At Work with The Ready

We often wait to talk about the hard stuff until the shit has hit the fan. But what if we made space for difficult conversations before they become difficult? That's the insight at the heart of Radical Alignment, a new book that introduces a four part conversation technique designed to get couples, teams, and groups on the same page.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Alex Jamieson and Bob Gower about how game-changing conversations—spanning our intentions, concerns, boundaries, and dreams—can transform our lives at work and at home.

Learn more about Radical Alignment and get a copy from your local bookseller.

Learn more about Alex on LinkedIn and Bob 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

Three months ago, we started a conversation about diversity here on the show. And within our own company, that work has continued in earnest. Yet, we've only scratched the surface on what it means to realize true equity at work. We want to go deeper. We need to do more. And we need to make sure that the momentum of the summer continues into the fall. That's why we're back to talk about JEDI once again.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Xavier Ramey, CEO of Justice Informed, about where we stand in the fight for justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion, both at work and in society at large. This is an expansive conversation that touches on the past, present, and future—and invites each of us to continue taking action.

Learn more about Xavier on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, and his website.

Learn more about Justice Informed and their work on LinkedIn, Instagram, and 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

Complexity calls for a new way of working—and in particular a new way of meeting. What matters isn't the individuals in the room, but the relationships between them. Indeed, we need new interactions that change the dynamics and outcomes of our gatherings. No more limiting structures, it's time for liberating structures.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Keith McCandless, co-author and co-developer of Liberating Structures, about the power of microstructures in meetings and moments of collaboration. The structures Keith and the LS community have developed have shaped The Ready's work since inception. Don't miss the lessons within.

Learn more about Keith on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Medium.

Learn more about Liberating Structures at http://www.liberatingstructures.com.

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

One of the most common tensions we hear from teams is "our tools and technology are not maximizing our potential." Let me translate: our company uses crap software. We experience this for many reasons—status quo bias, frugality, security, and one-stop-shop pipe dreams. But the problem is that software is not a blank canvas. It's not neutral. It has opinions. And those opinions shape what we can do (and how we do it) at work.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans share how they think about software, and why you should advocate hard for the right tools on the job.

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

We talk about bureaucracy (and its downsides) on this show all the time. But what about a humanocracy? What would that look like? Luckily, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini have written a wonderful book to explore that question. And their answer is simple: we have to abandon the ways of the past and allow organizations to be as amazing as the people inside them. Easier said than done, but more necessary than ever.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Michele Zanini, co-founder of the Management Lab and co-author of Humanocracy, about the overlap between Brave New Work and Humanocracy, how urgent and vital the work of change is, and how he's learned to approach it. There are few in our space that have written as poignantly and knowingly about the perils and promise of work in the 21st century, so listen and learn along with us.

Learn more about Michele on his website, on LinkedIn, or on Twitter.

Learn more about Humanocracy and get the book or take the Bureaucracy Mass Index (BMI) to see where your company sits.

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

At a sufficiently large scale, any organization that has maximum "diversity" across all variables will become average. Why? Because taking a stand—any stand—is the basis for the boundary of the firm. It's what separates what's inside from what's outside. We must answer the question: "What makes us... us?"

In order to succeed, we need generative difference—members of different races, backgrounds, and experiences. But, we also need clarity and coherence. We need to be explicit about the lines that matter to us, and have enough alignment and connection that a whole emerges from the parts.

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans talk about what it takes to achieve that level of coherence, and how easy it is to tip the scales too far in either direction.

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

We recorded this episode in April, and to be honest, it kinda feels like April never left. All the themes that were present then are simply louder now. What has become clear in the meantime is that strategy (e.g. what is happening, what matters, and what are we doing about it) is more important than ever. But how should we think about strategy in an emergent and participatory system? Is it intuitive and built in to the very structure of the org? Is it something we have to do? How should we weigh reflection against action?

In this episode of Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans speak with Lorin Thomas-Tavel, an executive at Kaplan, about the intersection between strategy and digital transformation, and how their strategy is changing and accelerating on the ground in the midst of the pandemic.

Learn more about Lorin on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Learn more about Kaplan at their website.

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

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!