At Work with The Ready

By Rodney Evans and Sam SpurlinBusiness Entrepreneurship Management

At Work with The Ready episodes

February 08, 2021Brave New Work 61. The Future of the Workforce with Todd Jick
It's one thing to talk about what we'd like the future of work to look like—but what about the people who'll actually make up that workforce? Wha do they want out of their work, and how do they want to shape their organizations?
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk to lecturer Todd Jick at the Columbia Business School about his class on Advanced Organizational Change, and what his students want to see for the future of work.
Learn more about Todd on LinkedIn and his Columbia staff profile.
Learn more about the Columbia Business School on their website.

Mentioned references:
"Mr. Rodgers documentary"
Selma Montgomery march
Novartis
Nucor Steel
Morning Star: BNW Ep. 54 with Doug Kirkpatrick
Frederick Winslow Taylor
No Rules Rules by Erin Meyer and Reed Hastings
"Humanocracy": BNW Ep. 47 with Michele Zanini
Haier
David Marquet: BNW Ep. 8 with David Marquet
"systemic justice": BNW Ep. 50 with Xavier Ramey
Jennifer Hirsch, Sparkworks at Janssen

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 book is available now at bravenewwork.com
43 min
February 01, 2021Brave New Work 60. Solving Our System Problems
There's a thing that often happens when we try to add complexity our systems: in an effort to implement procedure and reduce "risk," we often massively overcomplicate the system at its core. It seems the more we try to distance ourselves from the humans working in our systems, the more we ruin what made the systems work well in the first place.
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans discuss how to solve our systems problems at the root, and how reducing inefficiency can't be entirely divorced from people.

Mentioned references:
"Toyota and the big red button"
"Customer service at Bonobos"
"the $2,000 Ritz-Carlton rule"

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 book is available now at bravenewwork.com
36 min
January 25, 2021Brave New Work 59. Experimenting Toward a Better Hiring Process with Kelsa Summer Roidt
If there's one structure in the modern workplace that feels particularly resistant to change, it's the hiring process. For years, we've followed the same basic structure: whittle down vast pools of potential, qualified candidates down to one lucky winner. But as we consider adapting our workplaces for the future, we might consider tools to reinvent the way we hire, and thus, the way we fill out our organizations for the future.

In this episode, we talk to Kelsa Summer Roidt, Chief Operating and Impact Officer at Habitus, Inc., about her particularly inspiring hiring practices.

Learn more about Kelsa on LinkedIn.
Learn more about Habitus and what they're up to at their website.

Mentioned references:
IDM process: BNW Ep. 43
Turtles All the Way Down
Conway’s law
Other BNW episodes about hiring practices:
BNW Ep. 14 with Kate Glazebrook

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 book is available now at bravenewwork.com
39 min
January 21, 2021Brave New Work 58. Brave New Work and Capitalism
You’ll often hear us talking about collectivism, balance, and sustainability on this show—to the point that you may well wonder, do these socialists even care about growth and profit?
We do. But not in the unchecked way that has become normal in the last half century. In this episode, we let our entrepreneurial ambition out to discuss the moral case for sustainable, humane growth, and explore why the discussion around this topic gets so politically charged.

Mentioned references:
"the Webflow guy" - McGuire Brannon, one of the instructors from the Webflow 101 series
"Patagonia" - BNW Ep. 87 with Vincent Stanley

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 book is available now at bravenewwork.com
36 min
January 13, 2021Brave New Work 57. Working Through A Crisis
It's been quite a week for the United States of America. And as Americans, we tried to do what we always do: keep working.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans discuss the volatile, unprecedented political situation we now find ourselves in, as well as ways to take a step back and recognize that some things might just be more important than business as usual.

Mentioned References:
Mouse Trap the 1963 Hasbro game
J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist
“working agreements” - BNW Ep. 103

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 book is available now at bravenewwork.com
41 min
December 22, 2020Brave New Work 56. The Folly of the Annual Performance Review
It's the end of the year! And for many of us, that also means the return of the dreaded performance review. As we strive to make our workplaces and organizations more human, how can we reinvent this outdated tradition into something... actually useful?

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans discuss how the standard performance management cycle fails both managers and employees, and how we can work toward a better future for feedback.

