49. How To Make Big Things Happen At Work

Summary

Podcast Summary: At Work with The Ready

Episode 49: How To Make Big Things Happen At Work
Hosts: Rodney Evans & Sam Spurlin
Released: May 18, 2026

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Main Theme

This episode focuses on the real mechanics of "getting big things done" at work—moving from new ideas or assets to actual, meaningful adoption and behavior change inside organizations. Rodney and Sam scrutinize why classic change management and communications approaches often fail, and they break down strategies for making real, lasting changes that stick, with a particular focus on the pitfalls and practices of rolling out new ways of working.

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Key Discussion Points

1. The Misconceptions of Change Management

• Classic approaches (comms, project management, training, stakeholder management) are overused and rarely sufficient for driving real change.

• "Comms as Change Management": The flawed belief that sharing more information will automatically generate understanding and behavior change.

  "I think there's a lot about how people believe change happens that's broken. So I think part of it, like comms-ing it to death is one move. Project managing it is one move... There's a bunch of ways that people think this works, and none of them work." – Rodney [04:58]

2. The Information–Understanding–Behavior Chain

• Information does not equal understanding, and understanding does not equal behavior change.

• Many leaders assume that if something is explained and agreed upon, it will be done—reality rarely supports this.

  “Information is not understanding, and understanding is not behavior change.” – Sam [05:54]

Example: Role Change at The Ready ([06:43]–[11:48])

• Rodney shares the story of her own recent role change. Despite following a company process for review and adoption, she explains the tension between asset creation and the pain/growth of ensuring others truly understand and change their behavior accordingly.
• Feedback and governance processes are described as "dental appointments"—uncomfortable but necessary for deep understanding and adoption.

3. The Value of Explicit, Repetitive Communication

• Behavioral change requires intentional reminders and ongoing, explicit orientation.

• Verbalizing new behaviors, especially during transitions, is essential—both for others and for the change instigator, who can also default to old habits.

  "The next time I am going to do something differently as a result of this new role, saying, 'I am now not doing this. Ashley is doing this because we governed this role and it's no longer mine.'" – Rodney [11:18]

4. Resistance and the Question of Authority

• Some resistance is rooted in genuine self-interest or loss, not just confusion.

• Leaders often avoid drawing clear lines of authority and non-negotiable actions, resulting in passive resistance (e.g., continuing to use an old tool or clinging to outdated roles).

• Organizational change needs deadlines, clarity, and consequence—alongside (where appropriate) participative processes.

  "Who's going to stop me? ... Often when this kind of stuff happens... we don't say clearly like who has to do what when that change is made." – Rodney [15:29]

5. Differentiating Between 'Complicated' and 'Complex' Changes

• Not all changes require the same approach:

  • Complicated changes (e.g., switching tools) require clear instructions and deadlines.
  • Complex changes (e.g., adopting a new brand identity) demand participatory processes and focus on hearts and minds.

  "When it's like we're moving to a different corporate credit card, that's just complicated. When it's like we're moving to a completely new brand position and we need you to start speaking or writing or using these kinds of visuals, that's complex." – Rodney [23:34]

6. The Big Reveal Fallacy and the Fear of Feedback

• Asset creators often prefer the “big reveal” instead of ongoing feedback, hoping for applause but typically receiving resistance or confusion.

• The necessary skills for asset creation and bringing people along are different.

• With experience and “taste,” integrating feedback becomes less daunting and more valuable.

  "For a long time, I just didn't have the ability to effectively integrate feedback. And I think it's like a skill to develop, and it makes work in progress much less scary." – Rodney [30:48]

7. Borrowing from Marketing: Persona-based Change

• Apply marketing principles: identify personas within the audience for change, tailor communication and engagement accordingly.

• Avoid oversimplification; address different motivations, resistances, and needs.

  “It is interesting to think about change work using a similar idea in that there's a bunch of different types of folks... and they are very different from each other.” – Sam [35:21]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On generational tech habits:
  “My main one... I check yahoo.com for the news at least once a day. I don't know why... but that’s got to make me. That makes me old.” – Sam [01:27]

• On the fallacy of the Big Reveal:
  “They’re like, we’re done. Big bang reveal. And then reality punches back and reality is like, I don't think you are done. I think you’re just at the starting line.” – Rodney [25:06]

• On taste and feedback (Ira Glass quote):
  “Your taste is why your work disappoints you. And a lot of people never get past this phase. They quit… It was only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap and your work will be as good as your ambitions.” – Sam quoting Ira Glass [31:09]

• On clarity and deadlines:
  “People would much rather have that clarity than a vague sense that they're supposed to be doing something and wondering if they've actually done it correctly.” – Sam [19:47]

• On keeping it 'ugly':
  “Don’t make [the proposal] too pretty. Leave it ugly, leave it drafty... If you give them something that feels overdone, they’re not gonna do it because they don’t want to overdo it.” – Rodney [45:40]

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Important Timestamps

• [04:43] – Why traditional tools for change (comms, project management, training) fail
• [05:54] – Information ≠ understanding ≠ behavior
• [06:43]–[11:48] – Rodney’s real-world example: Role redesign at The Ready
• [15:29]–[21:28] – Why resistance occurs, and the role of authority and enforceability
• [22:58]–[23:52] – Sam and Rodney’s 'complicated vs. complex' filter for change strategies
• [25:03] – The allure and dangers of the "big reveal"
• [30:56] – Ira Glass on taste, feedback, and perseverance
• [35:21] – Using marketing personas for complex change work
• [38:18] – Concrete tips for lowering activation energy and engaging busy teams
• [40:33]–[43:25] – The system of true socialization (not just one-off comms)
• [44:46]–[46:45] – Why you should "keep it ugly" to encourage participation

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Practical Takeaways (What Actually Works?)

