At Work with The Ready

By Rodney Evans and Sam SpurlinBusiness Entrepreneurship Management

At Work with The Ready episodes

May 10, 2021Brave New Work 71. Basecamp and Politics In The Workplace
In the past two weeks, Basecamp—a software company with a general track record of outspoken, progressive values—has lost a sizable chunk of its workforce. The reason? A memo from the company's CEO that banned "societal and political discussions" in workplace channels.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans break down what this all means—the (impossible) concept of "separating politics from work," and the privilege inherent in assuming that's possible.

Mentioned references:
Parkburger
Basecamp podcast
Basecamp book
Coinbase
"DHH's memo"
George Floyd
"JEDI episode": BNW Ep. 40 with Sharan Bal
"consent-based decision making/participatory governance": BNW Ep. 43
Murmur: BNW Ep. 67
"principles episode": BNW Ep. 37
"compensation episode": BNW Ep. 32
"membership episode": BNW Ep. 30
"mastery episode": BNW Ep. 63
Hedonic treadmill
11 Madison Park
"Bill Anderson/Roche episode": BNW Ep. 68 with Bill Anderson

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
38 min
May 04, 2021Brave New Work 70. AUA No. 3 - This And That: Peer Feedback, All Hand, and Prioritization
We're opening up the mailbag. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans tackle the topics of some of your most fascinating questions, from gossip to peer feedback to all-hands meetings.
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans dive into our mailbag and answer some of the top questions we're hearing from our listeners.

Questions featured in this episode:
Is back channeling good or bad in the workplace?
How to get colleagues comfortable giving each other peer-to-peer feedback?
What's a more participatory way to prioritize and commit to work?
What's an all hands meeting actually good for?
Talk more about self-set pay and what The Ready is experimenting with around money
Mentioned references:
"gossip and group dynamics"
Alastair's episode: BNW Ep. 65 with Alastair Steward
performance management episode: BNW Ep. 56
Kim Scott's episode: BNW Ep. 13 with Kim Scott
"Shape up method" from Basecamp
Theory Y
Loom
retreats episode: BNW Ep. 64
"essential intent"

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
46 min
April 26, 2021Brave New Work 69. Vanishing Asia with Kevin Kelly
Kevin Kelly, the founding editor of WIRED Magazine, has spent years documenting and photographing life in the furthest corners of the Asian continent—and in the process, he's recorded a way of living that is quickly disappearing in the face of the continent's bracing visions for the future.
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to Kevin about what we, in our work, can learn from the varied and disparate cultures he's spent much of his life experiencing.
Learn more about "Vanishing Asia" on Kickstarter.
Learn more about Kevin:
On his website
On his Instagram
By reading The Technium Blog
By subscribing to the Recomendo newsletter.
Mentioned references:
Kevin's previous appearance: BNW Ep. 34 with Kevin Kelly
H-Mart
David Hockney
Asia Grace, Kevin's earlier photography book
Kodak Brownie
Shenzhen
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
Haier
"org debt"
Single's Day

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
45 min
April 20, 2021Brave New Work 68. Organization Transformation at Scale with Bill Anderson
Changing the way we work is a difficult task at a company with 150 employees. But what about one with. say, 100,000? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to Bill Anderson, CEO of Roche Pharmaceuticals, about his recent work in reshaping the company's structure and processes, change at such a large scale, and the surprising challenges that come along with such a massive undertaking.

Learn more about Bill and his work on LinkedIn.

Mentioned references:
Roche Pharmaceuticals
Foundation Medicine
Flatiron Health
Genentech
"org debt"
Beyond Budgeting
"reinventing organizations and Frederic Laloux": BNW Ep. 18 with Frederick Laloux
SAFe
VITAL Framework (see slide 8)
Haier

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
54 min
April 05, 2021Brave New Work 67. Changing The World of Working Agreements with Murmur
Work is all about agreements—policies, processes, principles, goals, workflows, etc. So if you're starting a company from the ground up, how do you give teams the power to align on all of these things in a clear and inclusive way? What if there's already a company out there that's documented the exact policy you're looking for? And when, inevitably, that agreement needs some tweaking, how do you iterate and grow?
In today's episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about the new software startup, Murmur, which aims to do for working practices what GitHub did for code. They talk about why Aaron started the company, what the initial product will deliver, and how every new startup can agree to work better together.
Learn more about Murmur at https://www.murmur.com/

