Has it really been almost three and a half years since this wild ride of a podcast began? We’ve been experimenting as we go (remember Rodney’s NPR-host impersonations in the early shows?)—and after releasing roughly one episode a week throughout the entirety of pandemic, we figured it was finally time we learned how to take a proper break and give BNW some TLC.

So, we’re going on hiatus and won’t be making new episodes for a while. But that just means it’s a great time to revisit our back catalog. All those hot topics swirling around the news right now (burnout, dysfunctional hybrid work models, toxic hiring practices, you name it) are things we’ve been all over since 2019—and you’ve been right there with us. Some of these conversations might be a few years old, but they’re just as relevant as ever.

Plus, now you can check out our Youtube channel, where we’re uploading older episodes weekly. They’re complete with updated show notes, links, transcripts, and video chapters so you can jump to your favorite episode moments.

Until we’re back, please stay in touch by following The Ready on Twitter or Linkedin, and by emailing us at podcast@theready.com. We can’t wait to hear what you get up to while we’re gone. Now go change something.

Sometimes, Rodney and Aaron stop by other people’s podcasts to nerd out on the hits we know and love: new ways of working, self-management, breaking down the binary between chaos and bureaucracy, the future of work—the list goes on and on. So today, we’re actually bringing one of those awesome conversations right to your ears.

Aaron recently joined Morra Aarons-Mele on her show, The Anxious Achiever, for an epic chat about mental health, the workplace, and disrupting the systems that can reward and reinforce unhealthy behavior. We hope you enjoy the exchange and we’ll return with a fresh episode of Brave New Work soon.

To tune in for more episodes of Morra’s show, head to her website or search "The Anxious Achiever" wherever you get your podcasts.

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This episode originally aired on October 26th, 2022 on The Anxious Achiever with Morra Aarons-Mele, presented by LinkedIn.

Aaron Dignan is founder of The Ready - an organizational transformation and coaching practice. He focuses on how to prioritize adaptivity and autonomy over efficiency and control - which you can pretty quickly extrapolate into upsides for mental health of workers and leaders. He’s also the author of the book Brave New Work - and cohost of the podcast of the same name. 

Host Morra Aarons-Mele speaks with him about he helps organizations and individuals realize they need to change, and how he guides them through that transformation. 

About The Anxious Achiever:

Host Morra Aarons-Mele is on a mission to reframe how we think about anxiety and mental health in the workplace. Anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the U.S. We desperately need better models for leadership and a more holistic view of mental health. Our culture tells those of us who suffer from anxiety and depression that we can’t succeed, but we tell a different story — without sugarcoating the tough stuff. We feature stories from people who’ve been there and experts who can help you thrive.

You didn’t think we’d do our first-ever live show and let you miss the party, did you? That’s right, we’re coming in hot with a very special episode we recorded at SXSW on March 11th in partnership with our friends at Slack.

Aaron and Rodney hit the Slack Studio Live stage with Brian Elliott (co-founder of Future Forum, an SVP at Slack, and a friend-of-the-pod) to talk about the future of work and break down several myths that keep holding us back. Plus, we kept Austin weird with one our strangest check-in rounds yet!

We came prepared with our hottest takes (and not just because it was nearly 90 degrees) on these pervasive workplace myths:

• The person who’s always busy is the person who’s most productive.
• Compensation is the most important thing when choosing a new role.
• If you aren’t at the top, there’s nothing you can do to spark change at work.
• There’s no place for feelings in the workplace.
• You can’t build culture if you’re not IRL at an office.

Bonus Content Alert! You might hear this episode and wonder…was this really recorded outside in front of a live audience?! It was (BNW tips its hat to Taylor Marvin weekly with good reason) and we have the goods to back it up. Head to our YouTube channel for the unedited version that features our faces and cheering crowds for the real-deal Brave New Work live experience.

Special thanks to Sparks for recording us live!

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

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

Rebroadcast Note: We’re still sleeping off a taco- and margarita-filled weekend at SXSW, so we’re resurfacing one of our most popular episodes today. While two years have passed since we first had this conversation about hybrid work (and much has changed since then), it’s an inescapable fact that many companies are still struggling (some quite publicly) with this particular new way of working. We’re planning on revisiting this topic later in 2023, so email us with your hybrid horror stories and any questions you’d like answered! [This episode originally aired on July 12, 2021.]

It’s a major question on many minds these days: When will the office reopen? Or rather: Will the office reopen? Different countries are in very different stages of heading back to physical workspaces (or not); in the United States, the prospect of on-premise work is inching closer as companies struggle to decide between three main models: fully in-office; fully remote; or…maybe some mix of both?

In this episode, we unpack why floppy hybrid models are doomed to fail, different flavors of creativity (that don’t rely on glass-walled conference rooms), and what the most adaptive path forward could look like.