Lowering Activation Energy

• Make it easy and clear: spell out what’s needed and how, minimize friction, allow for brief, targeted contributions.
  • “Give people the gift of clarity in terms of how to play.” – Sam [38:21]

Systemic, Narrative-based Socialization

• Early, repetitive signals about change—explain the why and origin story, build narrative.
• Launch with specific calls to action and ask for focused feedback.
• Include interactive forums and ongoing reinforcement.
• Don’t assume "shipping" equals "adoption".

Create Space for Change

• Eliminate or pause old activities to create bandwidth for the new.
• Don’t pile new expectations on top of existing overloaded schedules.

Keep It Ugly

• Share drafts and keep early-stage proposals rough—encourages input and doesn’t overwhelm potential contributors.

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Recurring Advice

• Don’t depend solely on communication, training, or passive methods.
• Differentiate between types of change, and tailor your strategy.
• Orient to real authority and clarity—not just consensus or goodwill.
• Understand and address the psychology of change—including fear, attachment, and inertia.
• “Meet complexity with complexity” by segmenting your approach for different personas and needs.

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Conclusion

Rodney and Sam advocate for a more intentional, human, and nuanced approach to organizational change. Real, lasting impact means going beyond comms and consensus, repeatedly orienting people to new behaviors, leveraging narrative and clear authority, creating psychological safety for feedback, and keeping the process approachable and adaptive. As Rodney succinctly puts it: “Keep it ugly, folks.” [47:46]

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For listeners looking for practical, battle-tested ways to make work happen (and avoid the pitfalls of failed change), this episode delivers skepticism toward easy answers, a toolbox of better habits, and some memorable, irreverent advice.

Transcript

[A]

If you are an expert brand designer and you go off into your, your, your brand cave and you come back bringing the tablets of the new brand, like, that's all within your expertise as a professional. But the service design of, like, bringing people along to contribute to that is probably not like what, what you went to school for and what you spend a lot of time thinking about.

[B]

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Outwork with Ready a pod work design and how organizations can make change work in their favor. I'm Rodney Evans here with my co host Sam Sperlin.

[A]

Hey, Rodney, how's it going?

[B]

You know, it's okay.

[A]

Okay, great. Well, companies, you know, those things, they're facing more change than they were built for. And the problem is organizations are still running on management ideas from a completely different era. Rodney and I work with leaders and teams who are redesigning how work actually gets done so change becomes fuel in the tank instead of sand in the gears.

[B]

On this show, we share patterns. We're seeing inside of organizations, what's working, what gets in the way. Today we are going to talk about how you actually get shit done, which, amazingly, we've never covered on this show in this way before. It's exciting, but first we have to check in, because how you do something matters just as much as what you do. So, Sam, what's today's question?

[A]

Rodney, we are both of an age, and I'm wondering if you have any tech habits that clearly label you as like an elder millennial, Gen X sort of person. I don't know exactly where you fall in. For me, it's an elder millennial, but there's definitely some things that I've caught for myself. And I'm thinking about things like maybe you have an AOL.com email address, or maybe you feel like you can only make, like, big purchases from a real computer and not your phone. Things like that. My main one that just I, I shake my head at myself a little bit every day is I check yahoo.com for the news at least once a day. I don't know why it's not a good news site. It was just like a banner there and there's like usually 15 little headlines. And I'll go to Yahoo.com and just take a look there. It's the only thing I do on Yahoo. I don't even understand what Yahoo is anymore, but what it is to me is 15 news headlines that somewhat change throughout the day. And that. That's got to make me. That makes me old.

[B]

That's really funny. That's really funny. My answer to this question is going to be somewhat disappointing and non specific. But you can tell that I'm older and not as like Internet native as you are because I don't even know what those things are. Like, I'll watch someone younger than me do something on their phone and I'll be like, oh, I didn't even know you could do that. So it's like I don't even really know what my tells are because I don't even know how you're supposed to do it. But I do know that whenever I'm like observing like Alistair or Jack using literally any piece of technology, I'm like, oh, is that how you are? Oh, I didn't know. So basically it's everything. My tech habits are all of the tech habits. I think any younger person who observed me interacting with with technology, it would be like, bro, what are you doing?

[A]

What's wrong with you? I mean, we did spend a solid 90 seconds before we started with you being somewhat confused by what happened to your screen in terms of why does

[B]

it make a split screen?

[A]

What's going on?

[B]

Why do I turn it? How do I turn it off? I get so excited when it happens because I think I want it. But then also I don't like not having control over it.

