199 episodes

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 struggling with a carousel of ineffective meetings, annual strategy sessions that go nowhere, or decision-making churn that never ceases, they’ve seen it all and are here to help. In each episode, they'll break down common workplace challenges and show you the moves—both big and small—to start making real, lasting change. (Formerly “Brave New Work” with Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans)

At Work with The Ready Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin

    • Business
    • 5.0 • 157 Ratings

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 struggling with a carousel of ineffective meetings, annual strategy sessions that go nowhere, or decision-making churn that never ceases, they’ve seen it all and are here to help. In each episode, they'll break down common workplace challenges and show you the moves—both big and small—to start making real, lasting change. (Formerly “Brave New Work” with Aaron Dignan and Rodney Evans)

    6. If You're Faking It, You Won't Make It

    6. If You're Faking It, You Won't Make It

    Every time something changes at work, someone’s bound to be upset. Digital transformations take resources from analog teams; restructuring a department can take authority from one group and give it to another; removing a step from a workflow can eliminate a role altogether. Any change, including those meant to make things better, will create winners and losers and that’s bound to kick up a hornet’s nest of feelings.
    Here’s the puzzling part: Despite years of research showing us that surfacing and processing these feelings is key to unlocking a company’s ability to be adapt, many workplaces often treat emotions as taboo. They’re messy, unpredictable, and nobody wants to touch them—even when ignoring them does more harm that good. Playing pretend isn't getting us anywhere.
    In this episode of At Work with The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin explore why we have negative feelings about big feelings and how it’s holding our organizations back from evolving into the places they could be.

    We're on Youtube! An extended video version of this episode (with extra Rodney and Sam moments) is available to watch there.

    Mentioned references:

    Tabea's Meet The Ready post


    "unconsciously protecting the status quo": Immunity to Change, 2009 book by Robert Kegan and Lisa Laskow Lahey


    "protection state": On Point of Relationship podcast episode with Frederic Laloux


    "complicated vs complex": Brave New Work keynote



    The unpaid emotional labor expected of women at work, 2024 BBC article

    What Rodney said at SXSW last year: BNW 162: Live from SXSW with Brian Elliott



    Love the show? Leave us a review and share this episode with your coworkers!
    We’re on LinkedIn! Follow Rodney, Sam and The Ready for more org design nerdery and join the conversation around episodes after they air.
    Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com
    Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox twice a month? Sign up for our newsletter.
    We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.com.

    • 48 min
    5. Silos Are For Corn, Not For People

    5. Silos Are For Corn, Not For People

    Ask anyone about organizational silos and they’re bound to tell you they’re bad. When we run Tension and Practice exercises with clients, “We work in silos” often shows up as Tension No. 1 holding a team back. Yet like a moth to a flame, we keep gravitating toward them, building walls that are higher and more insurmountable than ever before. What gives?
    In this episode of At Work with The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin dive into the bottomless ball pit that is organizational silos, exploring why we think they’ll solve all our problems, how they’re actually sabotaging organizations from being effective, and why trying to build bridges between them (rather than designing something new from the ground up) is one of the worst things we can do.

    Mentioned references:

    "Ready for Anything structure episode": BNW Ep. 23


    "Hollywood Model episode": FoHR Miniseries, Ep. 1


    The Ready's Tension & Practice Cards


    "the previous episode": AWWTR Ep. 4


    value stream mapping

    Spotify chapters and guilds video Sam promised


    "IDM consent-based governance": BNW Ep. 43


    "movies and studios"

    "retro": BNW Ep. 10 with Jordan Husney



    We’re on LinkedIn! Follow Rodney, Sam and The Ready for more org design nerdery and join the conversation around episodes after they air.
    Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com
    Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox twice a month? Sign up for our newsletter.
    We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.com.
    Read the book that started it all at bravenewwork.com.

    • 46 min
    4. Return to Office: Real Issue or Handy Distraction?

    4. Return to Office: Real Issue or Handy Distraction?

    You can’t throw a stone on LinkedIn without hitting at least one post about return-to-office policies. From CEOs to employees, from thought leaders to maybe even your mayor, everyone is taking a side, doubling down, and yelling into the void as loud as they can. Where people work is being treated as the most important issue—the existential sea change that will either make or break a company.
    In reality, the RTO debate is the superficial fight we have instead of addressing the deeper, tougher, and way more complex issues that really matter (think questions around purpose, trust, "productivity", and communication). And here’s a fun fact: You can’t work well anywhere (in person or remotely) if confusion and misalignment is swirling around your company.
    In this week’s episode of At Work With The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin unpack why we’re still debating where people work, what that obsession costs our organizations, and how to start breaking free of the cycle.

    Mentioned references:

    BNW’s first RTO/hybrid work episode: Ep. 79

    Erin Grau’s Fortune article “Flexible work is feminist”

    "Theory Y"

    Brian Elliott's previous appearances on our show: BNW Ep. 129, BNW Ep. 162, and FoHR Miniseries Ep. 9



    "Return-to-Office Mandates" from Mark Ma and Yuye Ding of the University of Pittsburgh's Katz Graduate School of Business

    "Lessons Learned: 1,000 Days of Distributed at Atlassian"

    "Basecamp": BNW Ep. 4 with Dan Kim

    Mural

    Miro

    Children of Time

    Previous episodes about retreats and in-person gatherings: BNW Ep. 64, BNW Ep. 82 with Lindsay Caplan, and BNW Ep. 94




    We’re on LinkedIn! Follow Rodney, Sam and The Ready for more org design nerdery and join the conversation around episodes after they air.

    Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

    Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox twice a month? Sign up for our newsletter.

    We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.com.

