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PODCAST

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,

business management

All Episodes

49:25

49. How To Make Big Things Happen At Work

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/05/18

You've built the asset. You've done the comms. You even held office hours (that no one came to). And still…nothing changes. Sound familiar? These moves are still everyone’s go-to plays for substantial transitions in the workplace, even when we have decades of experience that they fall flat.In this episode, Rodney and Sam dig into one of the most under-explored problems in organizational life: how you actually get people to do shit. Not just understand it. Not just nod at it in a meeting

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10:27

AUA: How To Lead When You Don’t Have The Answers?

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/05/11

The higher up you go, the more everyone expects you to have the answers. Your team wants reassurance about AI. Your peers want to know what other companies are doing. Leadership wants confidence you're not sure you have. But what if the honest answer to most of it is, "I don't know?" and what if that's actually a sign you're paying closer attention than the people who seem so sure?In this Ask Us Anything, Rodney and Sam respond to a listener feeling the weight of expectations and offer a reframe:

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50:19

48. Office Politics: The Fun and Frustration of...

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/05/04

Office politics doesn't happen because people are scheming. It happens because no one wrote anything down. In the absence of clear ways of working, the preferences of the most powerful people fill the vacuum and suddenly half your attention is spent learning whose attachment format to use rather than doing the actual work. In this episode, Rodney and Sam dig into one of the most universal and underdiagnosed org patterns: the political operating system. They explore why politics can feel more fun

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7:45

AUA: How Does HR Rewrite Job Descriptions for AI?

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/04/27

Every HR team is getting the same ask right now: rewrite our job descriptions to reflect AI. It sounds reasonable—until you realize you're being asked to update a document that was already a little broken for a world that's changing faster than any static artifact can keep up with. So where do you even start? And is the job description itself actually the right place to begin? In this AUA, Rodney and Sam flip the question entirely—arguing that the smarter move is to start with what AI can actually

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48:43

47. The Chaos Tax is Slowing Your Org Down

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/04/20

Everyone talks about slaying bureaucracy and cutting organizational sludge but there's an equally pernicious force that doesn't get nearly enough airtime: the organizational debt created by too little structure. The chaos tax is real, and it's usually being paid by everyone except the person creating it.In this episode, Rodney and Sam unpack the founder-led chaos pattern: why it happens, why it feels like speed to the person at the top while feeling like paralysis to everyone else, and what

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5:30

AUA: What Keeps Us Together When AI Does The Work?

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/04/13

As AI handles more and more of the actual work, a genuinely hard question emerges: how do you maintain shared purpose when there's no single organization anchoring it? In this mini AUA, Rodney and Sam argue that more automation requires more intentional human connection, not less — and that AI might actually force a long-overdue shift from obsessing over outputs to talking about outcomes and purpose. -------------------------------- Ready to change your organization? ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Let's

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51:53

46. Embracing the Beautiful Mess: How Organizations...

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/04/06

Most leaders want to believe they're building something durable: a company that matters, a culture that sticks, a system people can rely on. But what if most organizations don't have the staying power of a great city like Venice...and instead are more like a gold rush town? What if that same company is more likely to change you than you are to change it?In this episode, Sam sits down with John Cutler, writer of The Beautiful Mess and Head of Product at Dotwork, to pull on the threads John has been

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8:42

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

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/03/30

You've done the hard work. Your team cracked the code on a new process/workflow/policy/design, your ways of working are genuinely better, and now...everyone else is actively uninterested. It's infuriating, and also completely predictable.In this mini AUA, Rodney and Sam unpack why good ideas don't automatically spread in federated structures, from classic Not Invented Here syndrome to the underappreciated truth that you can't export a finished experience and skip the struggle. They make the case

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34:12

45, Part 2. Why Pay Will Never Feel Fair At Work (And...

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/03/23

Compensation is where human psychology and organizational systems collide—and in Part 1, Rodney and Sam named why it so often turns into a hedonic treadmill: every lever you pull to reduce dissatisfaction tends to raise expectations and create new dissatisfaction. If you haven’t listened to Part 1 yet, start there for the “why this is so messy” foundation.In Part 2, Rodney and Sam move from diagnosis to design: what principles should a compensation system actually be built on—and what do you do

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5:41

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

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/03/16

Small doesn't mean simple. In fact, smaller organizations are often more complex in the ways that are hardest to manage — personalities loom larger, every conversation carries more weight, and the line between "business problem" and interpersonal drama gets uncomfortably thin. In this mini AUA, Rodney and Sam break down why smaller orgs typically need to install minimum viable structure to tame the chaos — while larger orgs are usually trying to remove it. Same toolkit, opposite motion. They also

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47:49

45, Part 1. Why Pay Will Never Feel Fair At Work (And...