[A]

Yeah. All right, well, I think we're checked in now.

[B]

Good. Check in, Sam. Okay, thanks. So what we're gonna dig into today came from a conversation I had with a member of the Ready about basically how you move from asset or like an idea or a thing to action or activation. Like the idea of just like getting people to do shit. Literally anything that's different or new. I don't think it gets enough airtime. And I still have clients who think that classic change management is the way. I think we have interrogated that idea enough on this show to agree that it is not the way. But it still seems just mystifying for people to go from like, now we're convicted about the thing to like, how do we get everybody else doing the thing? And so that's what we're going to talk about today.

[A]

Okay, so would you agree that this is a similar idea to the like comms as change management approach? Like if we just comms harder, everybody will understand what's going on and we'll just do the thing.

[B]

I mean, I think that's part of it. I think there's a lot about how people believe change happens that's broken. So I think part of it, like calmsing it to death is one move. Project managing it is one move. Training people is one move. Socialization is one move. Stakeholder management is one move. There's a bunch of ways that people think this works, and none of them work.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so I want to talk about that.

[A]

Okay, great. Let's dig in there. I mean, I feel like each one of those has, like, its own kind of branching path that we could go down to, like, really, really explore. I mean, the first thing that comes to mind for me is just that information is not understanding, and understanding is not behavior change, which I feel like encapsulates a lot of what you were talking there.

[B]

Say that again.

[A]

Information. So sharing information does not necessarily imply understanding of that information, and understanding does not necessarily imply any sort of behavior change. And I think for a lot of folks in kind of change leadership points of view, that's a hard thing to wrap your mind around, because it seems very logical that if you understand the thing and you agree with the thing, then you would just do the thing. And. And I mean, that's not how it tends to go.

[B]

That's not how it goes. This is such a good nugget that I almost feel like this is the whole. This is the whole thing. I'm really tempted to just now go right into a very specific example of this that I think.

[A]

Let's do one.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

You just, like, unlocked something in my brain. Okay. So we just changed our structure at the ready. And part of that was re governing my role as strategy steward. And it is quite different now than it used to be. And it's like a 25% role, which it did not used to be. So Trad would just, like, publish it, obviously. Like, Trad wouldn't do anything. They'd just be like, well, the CEO does whatever they want and nothing ever gets written down. But let's just assume that we wanted people to know about this change. I think, like, the basic move, the not even 101 move, is the information move of, like, I rewrote this role. Here it is. What we did was govern it as a system. And the reason I'm sharing this, this is not an episode about governance, but I had the experience going through governing and election of my role, where I definitely was like, people are nitpicking about things and weighing in on things that are gonna have no impact on them. And that if we hadn't gone through this process, they never would've even noticed. And they're digging into this because we're doing this process, and it's kind of Annoying. And what I came away with afterward because I didn't get a lot of reactions ultimately changed anything. But what that process did of saying to the whole company, here's the asset, here's the information. Now we are going to go through processing this where you have to ask questions to make sure you fully understand it and give me your reactions to it. Got to the understanding level. And even though for me as the asset creator in this situation, the understanding process felt a little bit like a dental appointment. Yeah, it's not totally for me. Now sometimes when you're doing that and you're the asset maker or the proposer, you legitimately are getting really helpful and important feedback. And I have certainly integrated and changed assets and proposals that I've made by 50% in the process. This just wasn't one of those times. But even if you're not getting feedback that you use, it's not really for you. It's to create that level of understanding in the end users who will be impacted by this role in some way. Before I go into the behavior part, I want your reactions to that.

[A]

That is an astute example of a point that I was going to make around. There's a lot of work in going from like 0 to 1 to an asset and then sharing that one with everybody else. And as the creator of the asset, I think it's easy to like make this assumption that what you experienced in the creation of the thing is being translated in the final version of the thing. And of course that's not happening. Of course not. People only see the final thing and that they haven't had that lived experience of having to like wrestle with whatever that artifact represents. So of course they have this like very shallow understanding of what you just described. With governance, there is like a way to bring them along which is still somewhat time consuming, but less time consuming as this whole group making the thing from scratch.

[B]

Yes. Or less time consuming than pushing the information, having a bunch of people passively consume it and go, got it. And then dealing with a bunch of friction later when I'm not doing things they assume I will be doing. I actually am living into the role that I have articulated. Not the role that I had for the last two years, but like you're doing work up front to avoid a bunch of friction later. And I'm having like a real, a real time. Aha. Because I think we are generally pretty good at getting from the information to the understanding part. But moving from understanding to behavior requires something that a lot of us don't Feel very comfortable doing. And I. I can think of a couple very present examples of this, which is, the next time I am going to do something differently as a result of this new role, saying, I am now not doing this. Ashley is doing this because we governed this role and it's no longer mine, or I am reserving this decision. Right. And I am going to make the final call on this because it is the decision. Right. That we articulated in this role that we all consented to do. It's like, I'm responsible for remembering the behavioral part that got documented, but then also orienting everyone else to go, we're doing the thing now that we said we were going to do.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. So if you're confused or irritated or disoriented by this, it might be because you forgot that we're not doing the old thing anymore. We're doing this thing now.

