Guest: Rodney Evans, Steward (CEO) of The Ready (a future-of-work consultancy)
Published: March 6th, 2026
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Episode summary

A provocative, brilliant masterclass on why releasing control and abandoning rigid goals are the true keys to organizational transformation.

Rodney Evans is a pioneer in adaptive organization design, the creator of the Depthfinding framework, and the Steward (CEO) of The Ready. Known for her clarity, candor, and precision, Rodney helps leaders shed outdated mental models to build organizations that are coherent, humane, and ready for what’s next. She focuses on intervening where it matters most—using behavioral economics to redesign everyday work rather than trying to change "hearts and minds."

In this mind-expanding conversation, Rodney explains why over-indexing on future goals sets us up for frustration, how to avoid the myth of "magical dissemination theory," and why true change starts by solving stubborn cross-functional problems. You'll also discover the liberating power of shifting from "leadership" to "stewardship," and why giving up the illusion of control is the ultimate catalyst for group genius, curiosity, and innovation.

Key topics

• 🎯 Stop over-indexing on the end state: Why fixating on rigid future goals stifles creativity, and why you should focus on building momentum through the very first experiment instead.
• 🤝 The liberating power of Stewardship: Why leadership is lonely and isolating, while stewardship is a shared "team sport" that diffuses responsibility and unleashes play, safety, and curiosity.
• 🧠 Behavioral economics over "hearts and minds": Why trying to change culture directly is a trap, and how tweaking processes, meetings, and roles nudges unconscious behavior to create a radically different experience.
• 🪄 The myth of "Magical Dissemination Theory": Why change doesn't naturally trickle down from the top, and why you need coherence at the executive level before diving into the real work.
• 🔀 Where to start your transformation: Why you should tackle cross-functional problems first—because no one has "home court advantage" or a calcified operating system, making it much easier to introduce new rules.

Top quotes

"I think almost inevitably the outcome isn't what you are expecting it to be on day one. And I think that mostly over-indexing on the end state is both a waste of time, but then also I think sets us up to be frustrated by surprise rather than fueled by surprise."

"Whereas I think leadership can be quite isolating, it can be quite lonely, you only have so much control regardless of what you tell yourself... Stewardship feels like a team sport."

"I think culture is an outcome of other work. Like the culture emerges from the design choices that you make around the work."

"Anytime you try to start doing change in a functional organization, you're working against their calcified OS... When you're working cross-functionally, there's more swing because nobody has home court advantage."

Resources

• Whitepaper: Beyond the trade-off: Group learning for a world in transformation
• Book a Platform Demo

Full episode

Rodney Evans: I think almost always whether you're pursuing a new strategy or a new market or AI adoption or a merger or a culture change initiative, I think almost inevitably the outcome isn't what you are expecting it to be on day one. And I think that mostly over-indexing on the end state is both a waste of time, but then also I think sets us up to be frustrated by surprise rather than fueled by surprise.

The reason that I suggest to people to start somewhere cross-functional is anytime you try to start doing change in a functional organization, you're working against their calcified OS, which is like, the CFO likes it this way, it's always been done this way, all the other finance people do it this way. So you're fighting that.

When you're working cross-functionally, there's more swing because nobody has home court advantage. Everybody is on the back foot and that's a great time to get people doing new things. I would prefer to start there, prove that a previously intractable problem is solvable with new methods and then scale those methods, rather than starting with the methods and trying to push them across.

Mike Courian: Welcome to Shapeshifters, the podcast on the hunt for passionate individuals who are discovering and rediscovering the best ways to transform people and organizations for good. I'm your host, Mike Courian. Thanks for being here.

In this episode, I'm speaking with Rodney Evans. Rodney is a leader in adaptive organization design and the CEO or maybe better said one of the stewards of The Ready, a future of work consultancy committed to changing how the world works. With over two decades of experience navigating complexity, she's the creator of the Depth Finding framework and co-host of the top-ranked podcast, At Work with The Ready.

In this conversation, Rodney brings a brilliant, provocative perspective to the realities of organizational change. She'll unpack why over-indexing on rigid future goals sets us up for frustration, and what we need to do instead. You'll hear the why behind her belief in stewardship over traditional leadership, and how releasing control is key. She'll reveal why true transformation isn't about changing hearts and minds necessarily, but rather using behavioral economics to redesign everyday work. And we'll discuss why magical dissemination theory is a myth, and exactly where leaders need to start if they want to solve their most stubborn cross-functional problems. This episode travels a lot of ground, so buckle up. I absolutely love Rodney's incredible ability to cut through the expected and the institutional with absolute precision. My brain was pinging after this conversation. I hope you'll come away feeling inspired to follow her lead. Let's jump in.

