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At Work with The Ready

At Work with The Ready

Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin

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)
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Top 10 At Work with The Ready Episodes

Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best At Work with The Ready episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to At Work with The Ready for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite At Work with The Ready episode by adding your comments to the episode page.

At Work with The Ready - Depthfinding: Solve Your Cross-Functional Problems…Finally!
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01/13/25 • 36 min

Over the last decade at The Ready, we’ve seen firsthand that the most significant organizational challenges are nearly all cross-functional. But most company structures? Very much not cross-functional. Adding more project managers, looking to external partners for one-and-done silver bullets, or assembling yet another task force just isn’t cutting it as the world changes faster than most organizations can keep up.

Enter Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges. In our new Depthfinding miniseries, Rodney and Sam will help you see your organization in a new way whether you’re individual contributor or a C-Suite executive. Ready? Let’s dive in.

Download the Depthfinding guide to get the template and example Rodney mentioned in this episode.

Want to learn more about Depthfinding? Head here: theready.com/depthfinding

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This episode's theme music is Yaggadang by BG & Coyote Radio.

Sound engineering and design by Taylor Marvin of Coupe Studios.

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At Work with The Ready - Depthfinding: Sky - Threats and Opportunities
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01/27/25 • 50 min

In this miniseries, we’re exploring Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges.

This week, Rodney and Sam look at the Sky—the external forces like market shifts, technological disruptions, and political changes that shape your organization. While most companies are comfortable staying heads-down in the day-to-day, failing to look outward creates costly blind spots that lead to org debt, misaligned strategy, and even existential risk.

Cultivating a regular practice of looking up and outward is the key to successfully meeting this moment—and all the ones to come.

Download the Depthfinding guide to get the template and examples of how to use it.

Want to learn more about Depthfinding? Head here: theready.com/depthfinding

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Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox? Sign up here.

Follow us on your favorite platforms for more org design nerdery:

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This episode's theme music is Yaggadang by BG & Coyote Radio.

Sound engineering and design by Taylor Marvin of Coupe Studios.

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At Work with The Ready - 26. Unweirding Change with Michael Bungay Stanier
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05/19/25 • 42 min

Despite an explosion of frameworks, toolkits, and “best practices,” the success rate of organizational change hasn’t improved in over a decade. For all the decks, comms plans, and transformation initiatives being sold, most companies still find themselves stuck, repeating the same plays and hoping for different results.

This week, Rodney Evans welcomes back Michael Bungay Stanier—best-selling author, host of the new podcast Change Signal, and longtime friend of the show—who’s on a mission to cut through the noise and find what actually works. They explore why change still feels so weird, the real leverage points for shifting individual and organizational behavior, and whether it’s finally time to retire “change management” as we know it.

Get a copy of Michael's change quadrants he talks about in this episode here: Michael's quadrants.

Learn more about Michael:

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Timestamps:

00:00 Intro + Check-In: Do you have a non-work related goal that you’re working towards right now?

9:59 Michael’s journey to un-weird change

14:49 Michael’s individual and organizational unlocks for change

21:24 Importance of strong foundational habits to succeed in change work

25:37 Understanding of power dynamics in change work

33:27 Outdated change mindsets to let go of

38:38 Rodney and Michael’s takeaways

40:28 Wrap up: Leave us a review and share the show with your coworkers!

Sound engineering and design by Taylor Marvin of ⁠⁠Coupe Studios⁠⁠.

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At Work with The Ready - 24. Ask Us Anything No. 3

24. Ask Us Anything No. 3

At Work with The Ready

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11/25/24 • 47 min

It’s mailbag time! And while we know we said this last time, we really mean it that this was probably the hardest group of questions we’ve dealt with on the show yet! Rodney and Sam get out their thinking caps and answer some questions from listeners like you about non-traditional organizational leadership, workplace dynamics around project capacity planning, and more.