[A]

Yeah. And I think that's a really. I could see it being an annoying thing if you have to do it forever. I think eventually you kind of get to the point where it just becomes like, okay, we all. We all get it. But I think that verbalizing of a mental process for the benefit of everybody else is actually an incredibly valuable thing to do in that kind of transitionary period between the old way of doing things and the new way of doing things. And not in like a, hey, you idiots. Remember, we did this. We agreed this thing. But just a very neutral sort of, hey, you may be surprised or whatever, because we're going from this to this. Just saying that out loud so that we're all on the same page, I think is a useful. A useful thing, especially if you're in an organization and, like, lots of things are going on. Like, your role change is not the only thing that I'm sure that is, like, different between six months ago and now. So it can be difficult to keep them all straight. So that kind of talk track, the kind of director's commentary of what is happening, is actually, I think, really, really valuable.

[B]

Totally. And it's also a good reminder for the person who is instigating the change. Like, I also have other things going on. And I also forget that actually we said that Sam is going to make that call now instead of me. And so it's helpful to me when she says, I'm exercising this decision. Right. That is new. And you know what I mean? Because, like, I forget too. Like, I also default to old patterns, even when I'm the one in this case who was, like, the author of the change. So it's like, I really love what you said because I do think that information is the precursor to understanding and understanding is the precursor to behavior. And it's very easy to like take any of those as the off ramp and be like, I think we're good, I think we got it.

[A]

Yeah. For. So in this case it's, it's a type of change where it's, it sounds like it's not particularly contentious. It's more of just like, oh, this is like an update on like what we're doing. And you may not remember, but I think there's also other flavors of like not changing or not doing things that are more overtly not like, I just can't remember, but it's more like this change, it actually does not benefit me. So I am going to either quietly or loudly resist or I'm going to try to protect this thing that the change is moving us away from. That used to be a thing that I really cared about, which I think is also a whole genre of not changing in organizations that often our work starts to bump up against.

[B]

Yeah. Can you think of an example of that?

[A]

I mean, where my, where my head goes is any sort of like prioritization changes in terms of the work that we're going to do. Like we used to do A, B and C and they were our most important things. We made all of our money from that. And the teams who were doing that had a lot of power in the organization. And for various reasons related to our strategy, we are now emphasizing D, E and F. And some of you folks who are working at A, B and C may be kind of shifting over to D, E and F. And some of you are going to continue working on A, B and C because that's not going away anytime soon. And, but that, that represents a, a major shift in maybe how people view themselves in the organization or what is valued, which I think is not just as clear cut as like, well, now we're going to go do the new thing.

[B]

Right, Right. I think that's a great example. One of the things that comes up for me that feels related actually to what you just said about prioritization and to the other, the sort of behavioral change part is like, I often think that we skip over the authority piece of change because I'm seeing this at a client right now. So they're trying to roll out a new technology to support sales and it's a really good technology. It's like a best in class technology and they're trying to replace some other software that was not working as well for them. And there's a fair amount of resistance and there are people who are like, well I'm just going to keep using the old thing because I don't like this new thing or I don't understand this new thing or whatever. And the old thing is still here and I still have a password and it still has all my data in it. So like who's going to stop me? And I think that is the question is like who is going to stop me? Who is going to stop you? Often when this kind of stuff happens, when it's like we're changing a role, we're changing a tool, we're changing our priorities, we're changing our strategy, we're changing something that is real. We don't say clearly like who has to do what when that change is made. So what did not happen with this like rollout of this new sales technology is like first of all the leader of that organization. I don't think I could be wrong. I wasn't there. But I don't think said this technology rollout is going to support our strategy in the following ways. This is where we're headed and this is an enablement tool to get us there and that's why we have to do this. I think that part was missed. So it feels a little bit like, well, why are we, why are we doing this? And then as the sort of rollout crew came through, I don't think anyone ever said like, okay, so if you're a sales rep on Monday, you have to start using this tool instead of that tool for all of your calls and to track all of your deals. And the old thing is going to be shut down on Friday, so you better get your data out of there. And oh by the way, the metrics that we collect that determine whether you made your quota and are going to get paid also will come out of this new tool. So Monday it is. Got it. Like people don't say that they they're like, we're doing change management, we're doing comms, we're posting Slack messages, they're video tutorials. And I'm like, I, I do actually think the authority part gets missed of like what about this is non negotiable and in cases like this it isn't really a participatory decision. Like a leader has said, to do what we need to do, we need to use this tool. So we're going to use it. But it doesn't get sort of communicated that way.

[A]

Sure. All those Things are kind of necessary but insufficient on their own without the very clear, bright lines around. When things like when you have to be into the new tool, for example, people. I'm not going to talk for all people, but a lot of people are really motivated by really clear deadlines. So you can have all of the best intentions in the world. Like, okay, I know there's this thing I'm supposed to be moving into this new tool. I know there's some stuff that I can watch about it. I've got a vague sense of how it's better. I totally intend to do that. And because most organizations aren't exactly great at protecting people's time to like, think about work and, and structure their own time, that stuff gets deprioritized. And it's quite different when you know very clearly like, oh, like on Friday the 31st, this thing goes away. It can be a gift to be very clear about things that are going to happen. And people would much rather have that clarity than a vague sense that they're supposed to be doing something and wondering if they've actually done it correctly.