    • 41 min
    3. How 1:1 Meetings Are Messing Up Your Culture

    3. How 1:1 Meetings Are Messing Up Your Culture

    1:1s (or one-on-ones) are a ubiquitous part of our daily working lives. These two-person meetings (a manager + a direct report = a classic 1:1) are meant to be a space for diving into individual challenges, fostering trust, building stronger relationships, and providing a forum for feedback and recognition. When designed with intention, they can be great.
    But at some point, 1:1s jumped the shark. Today, we see more and more companies with an overwhelming “1:1 culture,” where calendars are packed with a million two-person meetings (on top of lots of other meetings), leaving precious little time to get work done. Worse still, most 1:1s include our worst meeting habits: over-indexing on status updates, information hoarding, and bureaucratic theater. What gives?
    In this episode of At Work with The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin meet one-on-one (see what we did there?) to explore why 1:1 cultures take hold in organizations, the cost that comes with doing them poorly, how to rely on them less, and how to start making the ones you do keep count.

    Mentioned references:

    “Tear and share roll”

    “op rhythm”: BNW Ep. 118

    A Beautiful Mind, movie from 2001

    “default stack of pancakes” : At Work With The Ready Ep. 2

    “Action Meeting”: BNW Ep. 80 with Sam Spurlin

    “retrospectives”: BNW Ep. 10 with Jordan Husney

    “Donut meetings”

    “Ali’s 1:1 article”

    “Lean coffee/OS Coffee”: BNW Ep. 144



    We’re on LinkedIn! Follow Rodney, Sam and The Ready for more org design nerdery and join the conversation around episodes after they air.

    Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com

    Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox twice a month? Sign up for our newsletter.

    We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.com.

    Read the book that started it all at bravenewwork.com.

    • 40 min
    2. Your PowerPoint Deck Is Not a Strategy

    2. Your PowerPoint Deck Is Not a Strategy

    It's January! New beginnings? Ambitious plans? Giant commitments to change? They’re on everyone’s mind. Companies included—since now’s the time when glossy PowerPoint decks are so eagerly rolled out. And those PowerPoints? They’re always brimming with promise for the year ahead.
    But there's a glaring disconnect between those slides (all 73 of them) and eventual success we often don’t address. Because how frequently do those meticulously crafted plans pan out? Does the new agenda account for the day-to-day running of the company? Is the plan flexible enough to handle economic curveballs? (We remember 2020, right?)
    The reality is that “traditional strategy” often resembles New Year's resolutions; they’re imbued with good intentions but ultimately destined for disappointment.
    In this episode of "At Work with The Ready," (new year, new podcast name!) co-hosts Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin explore our deep-rooted conditioning toward conventional planning methods (despite their shortcomings), share what a more complexity conscious approach to strategy looks like, and give you moves to start busting up the annual cycles of frustration, stagnancy, and finger-pointing.

    Mentioned references:

    "Getting Things Done and David Allen": Brave New Work Ep. 39 with David Allen


    "90% of leaders admit strategies fail based on implementation": Closing The Gap: Designing and Delivering a Strategy That Works - The Economist's Intelligence Unit

    Essential Intent


    Japanese pancakes, straight from Sam's Instagram algorithm

    Even/overs: Brave New Work Ep. 44


    Weighted Shortest Job First (WSJF)

    Looping

    Red Teaming

    "Scenario planning": Brave New Work Ep. 34 with Kevin Kelly


    Adjacent possible

    Op rhythm

    "mango sorbet": Brave New Work Ep. 163 Check-In Round



    Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com
    Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox twice a month? Sign up for our newsletter.
    We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.com
    Read the book that started it all at bravenewwork.com.

    • 41 min
    163/1. A Brave New Chapter

    163/1. A Brave New Chapter

    Whether it’s in front of clients or in front of a mic, we talk about change all day long. Having fewer, better meetings; learning to productively disagree; overhauling and evolving the HR function; exploring four-day work weeks—the podcast has covered miles and miles of transformational ground in 4 years.
    However we don’t often talk about how we’ve changed. And after six seasons and 162 episodes, how could we not be different? We used the show’s hiatus to reflect on where we’ve been and where we want to go—and we reached some bittersweet conclusions. But if we resisted change and all the learning and joy that can come with it, we wouldn’t be The Ready.
    In this very special episode, Aaron Dignan, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin talk about Brave New Work’s origin story, what they’ve learned making all these episodes (it was 162, right?), and what the show’s future may hold. Trust us, you won’t want to miss it.

    This episode was recorded with video, so you can see our smiling faces on The Ready’s Youtube channel.

    Mentioned references:


    Imoyoshi, home of the purple sweet potato soft serve

    Ira Glass

    The Ready's Spotify Wrapped LinkedIn post



    "Pop up and do less" scene from Forgetting Sarah Marshall


    Supermanage, from Murmur Labs

    The File Drawer

    Fields of Work

    The Future of HR miniseries

    "the Panera days": The Ready's first "office" was in a Panera near Bryant Park in NYC! Hear more about The Ready's early days in BNW Ep. 158.



    ------------------
    Looking for some help with your own transformation? Visit theready.com
    We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.com
    Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

    • 36 min

Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5
157 Ratings

157 Ratings

CarrieNCincy ,

If you ever thought there could be a better way..,,

…there is!

Sam and Rodney are a breath of fresh air for people trying to implement a human first approach to their everyday lives at work.

Hearing their thoughts and actionable insights makes me feel less alone in the world of making work a better place!

Would highly recommend!

samspurlin ,

Loving the new mini-series!

The new co-host sounds handsome and smart.

K Michalak ,

Inspiring!

This podcast strengthens my optimism about possibility and potential. We don’t have to settle for old ways of working!

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