Mentioned references:
"radical candor" and "feedback" episode: BNW Ep. 13 with Kim Scott
"profit sharing episode": BNW Ep. 36 with Nathan Barry
Aikido
"Little grain of truth in feedback, and discard everything else": from 15 Commitments of Conscious Leaders by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Warner Klemp
Luchador

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]
Interesting in working at The Ready? View open positions here.
Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com
50 min
December 18, 2020Brave New Work 55. Gaslighting and Other Forms of Epistemic Injustice in the Workplace with Cat Swetel
When we begin to reckon with inequality in the workplace, a useful place to start is the concept of "epistemic injustice"—what we know, how we know, and who gets to decide and influence our reality. This concept goes deeper than simply who is in the room. This is about the stories we bring with us, the ones we build together, and how bias and representation shape the possibility of what can be.
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Cat Swetel, a consultant specializing in data-informed coaching and increasing equity in organizations, about epistemic injustice—in the workplace and beyond.

Learn more about Cat on her website, on LinkedIn, and on Twitter.

Mentioned references:
gaslighting
Angel Street / Gas Light, 1938 play by Patrick Hamilton
Judith N. Shklar, Latvian philosopher and political theorist
"fishing stories"
"sock puppet accounts"
Sojourner Truth's "Ain't I a Woman?" speech
Douglas Rushkoff episode: BNW Ep. 33
Bridgewater
#oscarssowhite
Research Your Own Practice, by John Mason

Our book is available 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
48 min
December 03, 2020Brave New Work 54. Rethinking Our Approach to Power and Leadership with Doug Kirkpatrick
While we often throw around terms like "the future of work" and "new ways of working," the reality is that much of the wisdom about how to self-organize and self-manage has been around for a long, long time. What we can learn from this is that there's really nothing new about this moment—except for the fact that more and more people are waking up to the fact that the status quo just isn't good enough.
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Doug Kirkpatrick, author of The No-Limits Enterprise (and many others), about his origin story at The Morning Star Company and what he's learned about self-management in the decades since.

Learn more about Doug on LinkedIn, Twitter, and from reading his book: The No-Limit's Enterprise.

Learn more about The Morning Star Company on their website.

Mentioned references:
"Everything there is a season. Turn, turn": Turn! Turn! Turn! by The Byrds
Chris Rufer, founder of The Morning Star Company
Gary Hamel's famous "First, Let's Fire All the Managers" article from the Harvard Business Review
The Winner Effect, by Ian Robertson
Dr. Dacher Keltner, psychology processor at UC Berkeley
Dr. Fernando Flores, author of "Conversations For Action and Collected Essays"
Peter Koestenbaum, German-American philosopher

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 book is available now at bravenewwork.com
37 min
November 24, 2020Brave New Work 53. Combating The Pandemic Work Hangover
It's been almost a year of working remotely due to the pandemic. And we haven't exactly been doing it right. We've just been hanging in there with too much Zoom and not enough coffee. As a result, we're a little toasty.
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about what they're seeing and feeling, and what it's going to take to make remote work... work. With the Thanksgiving holiday coming up this week in the USA, it seems like the perfect time to talk about how to recuperate, refresh, and return to work with more intention.

Interesting in working at The Ready? Check current openings and apply here.

Mentioned references:
Seinfeld episode "The Opposite"
"participatory governance episode": BNW Ep. 43
Marcus Buckingham on resiliency
Steve Wozniak
Google Glass

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
32 min
November 18, 2020Brave New Work 52. Are You Ready for Self Management? with Ali Randel
If you've been listening to Brave New Work for a while you might be wondering, "Is a self-managing workplace right for me?" Or, if you're already in one, you're probably curious, "How can I better recruit (and screen for) those that are a 'fit' for new ways of working?"
In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans are joined by their colleague Ali Randel to talk about what it takes to survive and thrive in self-managing and self-organizing environments, and what we can do to test for those traits and skills before we jump in.

Learn more about Ali on LinkedIn and by reading articles she's written on Medium.
Apply to work at The Ready: https://www.theready.com/apply

Mentioned references:
Jerry Seinfeld's "What's the deal with...?"
A "Goldilocks problem"
Connect Four

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
43 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…