[B]

100%. And having been on the receiving end of a lot of these kinds of changes, like including at the early days of the ready, the good news is you don't have to like it and it can still happen. It's like, I wasn't particularly thrilled when we switched from Trello to Notion and no one asked me for my opinion. It was just like, this is what the company is going to be run on now. So if you want to work at the company and also get paid, this is where you go to do that. And I was like, well, I hate this and I think it's stupid. And also it doesn't really matter, right? And with a lot of change, you know, there's a lot of like, what's in it for me? And winning hearts and minds and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And sometimes there are changes where it's just like, this is happening, so do it. And I think it's really helpful to know which of those kinds of changes you're making. Like, are you making changes that people need to be excited and energized by and like, believe in their heart? Or are you making a change to a sales software because you're not selling shit and you need your sales reps to to sell shit and this is the tool that's going to help them. Like, it doesn't really matter what they think ultimately, they just have to learn how to do it. And humans like Are we are like always going to resist these things? And so I do think we're going to resist because it's like, it's unfamiliar, it's annoying. There's a cost of change. Like there are rational reasons to resist. And I think that to your point, clarity is really helpful in those situations because it helps me just be like, okay, well, I'm just like grumpy about this, but, but there's a shelf life on that because it's happening on Monday.

[A]

Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, I, I think if you have nothing but a relentless drumbeat of these top down changes that make people grumpy, I get a little bit skeptical. Like, all right, what exactly, like what, what is going on here? But I do think having a more nuanced take about the types of change that are, that need to be more participatory and really do need hearts and minds versus just like, honestly things that probably people don't really care about. If they care about, they care about it in the like, the very short term of like, God, this is annoying. I got to like learn a thing. But I can learn a thing. It'll, you know, in two days I'll be up and running. Those sorts of changes don't need to. They are not of the same type as like a major strategic shift, for example, or something. Something else that is just maybe a little bit more, more nebulous. So do we have different plays to run for those things or do we treat everything like a huge deal even when it's not?

[B]

I think that's exactly right. And it would be interesting. I don't have one in mind right now, but it would be interesting to have sort of like a filter for like when to just be like clear and explicit and deadline oriented and really lean into process and when to do the adoption campaign and to really try to get people enrolled and enlisted. Like which kinds of things require which kinds of motions?

[A]

Just the thing off the top of my head is that my mind just immediately went to like complicated, complex. So like a complicated tool where it's just like this tool just lets us do something a little bit better. Like just get on board. Like, come on, like, we'll make sure you're like well trained and you've got the information you need and it's just a matter of like getting in there and doing it versus like some sort of shift. And I don't know if I have a good example off the top of my head that is more like, we need people, we need your intrinsic like motivation and creativity to make this thing actually happen that I don't think you can really top down your way into doing particularly well.

[B]

I think that's exactly the shorthand. When it's like we're moving to a different corporate credit card, everybody download the app. That's just complicated. When it's like we're moving to a completely new brand position and we need you all to start speaking or writing or using these kinds of visuals. That's complex.

[A]

Yeah, totally. Totally.

[B]

I love that. I think that's really smart. Okay, everyone, Sam figured out you're extra smart on Thursday mornings. Is this our new recording time? I don't know. Yeah, I think it's in under 30 minutes. Okay, so let's talk a little bit about why people don't do that. Because what I see a lot is some version of the following. The people who are making the asset, whether that is the brand work or the culture deck or the new org chart or the strategy, whoever sort of has the pen on making the thing, spends a lot of time, like, beautiful minding and maybe is getting feedback, but not including the end users, maybe is getting feedback from, like, a closer or safer or more insular circle. And then they spend a lot of time perfecting. I'm just going to call it the asset for shorthand. And because that has taken so much time and so much labor and so much love, they're like, we're done. Big bang reveal.

[A]

Why do people do that disappoint?

[B]

And then. And then reality punches back and reality is like, I don't think you are done. I think you're just at the starting line.

[A]

Yeah. I think there's. I mean, there's probably a lot of reasons why. I think where my head just went to is that on the off chance that that works like, you do the big reveal, and people are like, oh, yeah, this is cool as hell. Like, good job. That feels really good. And I'm not saying that's impossible to happen. Like, you can potentially make something like that and it, you know, you get that sort of reaction and you feel like you really nailed it. Like your. Your. Your craft is being respected and people are like, oh, this is so great. So that chasing that dragon, I think sometimes, yeah. Sets people up for that process that ultimately results in the. The real. The real letdown. And I also think what makes you good at creating an asset is likely not the same skill set for. For creating a process for bringing people along into.

[B]

Into that.

[A]

So, like, if you are an expert brand designer and you make dope brand designs and you go off into your, your, your brand cave and you come back bringing the tablets of the new brand. Like that's all within your expertise as, as a professional. But the, like, the, the service design of like bringing people along to contribute to that is probably not like what, what you went to school for and what you spend a lot of time thinking about. So I wonder if people shy away from that messier process of bringing people along or getting feedback because it is somewhat outside of their expertise.