Mike Courian: Rodney, welcome to the podcast.

Rodney Evans: Thank you. Thanks for having me.

Mike Courian: It's great to be with you. At the top of our conversation, I love to ask a simple question, which is who is Rodney in three words?

Rodney Evans: A life enthusiast.

Mike Courian: Good. Is that all three? Give me three more words to describe what you're enthusiastic about.

Rodney Evans: I mean, I am generally someone who is enthused by the existence of living and I have a lot of curiosity about a lot of different things. You know, certainly in terms of my work, but I would say that I am equally enthusiastic and curious about a lot of things that I pursue that have nothing to do with my day job.

Mike Courian: And if no humility was allowed, can you let us in on what you think are some of your superpowers? Whether that's inside of work or outside of work, those areas where you...

Mike Courian: ...just know you're sitting in your strengths.

Rodney Evans: I mean, it's interesting because I've had a lot of feedback over the last probably three years that I think has really influenced what I'm about to say. I don't know that this would be necessarily what I would have said, but I think at work the thing that I hear the most is that I am able to explain ideas in accessible ways in a way that is pretty unique.

I think that my non-humble brag is that I have a pretty fundamental belief in my ability to figure things out. And so like I don't, you know, for better or worse I don't lack a lot of confidence. I'm pretty clear on who I am and what I want and I feel like I can pretty much learn how to do anything if I care enough about it. And I think part of that is like aptitude and I think part of it is confidence and I think part of it is just stubbornness. I've just always been that way.

Mike Courian: Yeah, I can relate to that. Again, and and I don't necessarily know if I have any better aptitude than anyone else, but if I, if I'm determined, then I, I'm kind of like, it doesn't even matter if I can't see it. I know we'll get there. And I have a, I have a rough view of what the end looks like. And that's kind of all I need. And it's interesting working with collaborators who are far more literal and kind of really need to see the mapping. And I'm kind of like, nah, I don't need a map. It's all good. And so I've, I've found that a really interesting tension, especially working remote or away from the office. Because sometimes there's non-verbal cues that those more literal thinkers can pick up just being in the room with somebody or the way you say something can come across more clearly. And so I've found it really interesting navigating over the last, well, five years of this business figuring out, how do I do that better digitally? How do I communicate more clearly?

Mike Courian: Because I don't necessarily need it, and so it's funny, because I don't need it, often I find I'm less motivated to figure out the great ways to communicate because I'm like, nah, I got this locked in, just trust me guys. And then, and that doesn't work. Do you find that at all?

Rodney Evans: It's a good question. I don't know the answer to that question. I think that when I have like a pursuit or an aim in mind, you know, I am now at a point in my career because I've been doing this for a long time where the people who I work most closely with, I think I am able to mostly parse out which part is like important for them or that I really need them for.

Mike Courian: Yes.

Rodney Evans: And for the most part...

Mike Courian: Yes.

Rodney Evans: ...and I think this is true in transformation work as well with clients, I like to have like a very rough vision in mind of where things are going to land or what outcome I want to pursue, but I don't actually think there's a lot of value in spending a lot of time there.

Mike Courian: Yeah.

Rodney Evans: So, I generally don't spend a lot of time trying to explain where I think we're headed. I spend more time on things like what the first experiment is and just creating momentum. Because I think almost always, whether you're pursuing a new strategy or a new market or AI adoption or a merger or a culture change initiative, I think almost inevitably the outcome isn't what you are expecting it to be on day one.

And I think that mostly over-indexing on the end state is both kind of a waste of time, but then also I think sets us up to be frustrated by surprise rather than fueled by surprise. So, yeah, I'm pretty good at being like, this is like my big idea, and then being very like, and this is what it...

Mike Courian: ...means like next week. You've done such a good job of imbuing what you just described into the part of The Ready that you're able to have influence over because it's palpable across just, just preparing for this conversation, that you and the team are doing what you just described. And what's interesting is it instills a different type of confidence. It's not an overconfidence in some hypothetical future that we're just going to forge our way to. It's a real confidence in the first, like you said, experiment. It's real confidence in the first step and going, yeah, this isn't the end...

Rodney Evans: Right.

Mike Courian: ...but this is going to start to build the map of how we get there.