Questions tackled:

  • Are great teams and strategies impossible without traditional leadership?
  • Can project capacity planning be done in a people-positive, complexity conscious way?
  • Why do traditional orgs bias towards convergent thinking, especially around annual planning?
  • How do you prioritize cross-functional initiatives between leadership and teams that avoids zombie projects and mutual disappointment?

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Interested in learning more about Depthfinding and the ocean framework? Head here.

Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox? Sign up here.

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At Work with The Ready - 23. Adopting a Product Mindset in Organizations
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11/11/24 • 46 min

There are plenty of organizations that say they want to be “customer-focused”—but in practice? It’s easy to fall back on leader-driven opinions and assumptions about what customers really want. That’s especially true in big companies with entrenched processes and hierarchies that prioritize internal agendas. In those environments, staying aligned with customer needs can be an uphill battle—and organizations instead get stuck building solutions based on what leaders think customers should want, rather than what they need, leaving exciting opportunities on the cutting room floor.

In this episode, Rodney and Sam dig into what it actually takes to adopt a product mindset. From navigating a “hammer looking for nails” ethos to designing flexible solutions that adapt to actual user behavior, they unpack how to bring customer-centricity into daily practice—and what to do when you start to veer off course.

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In this miniseries, we’re exploring Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges.

This week, Rodney and Sam dive into the Sunshine Zone—the highly visible work of organizations, from strategy decks and OKRs to mission statements and financial targets. While these elements are easy to track and refine, spending too much time in the Sunshine Zone often leads to performative goal setting, misaligned priorities, and a disconnect from the deeper work that actually drives change.

Leaders who want real progress—not just a well-polished plan—need to balance the visible with the essential. Cultivating adaptability, feedback loops, and space for creative, cross-functional work is the key to moving beyond surface-level success.

Download the Depthfinding guide to get the template and examples of how to use it.

Want to learn more about Depthfinding? Head here: theready.com/depthfinding

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Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox? Sign up here.

Follow us on your favorite platforms for more org design nerdery:

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Mentioned references:

This episode's theme music is Yaggadang by BG & Coyote Radio.

Sound engineering and design by Taylor Marvin of Coupe Studios.

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At Work with The Ready - Depthfinding: From Leadership to Stewardship
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04/21/25 • 45 min

In this miniseries, we’re exploring Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges.

This week, Rodney and Sam dive into one of the most pivotal (and misunderstood) aspects of the framework: stewardship. Depthfinding is built on the idea that organizations are like oceans, not aquariums. That means leaders have to show up in an entirely new way—not as a boss, a hero, or a disciplinarian, but as someone responsible for the ongoing health of a complex system.

Embracing stewardship can be an uphill battle thanks to the ghosts of leadership past and the inner work required to show up well in complexity. But when facing down uncertainty, building the conditions for resilience and learning to steward across each Depthfinding zone offers a new way forward.

Get the PDF Rodney and Sam talk about in this episode

Download the Depthfinding guide to get the template and examples of how to use it.

Want to learn more about Depthfinding? Head here: theready.com/depthfinding

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Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox? Sign up here.

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00:00 Intro + Check-In: What is an underrated condiment?

03:46 Stewardship is how to put Depthfinding into action

08:32 Leadership ghosts of the industrial age: Henry Ford and the org chart

15:10 Leadership ghosts of the information age: Jack Welch and cult of personality

20:11 De-centering leaders and re-centering the organization for the future

23:50 Stewardship in the Midnight Zone playbook

28:13 Leaders modeling Midnight Zone moves is critical

30:29 Stewardship in the Twilight Zone playbook

35:46 Stewardship in the Sunshine Zone playbook

38:13 Stewardship in the Sky playbook

43:40 Wrap up: Leave us a review and share this episode with your colleagues!

This episode's theme music is Yaggadang by BG & Coyote Radio.

Sound engineering and design by Taylor Marvin of Coupe Studios.

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At Work with The Ready - Depthfinding: Twilight Zone - Where Work Happens
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02/24/25 • 48 min

In this miniseries, we’re exploring Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges.