[B]

I used to think a lot about this at my old job because I had a real tendency to like be in the cave and then do the big reveal and then like the organ would get rejected and I was just, and I would just be like, that's

[A]

because you guys, those idiots don't see my genius.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. You guys don't understand me. Which is also true, incidentally. Both things can be true and one of the reasons that I did that is because I actually found significant feedback quite difficult to integrate to work in progress. If someone gave me feedback when the idea was like half done and they were just like, this is like completely off base. This should be like this and blah, blah, blah. For my brain at the time, I found it very difficult a to like sort of have the discernment or like the taste level to go like, okay, this is what about that is really right on and I should integrate this and this is what I can willfully ignore and like this is really gonna make it better. Where my mind would usually go is like, I have to start over or I have to shut this person up. And I don't know what changed for me in the last like 15 years that I don't feel that way anymore. And I feel like even if in feedback on work in progress, people tell me some truly wacky, I feel like I have a pretty good way of using it helpfully to make work product better. But I didn't always. And I don't know how I learned to do that, but it, I think it really changed my posture on getting feedback because now I really trust that whatever the end user throws at me, I'm going to use it for good. And like it's going to be helpful and it's not going to be derailing. But I don't know how that happened.

[A]

Yeah, well, I mean, I think what you're describing is, is the development of taste, right? Like you, you're, you're basically saying that early on before you really had developed the sense of taste, it was hard to tell whether the feedback was useful or not on base, off base, whatever. Now that you've gotten a bunch of reps, developed a bunch of taste around this feedback is something that is filled with more information that you can actually do something with. And you have the skill set now to incorporate it into a work in progress and not have to kind of go back to the drawing board every time somebody shares something with you that is not what you had in mind.

[B]

Yeah. I also think this is a place where AI is really, really useful. Like, once a day, I will feed AI like, a draft of something that I'm working on and, like, granola notes of a round of feedback that I've gotten on it and be like, give me a new draft with the best of these insights incorporated. And it's like, pretty good. It takes a lot of that processing out. I say this because I think the big reveal, like, we made a perfect asset, and now we just need to socialize it and get people to use it. I feel like it's so, so common. And I do think that there are, like, some behavioral roots. And I'm just. I'm conscious that there is fear of failure. There's, like, fear of conflict, there's fear of criticism. There's, like, a lot of stuff wrapped up in it. And also, I just see in myself the way in which, for a long time, I just didn't have the ability to effectively integrate feedback. And I think it's like a skill to develop, and it makes work in progress much less scary. When you're like, I can always find a way through this. It's a different way of being.

[A]

Yeah. A few years ago, there was a quote going around, at least in the various circles that I travel from Ira Glass, talking about taste.

[B]

Do you.

[A]

Are you familiar with that?

[B]

No, but I'm.

[A]

It's long, so I'll try to just.

[B]

Oh, tell it. Say the whole thing. Let's give Ira Glass some airtime on this show. The reason I have a podcast, okay,

[A]

so he says, nobody tells us to people who are beginners. And I wish someone had told me, all of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there's this gap. For the first couple of years, you make stuff, it's just not that good. It's trying to be good. It has potential, but it's not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. And a lot of people never get past this phase. They Quit. Most people I know who do interesting creative work went through years of this. It was only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I've ever met. It's going to take a while. It's normal to take a while. You just got to fight your way through. And I think that's. That's the experience thing. Right. And I think what. What we sometimes just collapse down into experience or age or wisdom is what he's talking about right there. It's the reps of actually doing it a bunch of times.

[B]

Yeah. Okay. Side side note, I lived in New York City for a long time, and the only time in my tenure of New York City that I was actually starstruck was when I saw Hourglass. And I basically stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and grabbed onto Ed's arm, and I was like, it's Hourglass. It's Ira Glass. And he was like, what? And Ed, who was not undone by seeing Ira Glass in the wild, was like, Ira and his wife were, like, reading, you know, one of those, like, stands with, like, a menu on it outside of a restaurant. And Ed was like, you should go to people like us, just people like us. He goes, you should go ask him if he'll read that brunch menu aloud to you. It's like, no. And then I ran away instead.

[A]

Good one, Ed.

[B]

Anyway, Ira, I hope you hear this. Your biggest fan. Yeah, I think that's right, Sam. And the other thing, as you were reading that, that I realized is part of the reason that I also used to be afraid of feedback was because I was afraid of how much work it would take to redo something.

[A]

Sure. Yeah.

[B]

And there are a couple of ways to get out of that. One is don't finish it before you show it to anyone. And then you won't be so precious about it because you won't be like, I thought I was done. And two is, I feel like now, what I know is if I wait too long and then I have to redo work, it's actually more time consuming than if I iterate along the way. And so even if the iteration that I'm having to make is big and unwanted, I still know it's less work, ultimately, than if I try to, like, push it and pray at the end.