Rodney Evans: I appreciate that. Yeah, I think, look, it's easy to have ideas and it's hard to do things well. Like, I, you know, I have been sort of joking that I think my next role should be called, like actually, should be called Chief Activation Officer. Because mostly what I do in companies is be like, tell me what you're trying to do and I will activate that in your organization, which is a different thing than execution, actually.

The point of that is, it's easy to not do things in companies. And so I think to your point, you have to have enough conviction to get started. You have to gain some sort of energy and enough excitement and enough know-how to do the first thing. And then after that, like who sort of knows what's going to happen, or if, or if you're going to find out pretty quickly that it was a bad idea and you should just stop. And so, yeah, I see too many organizations sort of doggedly pursuing goals that don't ultimately really mean anything to them. And I just think that's like a huge bummer.

Mike Courian: So is that where you start, trying to find out the thing that really means something to the strategy or to where the organization wants to go? Is that often the first step, or are there patterns in, across your many experiences, of what the first step often looks like?

Rodney Evans: I mean, whatever altitude I'm working at, whether it's like a mission-based team inside The Ready, or like strategy work with the C-team of a company, I do think asking the question, "what are we trying to do here?" sort of the first question to ask. And some people like to start with like, what problem are we trying to solve? Or like, if it went perfectly, what would it do? Like I think there are varieties and everybody should do the thing that works best for them. But like, I feel like a lot of times there's not enough sort of space even for that discussion of like, well, what are we trying to do? And like, I'll give you a really good example of when I didn't do this, which was like, I had an external advisor a couple of years ago, he had scaled a very similar business to The Ready and he said to me like, "this is the revenue number that you have to be at in order to really start diversifying your offerings. And until you're at that number, all you should do is your core business and what you know how to do in different markets."

Now, the second part of that advice was really smart. But the first part of that advice, as soon as I sort of put a number on the organization and said like, "this is the number that we're trying to hit," I think it put energy in the wrong places. So if, if we had started from, to his second point, "what we're really trying to do is take the best of what we do and do it more in different markets," that's a much more interesting pursuit and much better fodder for a first experiment than "here is an annual revenue number that we're trying to hit." It gives you very different behavior, and most companies I think start with the number.

Mike Courian: I'm seeing something here. I'm picking up on your, you're starting, something's taking shape and it feels like when we fix the future and make it rigid, it backfills a path towards it, which like you said is just lacking the creativity, lacking the...

Mike Courian: innovation lacking the flexibility to experiment in ways that actually will take you somewhere useful. I love it. And does The Ready exist because this isn't necessarily very common?

Rodney Evans: Yeah. I think The Ready exists because there is a broad understanding that organizations are not fit for this era. I don't think the level of recognition of what you and I are talking about, that starting with the concrete outcome or goal and trying to backwards plan from there, I don't think that there's broad understanding of that yet. I wish that there was. And in fact, you know, like in the example I just gave you of like, here are two pieces of advice I got that were all in one sentence and one piece was really helpful and one piece I should have ignored, I have conversations with people outside of The Ready very often who really have a hard time wrapping their head around the difference between those things.

They're like, what's the difference between doing your core business in new markets and increasing your revenue by 15%? And I'm like, I know it seems like a fiddly thing to you, but it's not in terms of like what like of the alchemy of the organization and like what the energy turns into. Like I know that like you hear me like I'm just saying synonymous things consecutively to you, but actually they are very different. And I don't think most people understand that or feel that. I don't think that resonates with most people actually.

Mike Courian: Mm-hmm.

Rodney Evans: And I think it annoys them. I think often I'm just annoying when I tell people that.

Mike Courian: Yeah, stop being so caught up in the semantics. Like let's just talk plainly.

Rodney Evans: Yeah, exactly.

Mike Courian: And it's like, well, it's not actually, it's not plain. It's obviously not plain because you and I are not receiving the same thing.

Rodney Evans: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And look, it's like in...

Rodney Evans: You know, I mostly now work with company-level leadership of small organizations. And I get that they're like, you know, they have a number on their head, they have a quarterly board meeting, the board does not want to hear the way that I would articulate how you steer the activation of strategy. The board is like, we set a target together and then what I want to hear is, did you hit it? And if not, what are you going to do about it? And so I get it when I'm talking to a leader who is smart and progressive but also is constrained by the broader OS that they're working in, that they might have a low-level allergy to the way that I describe these things.

Mike Courian: Do you ever get a chance to work with at the board level to try and inject a different vision into that very old, and a culture that kind of maybe suited a different time of business?