Mentioned references:
murmuration of starlings
GitHub
sociocracy
holacracy
participatory change
async work: At Work With The Ready Ep. 7
Clippy, the Microsoft Office assistant
Five whys
regret minimization framework

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
44 min
March 29, 2021Brave New Work 66. The Beauty of The Mythic and Mundane in Organizational Systems with Gayle Karen Young
One of the most important aspects of organizational change and complexity is embracing fluidity. Rather than be mired in rigid lines and forced structure, we want to be dynamic, adaptive and—in a certain sense—poetic.
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to Gayle Karen Young, an organizational development consultant and former Chief Cultural and Talent Officer at Wikimedia, about how she brings poetry into the workplace, the role of spirituality in her work, and what she calls the mythic and the mundane.
Learn more about Gayle on LinkedIn and on her website.

Mentioned references:
Guanyin
kōan
The Wikimedia Foundation
sangha
David Whyte, poet
Cynefin
Susanne Cook-Greuter
Viktor Frankl and Man’s Searching for Meeting
Balcony perspective
“tyranny of the quantifiable”
Barry Johnson “polarity management”
”Let American Be America Again”, poem by Langston Hughes:
”Pushing Through”, poem by Rainer Maria Rilke
”Kindness”, poem by Naomi Shihab Nye
"Working Together”, poem by David Whyte
Ranier Maria Rilke
Mary Oliver
[Traveler, your footprints], poem by Antonio Machado

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
46 min
March 22, 2021Brave New Work 65. A Better Way to Onboard Employees with Alastair Steward
What's it like to onboard at a company where you don't have a boss? In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to The Ready member Alastair Steward about his experience onboarding at the company, the concept of a "prologue," and how to situate yourself effectively in a self-managed organization.

You can find Alastair here on LinkedIn.

Mentioned references:
"Oculus boxing game"
imposter syndrome
"adjacent possibles"
"safe to try"
"participatory governance": BNW Ep. 43
"authority": BNW Ep. 22
Shu Ha Ri
"mastery": BNW Ep. 31
"OS Coffee": BNW Ep. 144

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
44 min
March 08, 2021Brave New Work 64. Redesigning The Company Retreat
It's a time-honored tradition: the company retreat. But when that conjures the specter of Ramada Inn basements and conference rooms and three-hour presentation blocks, it's clear that an update is in order. In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans strategize the most efficient and effective ways to reconnect and recharge with your organizations, as well as ways we might go about planning company retreats in the new age of remote work.

Mentioned references:
"IDM-ing": BNW Ep. 43
Loom
Tony Robbins
"escape room in Charleston"
Oculus Quest (now the Meta Quest)
Spacial
Beat Saber

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
41 min
February 22, 2021Brave New Work 63. Mastery in the Age of Self-Management
The workplace is a wealth of knowledge. Each member of an organization is a master in their own specialized field, and in the 21st-century workplace, we're often exchanging knowledge, teaching and learning by equal measure. But in a future where self-management is key, how do we ensure this is done in a healthy way?
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans discuss how to cultivate mastery in a world of knowledge workers.

Mentioned references:
Second Empire/Mansard roof
Baroque revival
"Yehudi's episode": BNW Ep. 42 with Yehudi Meshchaninov
"Mastery episode of Ready for Anything": BNW Ep. 31
Dr. Akilah Cadet
Chapter or community of practice / The Spotify model
The Dunning-Kruger Effect

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
47 min
February 15, 2021Brave New Work 62. Real Change Through Experimentation
Leaders in the workplace often talk about experimenting within the existing structures. But in the excitement and flurry of change, we often forget the goal of experimentation: to make it a real learning practice.
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans discuss how to plan, structure, and assess change experiments with the right intentions, and for the best outcomes.

Read the article based on this episode here.

Mentioned references:
Supernatural
Foreshadowing Rodney's 4-day work week episode: BNW Ep. 81
Doug Kirkpatrick and Morning Star: BNW Ep. 54 with Doug Kirkpatrick
Action Meeting episode: BNW Ep. 80 with Sam Spurlin
Retrospectives episode: BNW Ep. 10 with Jordan Husney
IDM (integrated decision making) episode: BNW Ep. 43
Fitness landscape from evolutionary biology
"emotional experience of change": AWWTR Ep. 6

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
46 min

About At Work with The Ready

From the publisher's feed

Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin have helped teams around the world adopt more modern ways of working and on At Work with The Ready they’re sharing the inside scoop with you, too. Whether you’re…