: Leave us a review!

Any podcast that promotes busting bureaucracy and hobbling hierarchy is bound to stir up some questions. That's why this week we're going to let our listeners Ask Us Anything. For this episode, we took to Twitter and LinkedIn to find out what you're wondering about. And you came through big time.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans hear questions about check-in rounds, leadership, and the post-pandemic move back to work. If you ever feel a question percolating as you're listening, just drop us a line at [email protected] and we'll include you in a future episode.

Mentioned references:

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

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00:00 Intro + Check-In: If you were a beverage of any kind, what would you be?

03:00 Question 1 - Do check in rounds always need to be fun? Should I be making them more serious?

06:26 Question 2 - Why is the type of leader who only takes and is mostly interested in themselves typically over-represented in a company’s leadership, vs those who give and focus on collaboration?

14:07 Question 3 - What should leaders and teams be thinking about as they transition towards “return to office” discussions?

21:58 Wrap Up: Send us your questions!

It's been six weeks since George Floyd was murdered, and activism around the Black Lives Matter movement has reached new heights. For many of us, it's triggered incredibly challenging conversations and reflections about who we are and who we want to be. It feels like now is the time for real change—but what kind? How can each of us play our part without blame or shame? And where do we begin?

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans are joined by their colleague and resident JEDI knight, Sharan Bal to talk about the peril and promise of this moment, and what change agents like us ought to do about it. We don't have all the answers, but we're starting anyway.

Learn more about Sharan on LinkedIn.

Mentioned references:

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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

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00:00 Intro + Check-In: What should our listeners know about us and our social identities?

04:02 What is JEDI

10:04 The Ready’s position in this moment

12:16 Thinking about change using the OS Canvas

20:51 Is it the people or the system or both?

25:29 The real learning doesn’t happen in the training. It happens in the work

31:35 All “modern” work practices predate the civil Rights movement

36:24 What might “different” actually look like

49:29 What’s next for The Ready’s JEDI journey

55:41 Wrap Up: Leave us a review!

We recorded this episode almost two months ago, and while so much has changed since then (look for an upcoming episode on DEI and BLM), the challenges we face sitting down at our computers every morning have not. They've only intensified. How are we supposed to move our work forward with everything that's going on out there in the world? And what is productivity when it's not defined by economists but by us?

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with David Allen, author of Getting Things Done, about how to define and achieve progress in a period of chaos and distraction.

Learn more about David Allen on LinkedIn and Twitter, or by reading his book Getting Things Done (2015 rev.).

Learn more about the Getting Things Done at the website.

Mentioned references:

--------------

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

With much of the working world collaborating remotely these days, one thing is abundantly clear: facilitation matters, especially when we're not in the same room.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans commiserate about the difficulty of keeping everybody focused from afar, as well as the top tips and tricks for producing a great remote meeting.

Mentioned references:

-Parabol

-Basecamp

--------------------

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

---------------------

00:00 Intro + Check-in: What is your current setup for a marathon video meeting?

03:43 Purpose of a facilitator and types of meetings

06:37 Remote facilitation quirks we’re seeing out in the wild early in the pandemic

13:50 Pace of meetings

15:39 Role of meeting chat/discussion spaces

22:30 Video vs no video - a time for both

24:00 Remote facilitator’s responsibility for vibes

28:26 Wrap-up: Leave us a review and tell your friends!

Without bureaucracy and compliance, how can we ensure that we remain aligned and coherent while also leaving room for judgment? The answer: principles.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans explore how to craft a useful principle—and how to make use of them day-to-day.

Read The Ready's article for more information on principles here.

Mentioned references:

------------------

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

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00:00 Intro + Check-In: What are you doing for fitness these days?

03:46 Defining principles

12:42 Considering first principles for a team

16:40 Using principles to guide away from shenanigans

23:18 Nervous system response to strong principles

26:34 Picking your principles

35:51 Aaron and Rodney’s principles hit list

41:03 Wrap up. Leave us a review!

Not that long ago, we were living in a grow-grow-grow economy where stock options in a hot venture-backed startup were what most employees coveted. Today, a profitable bootstrapped company that shares its profit with its own employees feels like a revelation.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Nathan Barry, founder and CEO of ConvertKit, about how his bootstrapped software company shares profit with its employees, and while we're at it, how they think about compensation more generally. Hopefully, some of our listeners will follow in their footsteps.

Learn more about Nathan on LinkedIn and Twitter.

You can read the thread that sparked this episode here: https://twitter.com/nathanbarry/status/1231227172238422016

Learn more about ConvertKit at their website.

Mentioned references:

-----------

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

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00:00 Intro + Check-In: Share one way in which you are difficult to work with, and one way in which you are easy to work with.

04:21 Nathan’s ConvertKit story

05:56 ConvertKit’s profit sharing approach

13:16 Walking away from tying performance intro profit sharing

17:03 Calculating what profit is available to share

20:20 Shadow of profit sharing

24:09 ConvertKit’s transparency principles

27:07 The other components of compensation

33:06 Trade-offs to reach philosophical outcomes

36:37 Nathan’s advice for leaders navigating this moment

39:44 Wrap Up: Leave us a review!

Most of us are working remotely. But we're just treading water, we haven't really mastered it. That's why it's important to talk about remote work after the novelty wears off—when the home office is just... the office. In this episode, we speak with Sid Sijbrandij, Cofounder and CEO of GitLab, about how their 1,290 team members work remotely in support of a $2.75B business. For Sid's team, remote work is a way of life. What can we learn from them?

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans explore what happens when a company isn't forced to be remote, but actually wants to be.

Learn more about Sid on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Learn More about GitLab at their website or on Twitter.

Learn more about GitLab’s remote work policies.

Mentioned references:

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