Rodney Evans: I really don't, and I would love to. You know, I've worked with lots of CEOs in my career on helping them to manage the relationship with the board, but I've never worked at the board level. And I know quite a few board members. And interestingly when I, you know, including very large publicly held companies, and interestingly when I ask them about their role on boards, they often feel a lot, a lot of frustration that I think is quite solvable. But it's sort of the, what's interesting is like the relationship between the board and the officers of the company and the how of that relationship, how those meetings go, how information is prepared, how feedback is given, how proposals are, blah, blah, blah. That's like not really anybody's job actually. Sometimes it's chief of staff, sometimes it's a board secretary, but mostly, most of what I've heard from people I know on boards is that you inherit the way of working on the board from the last set of board members.

Rodney Evans: So there's there's not generally a lot of like work there, which to your point, I think is, I think is too bad because I think it could unlock tremendous value and also just take a lot of friction out of a relationship that's meant to be generative and is mostly seen as being, if not necessarily combative, at least like a very difficult power dynamic to navigate.

Mike Courian: 'Cause when I think of one of your models that we'll talk about later, so I'm not gonna name it yet, but there's these different zones. And what's interesting is considering that it feels like you guys are really effective in zones that are maybe under valued, under attended to. And so it's easy to speak new languages in those areas because there's space for new languages. But it's funny at the top, if we go back to sort of the the company structure at the top, there's not a lot of space for new things 'cause it's very fixed, very full, set and rigid, and so it is interesting how it'll be a lot easier for you guys to impart the change in those zones deeper and sort of more hidden away. But yeah, so it's an interesting grief and an interesting recognition that here is where we are.

Rodney Evans: Yeah. This is where we are.

Mike Courian: Can you give us a short little description of what The Ready is for those that aren't familiar with the work you do?

Rodney Evans: Of course, yeah. So The Ready is a ten-year-old future work consultancy. We have worked with all kinds of organizations over that decade to help them solve their gnarliest cross-functional problems. And we generally do that through working. So changing the way that strategy is created and steered. Changing the way that meetings are designed and facilitated. Changing the way that teams and roles are clarified and run. So rather than changing what it says on the PowerPoint deck about the company, we have a tendency to get into the work...

Rodney Evans: work of the organization and shift what is actually happening.

Mike Courian: And so, does it often play out where you're brought on to support a particular thing that the organization's recognized they're struggling with, and then does it sort of blossom into like, oh, that was so useful. Can you help us get bigger and broader? Is that a common path with clients?

Rodney Evans: Yes, that has happened lots of times with clients. And I would say in our earlier years, we had more of a sort of generic way of working. And that was tough because it was really predicated on having like a very progressive leader that was really willing to be in co-creation, was going to carry the work forward and make sure that it stuck, etc., etc. Was, was willing to like be disruptive inside of their own organization, which frankly only lasts for so long for most senior folks.

And so we sort of pivoted away from that, not because I don't still believe and know that the defaults that we use in the work are very effective because they still are, but I think that it's a lot more palatable and frankly a lot easier to use new ways of working within an initiative that has to be done.

And so now when I'm in a sales call and somebody is like, you know, often in a sales call the person I'm talking to is like, I love your stuff. You know, they're just like, I read the stuff or I listen to the pod or whatever and like, I'm a, I like it. I like what you say.

We used to be like, great, let's do a thing. And now what I really want to hear from someone is, we know what problem we have that we're trying to solve. It is a problem that we are committed to solving. So it's not like, we want to be better and incrementally blah. It's like, we have to roll out this HCM by the end of the year, it's been committed to. So I want to hear that they know what the problem is, that it's a committed-to problem, that it's a funded problem...

Rodney Evans: Because if it's gonna be on the desk for everybody, we're never gonna get enough attention to do things. We're gonna end up being like glorified PMOs and nobody wants that. And I wanna know that there's like a real sense of urgency around it. So like, to me, the best projects that I've ever been part of and that are going on right now at The Ready are where a client has been trying to solve this problem themselves for some period of time and has lost patience and now is asking for help. It just creates a different level of empathy from them, like how hard it actually is to execute things in complex systems. And so they just tend to be a lot more open to new thinking.

Mike Courian: I love that, that we have to get to the end of our rope before we really open ourselves up. And what you're describing before was just the best qualification list of like, how do I qualify organizations that are actually ready to do some work? Because that's what we're here to do. We're here to really do some work.

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What I was going to say before is one of the most surprising and favorite things I've come across in regards to The Ready is one word that caught me off guard when I first saw it. Do you want to guess what that word might be?

Rodney Evans: I have no idea.

Mike Courian: Okay, well this is fun then. Stewardship.

