At Work with The Ready Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin

“Ask Us Anything” episodes were a Brave New Work tradition, and we knew they were going to live on in this next new chapter of the show. What we didn’t know was how much harder the questions would be this time around! Turns out, after nearly 200 shows our audience is pretty sharp and asking some very specific questions.
On today’s episode of At Work With The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin look at what arrived in our inbox and tackle our listeners thorniest questions…and even tease a little something coming on the horizon.

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Check out the extended live video version of this episode on our Youtube channel or shoot us a message if you'd like a transcript.

Questions answered in this episode:

How do you give critical feedback without being seen as a threat?

Any thoughts on orgs moving to eliminate excessive layers of management?

What's a workplace project you thought would be easy but turned out to be hard, and vice versa?

What's a starting point for orgs that want to work with someone like The Ready?

Can you have an episode about the disconnect between senior leadership and where the work happens?


Mentioned references:

"high and low umbrella"

"org debt"

"how might we?"

Chesterton's Fence

Bayer's elimination of managers

Humanocracy: BNW Ep. 47 with Michele Zanini


Haier's elimination of managers

The Ready's OS Canvas


Liberating Structures: BNW Ep. 49 with Keith McCandless


"anti-pattern"


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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.

For decades, traditional consulting (think “management” or “strategy” varieties now synonymous with the Big Three) has been a go-to move for organizations looking for a shake up. Need a bulletproof vision for the future or a new org restructuring that’ll win over the C-suite and shareholders? You can’t beat their analytical prowess, strategy design, and slick presentation.
But too often clients wind up stuck with expensive change plans they can’t execute on their own. Without real coaching, structure, and experienced guidance, these efforts stand a high chance of fizzling out and collecting dust on a shelf. Facing that reality time and time again lead The Ready to study and understand how organizations actually work and evolve. Yes, we’re also consultants—but the processes, outcomes, and experiences we create differ greatly. And that can lead to a whole bunch of confusion.
In this episode of At Work With The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin delve into the stark differences between traditional consulting and how future-of-work firms like The Ready operate. Because not all consulting is created equal.

Prefer to watch instead of listen? Check out the extended video cut of this episode, with even more Rodney and Sam moments, on our Youtube channel.

Mentioned references:

VUCA

"participatory change": BNW Ep. 43


"cross-functional teaming": Future of HR Ep. 1


"strategy pancakes episode": AWWTR Ep. 2



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? 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.

For decades, face-to-face working has been the default way of working. Launching a new project; untangling an OS problem; updating a team on progress made in the last week—our classic go-to for all those different kinds of work is blocking off time on a calendar. When in doubt, just corral everybody into a room, real or virtual.
But this “one-size-fits-all” approach is coming up short as work evolves. And while almost everyone dreads having a meeting-stuffed calendar, ideas for what to try instead can be in short supply. Plus, when 85% of leaders find it hard to trust that their employees are being productive, async work can look like a risky free-for-all.
In this episode of At Work With The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin explore how our attachment to synchronous work is hampering performance and why asynchronous work is a mindset, not a tool stack.
Looking for other ways to asynchronously enjoy this episode? Check out our Youtube channel for the live video version, or email podcast@theready.com to get a transcript for reading.

Mentioned references:

Loom

Rodney's article on org debt: How to Tackle the Biggest Threat to Your Team's Growth


Red, amber, green (RAG status)

Tanisi's podcast episode: BNW Ep. 88 with Tanisi Pooran


Miro

Pitch

Pomodoro method


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? 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.

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



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We’re on LinkedIn! Follow Rodney, Sam and The Ready for more org design nerdery and join the conversation around episodes after they air.
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We want to hear from you. Send your thoughts and feedback to podcast@theready.com.

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.

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.