[A]

It's realizing that when you're getting to the phase where you're asking for feedback, you're not Anywhere close to being done. And I think an example of that is, like, if you watch or if you hear a really seasoned novelist talking about their writing process and like, getting the first draft done. In my head of a guy who's never written a book, I'm like, first draft done. Like, you're almost there.

[B]

You, You.

[A]

You've got the whole. Barely started 100,000 words. And. And novelists being like, yeah, that's like kind of when the work starts, you know, I'm going to rewrite this thing like two or three times, and I'm not anywhere close to being done. And that's just like a. That's the difference between someone who has done a thing a lot of times and someone who has kind of a. A rough grasp of what it actually takes.

[B]

I think that's exactly right. What else should we talk about in terms of making work happen?

[A]

I think I have one. One other thing maybe that we haven't directly hit. I don't remember who I first heard talk about this. Somebody working in change work, but really kind of looking at it through a marketing lens. So when you are doing marketing, you don't just kind of define, like, the one person that you are trying to market to. Like, there are. There are Personas and like, getting really specific about the different sorts of people who you're targeting with your messages and which message you're targeting to which sort of Persona and like, where are they in the funnel? And I think it is interesting to think about change work using a similar idea in that there's a bunch of different types of folks who are potentially going to be participating in this change, and they are very different from each other. And it is tempting to kind of lump them all together either into just like one group of just like, people who need to change or in just some, like, really coarse groups of, like, these are the people who are stoked about it, and these are the resistors, and that's the two groups that we're. We're kind of talking to. I think there's something interesting about getting much more specific about the different Personas that exist within any sort of change effort and then. And then doing interesting things in terms of how you talk to them and the experiences that they need. And this is obviously more in the realm of the type of kind of complex change and not the one where you tell people what to do. But if you're going to be in this complex sort of change space, then I think you need to bring some. You got to kind of meet complexity with Complexity, you can't oversimplify it and trust that you're going to get to a good place.

[B]

I think that's right. And it's also like. And you know, I see this a lot in M and A, which like, is a very complex change because you're bringing two complex systems together and it's usually unclear if like, one is eating the other or you're trying to like blob tag them or what's happening is there's not a lot of that Persona work of, of like, what does this mean for you, for you, Sam, as the end user versus for you, Rodney, as a different end user? And what do we need you to do differently and what's going to change for you on Monday? And it's like, if things are just gonna change and you can be a passive consumer of that, then like, probably that's not that hard if, if things are gonna change. And like, we need you to alter your behavior as a result of that because of a certain specific role that you play. It's probably like a different motion with you in terms of like understanding your relationship to this change, your appetite for it, your support, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I think, I think that's really smart. And you know, we've talked on this show before about like the cake baking problem. And I. This is essentially what this is, is just the idea that like, it's very easy as any kind of creator to go away and make the world's most beautiful cake and then bring it out to a group of people who didn't ask for it, who don't particularly want it, and then be really disappointed when you're like, but cake is good. You should have this. But that's not, that's not like thinking about the end user. It's not designing with the end user in mind, which great marketers absolutely do.

[A]

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Should we talk about some specific things to. To do?

[B]

Yeah, let's talk about what to do. Sam, you go first.

[A]

All right. Okay. My first thought is about kind of what does it look like to lower the activation energy for people to participate in something? And I'm thinking about this right now because I'm doing a project with an organization where, you know, the Everybody is at 110% at least allocation, and there's no time to really do anything. But there's this group of people who have hand raised to kind of work with me as a core team to figure out a thing that we're going to do for like a design Sprint and I have really tried to focus on making it extremely clear how they can play and how they should play right now because I've really gotten the sense that they want to contribute, but they do not have any time to just like figure shit out. So we've been doing some asynchronous work over the last couple of weeks and I've kind of been going back to like my high school days of like writing instructions on worksheets. It's like, here's precisely what I want you to do. Like, take no longer than 20 minutes to do it. Here are the three questions. Send me your answers when you're done. And just really trusting the fact that while it feels a little like top down, it's really serving, it's meeting them where they are, you're helping them and helping them actually contribute. And I've been thinking a lot more about where are other places to do that. Where can we give people the gift of clarity in terms of how to play and not kind of just invite them to an open space? It's just like, hey, we'll just like figure it out as we go along. Always a time and a place for things like that. But I've been kind of leaning into the opposite of that a little bit more nowadays.

[B]

I love that. I think that's great.

[A]

What do you got?

[B]

And the thing just to add to that is like you're treating the activation as the real work. In that case, like you're not overly concerned about the asset or the thing and it's like the work to be done. Is this interstitial stuff?

[A]

Yeah, I want your actual answers to these questions because we're going to use that for things coming up in the future. I don't want to like waste your time you figuring out that stuff.

[B]

Totally.

[A]

I can just tell you I love that.