Rodney Evans: Oh, okay.

Mike Courian: I love that you guys use it.

Mike Courian: I think it's a wonderful word. I think it's very counter-cultural to leadership and business culture. And, something I realized yesterday prepping for this conversation is, I think it's deeply connected to depth finding, employee ownership and power, in different ways.

Rodney Evans: It is. That's true.

Mike Courian: And so, I'd love to know how that word found its way into the identity of The Ready.

Rodney Evans: Yeah. I think within a couple of years of The Ready's founding, we had the need for some clarified role within the projects that was like, the one holding the bag. And we didn't want to call those people engagement managers or project managers because they're still not managing the other team members in a traditional sense. But, there was a clear like, you know, when I was doing projects and I'm working with someone that I have 10 or 15 more years of experience than, it is clear that like, I am more responsible for the outcome of this project than this person who is getting their first reps.

And so, I don't know where the steward word came from, but we had project stewards a long time ago. And the idea was just like, these are the people who steward the projects. And as I was working on depth finding and like doing a lot of research and creating that framework, we were also going through the EOT, the employee ownership trust transition at the same time as I was working on depth finding.

It felt to me like, if we were gonna talk about a difference, you know, in the talk I would talk about the shift from the industrial age, to the information age, to the intelligence age. If we're going to talk about three ages and if each of the first two sort of came with the creation of a role that ruled the day, so the industrial age created managers, and the information age created leadership, then it only...

Rodney Evans: It made sense to me that there was an analog for the intelligence age. And stewardship, having gone through this employee-owned trust thing, stewardship makes a lot of sense to me, like, just logically. Because the idea at its core is, I don't own The Ready, and I don't manage The Ready, and I don't lead The Ready. The Ready is its own whole entity. And for the period of time that I am its steward, I am responsible for that entity's continuation and health. But it's not mine. It's like, I think about it like a forest, or like a family trust, or like any other thing where it's like, my job is sort of to protect the principal and make sure it continues for the next generation, not be in ownership of it.

Mike Courian: I think what's interesting is if you switch the variables, like if we said, oh, I am a steward of my family, whether that be my parents or my brothers and sisters or if I have children, because you can't—we're not supposed to, like we've learned over the years, we're not supposed to possess people.

Rodney Evans: Right.

Mike Courian: And so it's really easy for us to relinquish that idea in our minds and go, okay, no, I need to figure out how I create the best for them. But it's even interesting because there's a second acknowledgment when you release possession, that you start to say, oh, even the idea of this family is not something I can wholly control. I don't—it's not mine.

Rodney Evans: Right.

Mike Courian: And so I've been on this interesting journey personally of recognizing how much I'm trying to control things. Even when I'm at my best trying not to, you're like, oh, there's a whole 'nother layer of where I'm exerting control, and I don't think I am because I've just created this nice little thing that it just plays out on repeat for me and it keeps me feeling happy and safe.

Rodney Evans: Right.

Mike Courian: And what I've been finding amazing is when I let...

Mike Courian: ...go. I personally have experienced it's easier. Not, not to let go, but once I have let go, it's easier, the stakes are lower, the idea of play. And I mean play from a developmental standpoint where it's free flowing, safe, the creativity and the curiosity is ignited. Like all these things happen in my biology that's just fascinating to watch, and they are so stifled when I'm worried, when I've got a clenched fist metaphorically. Like when I'm, when I'm holding it tight. And so this one word, Rodney, it's just so beautiful. It opens this up. And it's not, the thing that's also cool about it is, it's in my mind, it's not confronting. It's very invitational.

Rodney Evans: I mean, I think the thing that is liberating about stewardship, and it relates to your feeling of letting go of control, is like, I do feel, you know, as a person who is like, I'm sort of wired for over-responsibility generally. Like I just sort of have it in me. You know, the shiny side, the sunny side of that street is my belief and ability to do anything. The dark side of that street is that I feel like everything is mine to do. And like, especially when you have a lot of explicit power, that's a tough hang. And so I think the thing that sparked for me is what's very liberating about the idea of stewardship is that it requires shared responsibility by a group of people. Like when I first introduced this idea to the crew that was the source team at the time at The Ready, they were at our lake house in Southern Virginia, and this woman Meg, who I love very dearly, said, you know, I think it's worth saying that stewardship is a team sport.

Mike Courian: Yeah.

Rodney Evans: And that whereas I think leadership can be quite isolating, it can be quite lonely, you...