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

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

Rebroadcast Note: Some things never go out of style, which is why we resurface this foundational episode year after year. Plus, our BNW community has grown by a few thousand new listeners since it last aired! If you’ve already heard this episode, check out our back catalog, leave us a review, or email the podcast to let us know what topics you’d like us to cover this year. If this is the first you’re hearing of “Brave New Work 101,” happy listening. [This episode originally aired on September 14, 2021.]

Today’s episode is a foundational survey class; we’re mapping the territory of the work we do, why we do it, what we’re all about—and why we’d love to talk to your boss. Whether you’re a systems design nerd like us or a newcomer who knows in their bones that work sucks but doesn’t have to, we’ve got answers to your big questions—about implementing self-management at your own organization; about assuaging fears of team effectiveness or brittleness; about leader’s becoming more power-literate and less ego-filled; and a whole lot more. So…how does this apply to you? We’ll put it this way: If you’re involved in a complex system with more than two human beings (spoiler alert: you are!), you’re already doing this work—and we’re here to help make it awesome.

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

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

We’re back with part two of our conversation about talent marketplaces. Last week, Rodney and Aaron explored what talent marketplaces are and the types of organizational problems they can help address. (Pro tip: If you haven’t yet listened to that episode, hit pause and check it out now!)

This week, they’re moving past the big picture and getting into the nitty gritty of what makes talent marketplaces work…or not. It’s not just about how to move pieces around a chess board, but rather about disrupting old-school organizational power plays. Today, Rodney and Aaron take a closer look at:

• What it takes to maintain a transparent marketplace that matches the right people with the right opportunities without resorting to shady, backroom dealings
• How traditional performance management systems penalize (instead of promote) moving talent around
• What experiments a company can try to give these principles a shot
• How compensation works when people aren’t tethered to a traditional role with clear benchmarks or boundaries

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

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

We’ve probably talked about the classic, old-school, hierarchical org chart hundreds of times on the show. Not because we love it (longtime Brave New Work-ers know it’s not really our jam), but rather because it’s one of the most recognizable organizational structures out there. Despite its everywhere-ness, the boxes-and-line org chart isn’t exactly an adaptive way to design an organization. So what’s an alternative?

Rodney and Aaron head to Hollywood (metaphorically) to explore a different structural model: the talent marketplace. Where org charts break, talent marketplaces bend—offering greater flexibility and resilience.

In Part 1 of this two-parter, Aaron and Rodney dig into the many benefits of talent marketplaces, the sticky problems they help solve, and what can trip up companies when they first move toward this model.

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

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

We’ve all been there: trying to suss out what a colleague’s crossed arms meant during a presentation; reading between the lines on a passive-aggressive message; or struggling to interpret a perplexing emoji reaction (what do pineapples have to do with the budget?). We're all just doing our best at understanding our coworkers with little to no real information. That’s where a “User Manual to Me” can come in handy. These personalized handbooks can provide a helpful framework for others to better understand our behaviors, quirks, needs, desires, and working styles—if we commit to getting real when writing our own.

In this episode, Aaron and Rodney dive into how teams can make and use these manuals in a meaningful way, including:

• Why it’s better to be “real” versus “aspirational” when filling one out
• How you can dig deeper when you keep getting “polite” answers
• Why user manuals are living documents that should be revisited over time
• What we can learn about ourselves by making one

Additional “User Manual to Me” Inspiration:

• lead-strategist-on-his-user-manual.html">Adam Bryant - New York Times
• Brad Feld - Blog

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

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

Whether your company is fully remote, fully in-person, or somewhere in-between, work in 2023 (and beyond) will require healthy and robust digital ecosystems—because that’s where so much work takes place day in and day out. Still, wanting a first-rate digital-first workplace and having one are two different things—and there’s no one-size-fits-all roadmap to follow. Every team has different needs, so we can expect different journeys.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t learn from each other. In this episode, Aaron and Rodney reflect on The Ready’s early years (hat tip to Panera for providing O.G. office space), sharing advice and learnings from the growing pains of yesteryear. Then, as part of our partnership with Slack, they sit down with Kelsey Stevenson, Chief Product Officer at Bitly, to talk about how the growing company is evolving its own digital-first workplace and the experiments they’re running to build trust, culture, collaboration—and a very active pets channel in Slack.

Learn more about Bitly: bit.ly

Connect with Kelsey on LinkedIn: bit.ly/3WX2waV

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

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

Why are “Ask Us Anything” episodes our favorite ones to make? Because our listener questions are never not inspiring, provocative, moving, sharp…just insert your favorite emoji here. What can we say? Y’all are the best.

Today, Aaron and Rodney head back to the mailbag (and try to break their record of answering only two questions per episode). They offer their hot takes (naturally) and dig into:

• Why workplace rituals matter and how to develop ones that are legit meaningful
• What to do when leaders at the top say they’re hungry for change…and then block it left, right, and center
• How to help teams transition to new tools, especially when that adoption requires brand new skills and brand new levels of (currently non-existent) trust

Our book is available now at bravenewwork.com

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

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