[B]

Okay, I'm going to talk about socialization because people think about socialization as being an event or a series of events and it's not. It's like a system. And people think that you go, asset socialization done. And that is not correct. So here's what doesn't work. Just talking a bunch about stuff doesn't work. Having office hours and thinking anyone is going to show up to them to learn about this thing that they don't give a shit about also does not work. And anything that's in a deck basically is not going to work. Those are the things that I wouldn't do. And when I say in a deck, I don't mean as the asset, I mean As a presentation, like, you can just assume that people have gone on a little mental vacation or opened their phone if what you're doing is running them through a deck. Here's the sort of arc that I generally follow when I'm trying to do something new. First is early signal. Something's coming, Something's coming in this vein for this reason, this is the tension. Let's all understand the tension. Eventually you are going to see a proposal to solve this tension, but not right now. And I will telegraph that shit every single week for six months until there's a proposal, just to be like, I know we're still feeling the tension. The tension. Right, Proposal's coming. Then when we introduce the new thing and you've seen this at the ready. I have a tendency to start with narrative and why and emotion. So a lot of times before the big reveal, I'm like, here's a video explaining why we're doing this work and what it means, rather than here's the asset. So it's like we've gone from the tension to the origin story and the emotion around it. Then the launching of the thing with a specific ask, here's a document. Get in there and drop comments. Here is a proposal. We're going to govern it on Friday. Here is the deck. I would like your feedback on the following three slides with this client Persona in mind. Specific asks to get people marinating. Then some kind of interactive forum which we've talked about can be generative, can be governance, can be feedback oriented, can be whatever you want it to be. And then some kind of ongoing reinforcement which we've also talked about, like narrating the adherence back to the change. To me, that's what a system of socialization looks like. Not I shipped it and I'm available for questions. Right. Which is what I frankly usually see.

[A]

Yeah. What I love about what you just described there, like it that I know narrative was like a step in it, but also that is also the whole thing is kind of like a narrative arc work as. As well that has like a. A shifts in energy and ways to interact and ways to be thinking about it and like a pleasing sort of like, conclusion.

[B]

Totally. I think I. I think in the best case, that's exactly, exactly what it is. What else you got?

[A]

All right, I've got one last one which is just. And I feel like this is actually a piece of advice that I've given on lots of different episodes, which, which is an interesting pattern, but stop doing things. Remove, remove things. Remove, remove, remove, stop make space, stop, remove change. If you want people to do something different, that is not in most cases a like one to one replacement. Like doing something new takes extra attention and energy and time. And if you are not creating any space for that, then that is not going to be done particularly well. People aren't going to put much time into it. They're not going to think about it that much. So if you're asking people to do something that requires more of them, do your best to try to make more space for that.

[B]

I love that. That's really cool. I mean always, always more space, always for all the things use AI get more space. My last one, which came from a client, I'm going to send this to her. But I thought this was so smart. We were leaving an off site a few weeks ago and basically we had like a follow up for the rest of the team and we've tried to do this same follow up move before and we haven't gotten a lot of traction even though I know that it would really be beneficial to them. And basically I was trying to get them to like move into proposals based on the work that they've done and that has not gotten traction. And so, so she was like, let's in a document put all of the proposals that need to be made with a couple of lines of notes. And the overarching advice that I thought was so smart was that she was like, don't make it too pretty. She was like, leave it ugly, leave it drafty. Because part of the problem is when you give people something that looks really polished and you ask them to interact with it, they then feel like they have to do a lot of work to respond with polish. And actually this does not require polish at all. Like this isn't going anywhere. We literally just need people to like write three bullets on what they want to do next. Like no punctuation, no intention behind it. And I thought it was such a smart design choice of like keep it ugly so that they can be scrappy because that's actually what we need. And if you give them something that feels overly over done, they're gonna, they're gonna not do it because they don't want to overdo it.

[A]

Yeah, yeah, no, that's, that's so good. And it's so simple. I love this idea of like keep it ugly as long as possible.

[B]

Keep it ugly.

[A]

I feel like, I feel like that it like works in a lot of different contexts.

[B]

It really does.

[A]

My personal life, I was setting you up for that.

[B]

That, that's so rude. I would never say that to you.

[A]

I know. That's why I said it to myself.

[B]

That's really.

[A]

No, that's so good, though. I like. I like that. I feel like it's like, the type of thing that I've never articulated, but I've, like, felt in my bones. I've definitely had people share things with me, and I'm like, oh, my God. I can tell so much time has gone into this. Like, if I don't have anything good, like, really good to offer, I'm just gonna, like, kind of throw my hands up and be like, good job, dude.

[B]

Right? It does not feel like this is like wet clay that's still to be molded. It feels like this came out of the kiln and anything that I do is potentially going to break it totally.

[A]

Well. And to my point, my last one about the time thing, if I'm also feeling, like, pressed for time and you hand me a pretty thing to get feedback on, I'm like, all right, this is going to take significant time for me to really engage with this and give you what it deserves back. I'm not going to do that. So, like, it's just not gonna happen.

[B]

Keep it ugly, folks.

[A]

Keep it ugly. All right, are we done? Did we do it?

[B]

We're done. We did it.

[A]

Great. Hey, everyone. That's right. I'm talking to you. We're always looking for new topics for the show, so if you have an org pattern that you're having trouble changing, shoot us a note. Podcasttheready.com this show is edited and mixed

[B]

by Taylor Marvin at Coop Studios and producers by Jack Van Amberg at Work with the ready is created by the ready, where we help organizations around the world change the way they work. Thank you for listening.