Rodney Evans: ...only have so much control regardless of what you tell yourself, but you still feel like you have ultimate accountability for a lot of things that you don't have a lot of control over. Stewardship feels like a team sport. And when I find, you know, when I have an irritating conversation with someone at The Ready and they're, you know, dissatisfied with something, I'm kind of like, yeah dude, like you should do something about that. Like the vibe here is not like bring it to me to solve for you. That's not how we do this. That's not what stewarding a trust is. And everyone will get out of it what they put into it. And if you put very little into it, you're unlikely to get much out of it. And that's by design.

Mike Courian: I heard this interesting thing, and this may not be true, but I think it's fun. Leadership is all the responsibility without the sense of team. And stewardship is all the responsibility with a fully empowered sense of being able to lean on others because it's not about you.

Rodney Evans: Right. Well, and I would even take it a step further to say, you know, the people who are stewarding The Ready with me and have been, feel just as accountable...

Mike Courian: Yes.

Rodney Evans: ...to it as I do.

Mike Courian: Yes, shared.

Rodney Evans: It's shared. And when I work with C-teams out in the world, like the leadership team shares it in theory. And I'm not saying that other people don't care, but it does feel like the model, the default model is: but really it's the CEO. And when things go wrong, the one who gets replaced is the CEO. And when the press is bad, the one who takes the heat is the CEO. And, you know, there are reasons for that that are probably fair enough, especially in traditional organizations where the CEO is calling all the shots. But I think in a complex system, in any complex system of any size, and the one I'm stewarding is tiny compared to the ones that my clients are stewarding, I think you want to have the responsibility...

Rodney Evans: ...and the commitment and the contribution spread across a team.

Mike Courian: Absolutely. There's something that I've heard said on your podcast around organizations are human systems. And it's so obvious, like of course it is. It's made up of people. But does that mean something more to you when you speak about them being human systems? Like what is the human part that you like to really hone in on?

Rodney Evans: It's a really interesting question. You know what's funny is like I'm not particularly attracted to the human side of this work, which is weird because I am a coach and in my work, like, there is a lot of interpersonal stuff that happens. What I am really compelled by and the reason that I do this is interventions that create different behavior in humans.

Mike Courian: Interesting.

Rodney Evans: And so I have, you know, I have teammates and I know a lot of practitioners. And again, this is one of those nuances where people are like, "We're saying the same thing," and I'm like, "We're really not." I know a lot of people in my field who are like, "Yeah, but it's really the humans and really what we do is sort of change hearts and minds." And they see that as like hand-to-hand combat. Like the way you do that is in the trenches, through trust building, through conversation, through building conviction, through building capability, blah, blah, blah. And I don't find that super interesting. Like I want to do the thing in the group that gives the group an experience they didn't know they could have, much more than I want to triage the individual peccadillos of every member of that group and hope that by doing that they can then interact differently.

Mike Courian: I wonder if this metaphor works for you. It feels like your space...

Mike Courian: Is the culture, not necessarily like you said, the human down on the ground people thing that becomes more individual, you're like, no, I want to set off little explosives that sort of set a totally different course for a culture within an organization. I don't know if you think about it as culture, but I was thinking about you're working at this deeper beliefs level and how do I redirect, how do I just get the big ship pointed in a slightly different direction that can eventually send us down a completely different path. I love, I love where you work. I think it's the coolest spot.

Rodney Evans: Thank you. Me too. Yeah, it's funny. I rarely use the C-word.

Mike Courian: It has been co-opted.

Rodney Evans: It's been co-opted. I think it's really misunderstood. People think they can work on it, which you can't. I just think culture is an outcome of other work. Like the culture emerges from the design choices that you make around the work.

Mike Courian: It's like another future thing. We don't worry about the future. We worry about the decisions we make now and culture is one of those future things that becomes.

Rodney Evans: I think so, yeah. I mean, I think like, like we started this conversation, like you can have a hypothesis around what kind of culture you'd like, but that's mostly just like an intellectual exercise. You know, the field that I refer to the most in my work and what I read the most of besides AI stuff right now comes as a surprise to most people because most people assume it will be like human-centered design or systems thinking or psychology. And actually the discipline that I relate most closely to is behavioral economics. And like, what can you change about a process or a meeting or a working agreement or a role that nudges a whole bunch of unconscious behavior? And sure, maybe that results in a shift of some kind in the culture. Maybe over time and over lots of experiments, you...

Rodney Evans: you have a radically different kind of culture. But even that is less interesting to me than like, what if I could design the budget meeting that was the best budget meeting you ever had and where like your team saved twice as much money as they thought they could through that experience. Like that's the most interesting work to me.