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/03/09

Compensation is one of the messiest parts of any organization. Pay becomes a proxy for belonging, validation, performance, identity, and status… which means it’s almost guaranteed to feel unfair, confusing, and emotionally loaded. Layer on a capitalist “more is always better” mindset, and you get the hedonic treadmill of work: every raise increases expectations, which creates the next round of dissatisfaction.In Part 1 of this two-part series on compensation, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin dig

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7:29

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

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/03/02

AI pressure is landing squarely on Learning & Development teams. Execs want “future skills”…yesterday. The tension? How do you stop churning out more courses and start building real capabilities in the age of AI?In this AUA mini episode, Rodney and Sam share the first moves they’d make if they were leading L&D right now. From getting hands-on with workflow automation tools to shifting from tool training toward systems thinking and experimentation, they outline how L&D can move from reactive skill

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52:13

44. Forget ROI: The Ethical Case for Org Design

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/02/23

Most org design conversations get forced through a narrow funnel: prove the ROI, justify the spend, make the numbers work. But if work is something most people can’t opt out of—and where we spend a huge chunk of our attention and waking lives—then “it pays off” feels like a painfully small standard. This week, Rodney and Sam explore the ethical case for organizational design. They move beyond spreadsheets and profit metrics to ask bigger questions about leadership, power, transparency,

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7:48

AUA: Can You Change an Org When Leadership Doesn’t...

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/02/16

When the people at the center of power feel well-served by the current system, how do you create change? This week’s listener question gets at a frustrating reality: sometimes the OS is optimized for the very people you’d need to convince. The business is growing, shareholders are happy, and the executives at the top don’t feel the friction you’re experiencing. Add geography, hierarchy, and distance from decision-makers, and it can feel impossible to generate momentum from the edges.In this mini

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49:54

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

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/02/09

Most organizations are built to do exactly what they do…and that’s the problem. When a core business starts to decay due to disruption, automation, or shifting customer demand, the instinct is to double down on efficiency, cost cutting, and short-term fixes. But that focus often crowds out the harder, riskier work of building what comes next. Nearly a decade ago, Dual Transformation offered a clear and compelling framework for this dilemma, yet nobody seems to be actually doing it.In this

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6:12

AUA: Can Layoffs Really Reduce Bureaucracy?

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/02/02

While many organizations claim they’re cutting red tape, the underlying drivers often look more like cost pressure, market correction, or AI anxiety dressed up as structural reform. In this mini episode, Rodney and Sam unpack the recent wave of layoffs framed as efforts to “reduce bureaucracy”—and why that explanation deserves some skepticism. They explore when reducing org depth can be the right move, why boom-and-bust hiring cycles create hidden work, and what companies would actually do

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54:23

42. The Top 3 Skills Change Agents Need in 2026

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/01/26

Want to build skills like this to help your team succeed in 2026? ⁠Learn about our Capability Catalyst program⁠.Enterprise change is getting harder, not easier—and in 2026, “having the right ideas” isn’t enough to move transformation. You need personal capability that lets you see what’s really happening, design with real users, and move groups through hard conversations without turning everything into theater. Good intentions and smart frameworks may have worked in the past, but what got us

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11:24

AUA: How To Design a Startup OS From Scratch?

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/01/19

Starting a company with a blank slate sounds like a dream—but it’s also a trap. In this mini episode, Rodney and Sam respond to a listener question about how to design an organizational operating system from scratch, without inheriting all the baggage of traditional management. They argue for resisting the urge to over-design early, letting real tension (not theory) drive structure, and focusing on a few foundational practices that scale. From operating rhythms and Kanban boards to experimentation

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53:57

41. Why Your AI Strategy Stalled and How To Get...

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/01/12

Enterprise AI adoption is still stuck in the teens and the gap between the hype and the reality is getting harder to ignore. People are finding pockets of productivity, but they’re often keeping the gains to themselves, worried that “using AI well” is just speed-running their way into a layoff. Meanwhile, many leaders treat it like another piece of software without touching the messier truth: AI changes how work actually happens, and it doesn’t care about your org chart, your approval chains, or

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7:42

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

At Work with The Ready ·

2026/01/05

Leaders often ask for a clear, immediate ROI on org design and transformation work—but that question can derail the conversation before it even starts. When ROI is framed purely as short-term financial return, it misses how organizations actually change and improve over time.In this mini Ask Us Anything episode, Rodney and Sam unpack how to approach ROI conversations in org design more productively. They explore why separate “transformation metrics” usually miss the point, how to anchor ROI to

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