This week, Rodney and Sam step into the Twilight Zone—the often-overlooked but deeply influential space where teams navigate the “how” of work—the “how” of collaborating, meeting, deciding, and experimenting. Many organizations put all or most of their focus on visible outputs and assets, but the rubber meets the road in the Twilight Zone. It’s the organizational depth where strategy actually gets executed—which means it’s worthy of more than a passing glance.

When an important initiative stalls out, when teams side-eye change, when a leadership team’s decisions never translate into clear and meaningful action, it’s time to investigate the Twilight Zone. Leaders who want real progress—not just compliance—must foster cross-functional collaboration and create space for meaningful iteration. Because strategy isn’t about what’s declared. It’s about what actually happens.

Download the Depthfinding guide to get the template and examples of how to use it.

Want to learn more about Depthfinding? Head here: theready.com/depthfinding

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Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox? Sign up here.

Follow us on your favorite platforms for more org design nerdery:

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Mentioned references:

This episode's theme music is Yaggadang by BG & Coyote Radio.

Sound engineering and design by Taylor Marvin of Coupe Studios.

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At Work with The Ready - 25. 1M Downloads and Counting: Looking Back on 2024
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12/23/24 • 34 min

2024 felt like a bit of a rollercoaster—and while we’re ready to close the book on this year, we wouldn’t be first-class org designers if we passed up the chance to hold a retrospective. Add in the fact that this is Rodney’s 200th episode and BNW + AWWTR have crossed the one million download milestone, and a little celebration feels like the right thing.

In today’s episode, Rodney and Sam reflect on the show’s 2024 season—including the episodes they loved, the episodes they want a do-over on, and what they hope for the show in 2025.

We want to know what you think! Take our 2024 Listener Survey.

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At Work with The Ready - Depthfinding: Putting It All Into Practice
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05/05/25 • 29 min

In this miniseries, we’re exploring Depthfinding—an easy-to-grasp framework designed to help leaders and teams solve their gnarliest cross-functional challenges.

This week, Rodney and Sam reflect on what they’ve learned over the course of this eight-part miniseries—about the framework, their own Midnight Zones, and what it means to navigate complexity amidst uncertainty. They share how their thinking has evolved since launching the series, when Depthfinding is most useful (and when it’s not), and why every organization eventually has to ask: Who are we designing for?

The end of the miniseries isn’t the end of Depthfinding. Now it’s time for you to dive in.

Download the Depthfinding guide⁠ to get the template and examples of how to use it.

Want to learn more about Depthfinding? Head here: ⁠theready.com/depthfinding⁠

--------------------------------

Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox? ⁠Sign up here⁠.

Follow us on your favorite platforms for more org design nerdery:

--------------------------------

Mentioned references:

00:00 Intro + Check-In: What is the warning label on the back of your box?

04:26 Depthfinding’s impact on our work

08:19 New discoveries from the miniseries

13:50 Limitations of Depthfinding

16:34 Troubleshooting consultants stuck in one zone

22:14 What’s next for Depthfinding

25:14 What’s next for the podcast

27:11 Wrap up: Leave us a review and share the show with your colleagues

This episode's theme music is ⁠Yaggadang by BG & Coyote Radio⁠.

Sound engineering and design by Taylor Marvin of ⁠Coupe Studios⁠.

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FAQ

How many episodes does At Work with The Ready have?

At Work with The Ready currently has 229 episodes available.

What topics does At Work with The Ready cover?

The podcast is about Management, Entrepreneurship, Podcasts and Business.

What is the most popular episode on At Work with The Ready?

The episode title 'Depthfinding: Sunshine Zone - Artifacts, Org Charts, and Metrics' is the most popular.

What is the average episode length on At Work with The Ready?

The average episode length on At Work with The Ready is 43 minutes.

How often are episodes of At Work with The Ready released?

Episodes of At Work with The Ready are typically released every 7 days.

When was the first episode of At Work with The Ready?

The first episode of At Work with The Ready was released on Nov 19, 2019.

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