Mike Courian: And I'm not even going to try and put words to it because I just heard like I can totally see it. I can totally hear it. And we are talking about the same thing and I just think it's cool and yeah, I'm not seeing it done a lot. No person is unique and no team is unique, but I'm not seeing it done as much and so good on you guys to say it in a Kiwi way.

Rodney Evans: Thank you. I mean, I'm not either, which is a blessing and a curse, right? Because again, a lot of people that I talk to and like practitioners that listen to the show, etc, etc. Like when I get, you know, when I get up close and see the kind of work that they want to do or are trying to do, it's often it still is reverting to like comms and training or hearts and minds. And I'm like, no, it's neither of those things. It's the layer in between where shit happens. It's a hard thing to get people engaged in, I think. I don't know, is that your experience?

Mike Courian: I feel like I'm gonna get a bit, go into the psychology a little bit. But I think work has been so mechanized and we don't name this, I don't ever think about this myself, but I think I have become such a machine that does thought work, but it's very systematized, it's very efficient, there's like all these parameters and boxes that we fit ourselves into. And I just don't often spend much time being present to the, at the belief level in the twilight zone to pull from that finding. We're not spending a lot of time there. We don't ask why. There's a reason. Whys happen at every level in depth finding.

Mike Courian: But the "why" is down in the Twilight Zone. I don't know how often people are even asking them because it requires two things of a person. It requires us to be open at our most vulnerable point, kind of the "who am I" sort of level. A very uncomfortable place to be. Naturally, many of us would build systems in our lives to not have to be there very often. So just doing the status quo is far more safe and comfortable. And even if it turns me into a cog, I'm kind of okay with that because I don't have to do that deep, ugly, messy work where I am confronted with the fact that I'm actually not the person that I wish I was. And that's why we're having this dysfunction in my team, or that's why we're having this dysfunction across this part of the business. So that's my hunch is why it's less tended to. Do you have a hunch?

Rodney Evans: Well, I mean, I agree with you. Like, I think that late-stage capitalism is the first principle of most organizations, which means, like, the only thing radical about them is how extractive they are. I think when, when you're working in a system that's predicated on maximum extraction, it's hard to find the space to consider one's conditions and whether those conditions could change, or be optimized, or be experimented with. I think that's all true.

And then I also think that there is like, you know, Gary Hamel and Michele Zanini talk a lot about institutionalized idiocy. And I think that our systems have mostly made us stupid, especially big systems. I am blown away by conversations I have with people who are incredibly well thought of and highly compensated, and to me just like I have not, are not thinking critically about anything. And I'm just like, wow, what is the air like up here? So my point is, I think if you work in a system that is des-

Rodney Evans: designed to create institutionalized idiocy. What is under that is it is designed to tell people basically to shut up and color and not to ask a lot of questions and not to be provocative. And what you get as a person who participates willingly in that system is you can be mad about how broken it is and it's not your fault.

Mike Courian: Yeah.

Rodney Evans: Now, your life sucks and your work sucks and mostly you're wasting your time all day and that sucks. But it is easier to be the consumer of a broken system than to fix it, for sure. And so I think a lot of people take that route even when they amass enough power not to.

Mike Courian: Yeah. You are so good at taking my—I feel like I'm so sloppy and then you just come through with your precision words, Rodney, and you just name it so well. I love it. This is so fun for me, but I laugh, I laugh each time you paint over my childhood coloring and just kind of make it beautiful.

Something you said before when you were talking about like the budget meeting and like moving a group, a group of people. My co-founder Dan, I'm going to say he invented it, maybe he heard it one long time ago and then thought it was his, this term that we love, which is magical dissemination theory. And magical dissemination theory is the belief that if we teach it at the top, then as soon as those people at the top have it, it will just sprinkle down like magic fairy dust through the organization and nothing's really required because those people will just magically disseminate it down to all the people that they manage and it will invoke change across the organization and we're sorted. And it's like, I don't think that's how change happens. I know that's not how change happens.

Rodney Evans: Yeah. Hard disagree.

Mike Courian: Our entire, our entire business is built on that that's not how change happens. But I'm curious where you would throw your dart in terms of how...

Mike Courian: ...you see change happen in organizations?

Rodney Evans: I have come to a point, at least in my own career, where I don't start anywhere but the top of the house. And it's not because I think that real change can't happen in other places, but I think, you know, organizations fight back is just the truth of change work. And so if you don't have the people who really hold the keys to most of the operating system on side, the odds are really not in your favor. You know, like, if you don't have the C team who's determining the strategy, the resource allocation, the structure, the commitments to the board, the espoused values, like, if those people are still off-piste, it's really difficult. And so I don't believe in magical dissemination theory, but I think that coherence at the top around a new way is a really important prerequisite for the rest of it.

