At Work with The Ready

150 episodes listed below

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Blunt thinking for better work design.

The gist

At Work with The Ready treats the modern organization as a living system, not a chart. Episodes move between listener questions and longer conversations on AI, pay, transparency, ethics, and the messy human realities behind work design.

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About At Work with The Ready

At Work with The Ready is a candid show about how organizations really function when the slogans, frameworks, and tidy operating models meet human behavior. It is practical, but not soft. Recent episodes move through AI, shared purpose, compensation, transparency, ethics, user feedback, and the strain of trying to change systems from inside them. The show’s core interest is work design: how meetings, authority, rituals, pay, language, and decision rights shape what people can actually do. It treats companies as complex adaptive systems. That matters because the answers are rarely simple, especially in small organizations where personalities and interpersonal friction can shape the whole system. Listener-question episodes bring the format down to the floor. A question about AI becomes a conversation about purpose, outcomes, face-to-face sense-making, and why leaders may need simpler language repeated more often. A question about radical transparency becomes a sharper point: transparency is not automatically good without the conditions that make it useful. Compensation episodes are especially direct. They argue for clarity, simplicity, and honesty about the transactional nature of work, while rejecting the sentimental idea that a company is a family. The show also has a moral edge. Its discussion of org design is not only about performance or return; it asks what happens when power and resources keep flowing upward and people learn to live with the dissonance. Guest conversations, including John Cutler on how organizations actually work, add texture without turning the show academic. The tone is loose, funny, and sometimes blunt. Still, the recurring promise is serious: better work depends on better interactions, clearer systems, and less pretending.

Made for: For internal org designers, HRBPs, chiefs of staff, and people who work inside messy organizations. It suits listeners who want candor about power, incentives, AI, and culture without glossy management language.

What sets it apart: The show stands apart by treating workplace problems as system behavior and human behavior at the same time. It mixes listener-question pragmatism with sharp ethical critique, making room for both operating advice and uncomfortable truths.

In their own words

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)

Why you'd press play

The cake nobody asked for meets the pay plan nobody understands, and suddenly your workplace makes sense.

Press play if you want

Rodney Evans and Sam Sperlin challenging the stories your company tells about power
plainspoken ways to spot the system lurking behind a bad boss

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

work designAI and organizational purposecompensationradical transparencysmall-organization complexityethical org designuser feedbackquality of workplace interactions

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Find your next episode

About At Work with The Ready

In their own words

Why you'd press play

Talks about

Podcasts like At Work with The Ready

Episodes

Depthfinding: From Leadership to Stewardship

AUA: Why Won't The Rest Of The Org Copy What’s Working?

45, Part 2. Why Pay Will Never Feel Fair At Work (And It's Not The Money)

AUA: Why Is My Small Org So Hard To Run?

45, Part 1. Why Pay Will Never Feel Fair At Work (And It's Not The Money)

AUA: What Should L&D Do About AI Right Now?

44. Forget ROI: The Ethical Case for Org Design

AUA: Can You Change an Org When Leadership Doesn’t See the Problem?

43. Dual Transformation Is The Future...And Nobody's Prepared

AUA: Can Layoffs Really Reduce Bureaucracy?

42. The Top 3 Skills Change Agents Need in 2026

AUA: How To Design a Startup OS From Scratch?

41. Why Your AI Strategy Stalled and How To Get Moving with Greg Shove

AUA: How Do You Measure the ROI of Org Design?

40. Our 2026 Predictions: Expect the Unexpected

AUA: Can Internal Transformation Teams Really Drive Change?

39. Performance Management "Needs Improvement"

AUA: How Do You Balance Autonomy With Alignment In IT Teams?

38. Running Better Experiments at Work

AUA: Your Team Isn't Ready For Your Future

37. Leadership Across Generations with Raven Solomon

AUA: Surviving the Culture Shock of an International Merger

36. What AI Is Teaching Us About Ourselves

AUA: How to Change When People Are Loyal To The Past

35. Fighting Burnout At Work

AUA: Promotion Problems - Managing Former Bosses

34. Even More Bad Bosses and How to Defeat Them, P2

AUA: Why 360 Feedback Breaks Down in Leadership Teams

32. Why Mergers and Acquisitions Fail (Almost Every Time)

31. Why Reorgs Don't Work

30. Extended Leadership Teams: Set Up to Fail Yet Expected to Lead

29. Working from Anywhere with Raj Choudhury

28. DIY or DOA? Why Org Change Needs Outside Help

27. Everything Can't Be Priority One

26. Unweirding Change with Michael Bungay Stanier

Depthfinding: Putting It All Into Practice

46. Embracing the Beautiful Mess: How Organizations Actually Work with John Cutler

Depthfinding: Making Sense of This Moment

Brave New Work: Making Layoffs More Human [Rebroadcast]

Depthfinding: The Midnight Zone - Experience, Emotions, and Reactions at Work

Depthfinding: Twilight Zone - Where Work Happens

Depthfinding: Sunshine Zone - Artifacts, Org Charts, and Metrics

Depthfinding: Sky - Threats and Opportunities

Depthfinding: Solve Your Cross-Functional Problems…Finally!

25. 1M Downloads and Counting: Looking Back on 2024

The Future of HR: Giving HRBPs the Future-of-Work Makeover They Deserve [Rebroadcast]

24. Ask Us Anything No. 3

23. Adopting a Product Mindset in Organizations

22. Founder Mode vs. Manager Mode is the Wrong Question

21. From Control to Trust: The People Positivity Journey

20. Psychological Safety Starts With Your Leadership Team

19. All The Small Things: The Power of Good Habits

18. If You Won’t Make Changes, That Employee Engagement Survey Is a Waste of Time

17. Making Meaningful Progress with Dr. Jason Fox

16. Ask Us Anything No. 2: You Asked, We Answered

15. This Workshop Could Have Been A Meeting

14. Surviving the Summertime Slump

13. Leadership Teams of the Future Act Like Org Designers

12. Breaking the Cycle of Meeting-ocrity

11. The Ones Who Care The Most Will Leave You First

10. RACI is The Wrong Answer To The Right Question

9. Ask Us Anything No. 1: You Asked, We Answered

8. Traditional Consulting Sold You a Great Idea. Now What?

7. Sync or Swim: Riding the Waves of Async Work

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

5. Silos Are For Corn, Not For People

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

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

2. Your PowerPoint Deck Is Not a Strategy

163/1. A Brave New Chapter

The Future of HR: The End Is Just the Beginning

The Future of HR: Creating Irresistible Workplaces with Josh Bersin

The Future of HR: AUA Confidential Edition