And then I think from there, my recommendation. I just had this conversation with someone yesterday. My recommendation is to solve one or two, but no more than five, really important cross-functional problems in a new way, to pursue the solution in a new way. What does that mean? I'll tell you why, and I'll tell you what it means. That means to me a whole suite of scaffolding in terms of new ways of working, some of which I've already referenced, but like, how do we clarify authority? How do we meet? How do we retrospect and learn? How do we add and shed members to this group? How do we determine what our mission is? This kind of stuff that's usually, it's very Twilight Zone, and it's usually just taken for granted in most companies. And the reason that I suggest to people once you've got the top sor-

Rodney Evans: ...to start somewhere cross-functional is, anytime you try to start doing change in a functional organization, you're working against their calcified OS, which is like, the CFO likes it this way, it's always been done this way, all the other finance people do it this way. So you're fighting that. When you're working cross-functionally, I feel like there's a little bit more swing because nobody has home court advantage. Everybody is on the back foot and that's a great time to get people doing new things, because you can make up new rules because there's not a set of rules to play by. I would prefer to start there, prove that a previously intractable problem is solvable with new methods, and then scale those methods, rather than starting with the methods and trying to push them across.

Mike Courian: Yeah. And in that communication, because there's a lot of communication that obviously happens in this, in that entire process, my hunch is it's really conversational with those key people. Is that true? Like, is the discussion and doing it as a team, like you communicating new ways to a team, is the discussion a core part of it? That's obviously a core part of Makeshapes is we support discussion-based group learning. And I was just wondering, is that like at a philosophical level built into the way that The Ready works?

Rodney Evans: I think it probably depends on who you ask. For me, you know, my general approach to working with new groups is like, get just enough trust and space from them to show them something, rather than trying to tell them what we're going to do. And in any group experience that we are having, where I am responsible for the design and the facilitation and the outcome that the leadership team wants, I'm always going to do a little bit of priming to be like, "Hey, this is the mindset that we're going to try to be in, okay?" And then just as soon as possible get them into the experience. So like...

Rodney Evans: I just did a budgeting meeting with a team. It was really cool. It was a great meeting. And the CFO is just like this. He's like one of the best CFOs I've ever seen in action. And he gave us a lot of latitude to sort of do what we wanted. And I just said to him, look, I know you have a lot of stuff that you need to like as a present that is going to be like on spreadsheets with numbers. But can I have time to get this team to first principles first? And before I do that, can I write down the first principles that I think are implied and run them by you and show them to this team and see if in fact those are the principles that you all want to be running this exercise by? And this dude who's amazing was like, sure. And I showed them the principles that have been implicit and they were like, boo, not those. And then they made new principles and then it changed the rest of the conversation. Now, my explanation to them on first principles thinking was like a minute and a half long. I was basically like, if you're not intentional about what you're designing for, you'll design for the wrong stuff. Here we go. Take a post-it note. Like I just don't think there's a lot of value in a lot more conversation than that if you have the team that's up for it. And not all teams obviously are created equal in this way. This is a pretty extraordinary team.

Mike Courian: Well, you guys are doing such important, fantastic work and so I am so excited to just keep watching the Ready's journey. And your journey personally, Rodney, I admire you and I love your Seven. We haven't gotten to go to Enneagram, but I love your Seven. And I think you wield it like a dangerous weapon and change happens because of it. Like I can I can see it happening around you guys even from Auckland, New Zealand having very little touch points with you. So thank you for this conversation. We've been to a lot of places. I hope you've been able to keep up but check out The Ready, they're an amazing organization, and thank you so much, Rodney.

Rodney Evans: Awesome. Thanks, Mike.

Mike Courian: And that wraps up this episode of Shapeshifters. Thanks for being with us. We really want this to become a two-way conversation, so we would love for you to send in any questions or comments that this episode has prompted. You can do that by emailing shapeshifters@makeshapes.com, or if you're listening on Spotify, you can drop it into the comments section. We'll be incorporating these questions and comments into future episodes. Remember, if you want to stay up to date with the podcast, go to the Shapeshifters website, link in the description, and sign up to our community. I'm grateful for all of you. This is a real joy for me to get to do this, so thank you for your support. Until next time, I'm Mike Courian, and this is Shapeshifters.