AUA: Your Team Isn't Ready For Your Future

Summary

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Podcast Summary: At Work with The Ready

Episode: AUA: Your Team Isn't Ready For Your Future
Date: November 24, 2025
Hosts: Rodney Evans & Sam Spurlin

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Overview of the Episode

In this Ask Us Anything (AUA) mini-episode, hosts Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin tackle a heady challenge submitted by a listener:
"How do I bring people with me when I'm already operating a few years ahead—without softening what I see or being perceived as a threat?"

The conversation centers on the struggles of being ahead of your peers or team in terms of vision and strategy, and how to responsibly bridge that gap without alienating others or getting frustrated.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Resist “Thought Leadership”; Show, Don’t Tell

• Sam warns against adopting an overt “thought leader” persona, especially inside your own organization. He suggests focusing less on “telling” people about the future and more on “showing” them through tangible experiments and actions.
• Quote (00:33):

  "Resist the urge to thought lead. …I would encourage you to shift from telling to showing. If you are living in the future, what are some ways that you can show people that and help them experience that little taste of the future as well, without even necessarily being super explicit about it?"
  — Sam Spurlin

2. Translate Future Visions into Present Actions

• Rodney agrees, highlighting the importance of holding your long-term hypotheses and translating them into immediate, actionable ideas for your context.
• It’s crucial to use your foresight to inform what’s relevant now, rather than persuading everyone to jump to your timeline.
• Quote (01:59):

  “Your responsibility then is to translate that to what it means now, not try to convince people to share your vision of what a few years from now looks like. ...My job right now isn't to convince everybody that I work with that that's what's going to happen… My job right now is to hold a hypothesis about the future, test a component of it or the very early, early signals of it in the present, and keep those things in a feedback loop...”
  — Rodney Evans

3. Meet People Where They Are; Recognize Their Journey

• Sam emphasizes that others can’t simply leap to your position—they need to experience steps for themselves.
• A leader ahead of their team should aid others’ journey by reducing the cycle time for learning and experimentation, letting them take “the next step,” even if it seems basic to you.
• Quote (04:07):

  "How did one get into the future? You know, you took steps and you ended up now where you are... It can be frustrating to kind of look back and say...now in one big step, you all join me here. But that's not how people experience it. They have to go on their own journey into the future."
  — Sam Spurlin

4. Seek Out Your Own Future-Focused Community

• Rodney advises connecting with peers (possibly outside your org) who can speak to the same time horizon, so you aren’t left feeling alone or frustrated.
• Don’t burden your colleagues with your futuristic ideas if they aren’t ready or interested; instead, nurture that part of yourself through other channels.
• Quote (04:56):

  "Find your people to talk to about that...the way not to do that is to make my clients have that conversation with me because they don't want to. … I also just think carving out a space for yourself so that whatever futurist domain is particularly compelling to you, you have a network or just three or four like-minded people that you can sort of go like, 'this is what I'm seeing. Is this what you're seeing'..."
  — Rodney Evans

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On resisting the urge to go full “thought leader”:

  “…it is really easy to kind of wear out your welcome if you kind of adopt this thought leadership persona, especially internal organization.”
  — Sam Spurlin (00:38)

• On patience and a feedback loop:

  “All of us who live in the future would love to be able to just like snap our fingers and have whole organizations be like, she's right, I see it now. …But that's not how human beings are and how they work.”
  — Rodney Evans (02:45)

• On not trying to hurry others:

  “Even though it's not going to feel like the future to you, but it is to them...then that's how you accelerate people to bring them into what you're seeing.”
  — Sam Spurlin (04:36)

• On self-care for forward thinkers:

  “Just because it's not easy to integrate into your present context doesn't mean you shouldn't feed it. You just might have to feed it somewhere else.”
  — Rodney Evans (05:46)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:33 — Sam on shifting from telling to showing
• 01:59 — Rodney on translating future vision into now
• 04:07 — Sam on the journey to the future and helping others accelerate their path
• 04:56 — Rodney on finding your ‘future’ people outside your immediate context

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Tone & Approach

The hosts maintain a candid, empathic tone—balancing practical advice with an understanding of the frustrations felt by “future-oriented” team members. Both hosts emphasize humility, patience, and the value of indirect influence over hard persuasion.

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Summary Takeaways

• Don’t try to “convince” people to see what you see about the future; experiment in the present and let others experience it.
• Translate your big ideas into actionable, relevant steps for your current organizational context.
• Recognize that others need to travel their own road toward the future—help them by clarifying and shortening their next steps.
• Find or build your own community of forward-thinking peers to keep yourself inspired and sane.
• Keep your futuristic edge alive, but don’t burden others—or yourself—by expecting universal buy-in before people are ready.

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Transcript

[A]

Hey, y'. All. Welcome back to OrkwithReady. I'm Rodney Evans and that guy over there is Sam Sperlin.

[B]

Hello, Rodney Evans.

[A]

Every other week we are tackling one tough, thought provoking question from you, our beloved listeners, and sharing a few ideas that might help. This week's question is, how do I bring people with me when I'm already operating a few years ahead without softening what I see or being perceived as a threat? Sam, how do they bring people along in a little suitcase on a trolley?

[B]

I don't know that that imagery was, was necessary. The first thing I was gonna say is to resist the urge to thought lead. And when you feel like you're in the future, it's fun to talk about what you're seeing and perceiving, and there's a time and a place for that. But I think it is really easy to kind of wear out your welcome if you kind of adopt this thought leadership Persona, especially internal organization. So I would encourage you to shift from telling to showing. So if you are living in the future, what are some ways that you can show people that and help them experience that little taste of the future as well, without even necessarily being super explicit about it? So practical experiments that'll help kind of build your credibility about what you're seeing and sensing what will help bring people along.

[A]

I love that. I had a similar answer, actually. When you feel like you are the prescient one in an organization and when you feel like you're the one future casting and sensing what's coming and as you said, operating a few years ahead, your responsibility then is to translate that to what it means now, not try to convince people to share your vision of what a few years from now looks like. And that's really not that easy to do. It takes a level of self awareness and a level of patience and a real level of sensing. Like, are people interested in and grokking what I'm saying right now or are they not? Are they rejecting it? Are they tuning it out? Is this too much, too early? Is this too threatening, whatever. And all of us who live in the future would love to be able to just like snap our fingers and have whole organizations be like, she's right, I see it now. That's what I think too. But that's not how human beings are and how they work. And so a lot of times the way that I do this work personally is like, I spend a lot of time thinking about where, for example, our category is likely to be three years from now, based on what I understand of AI particularly, but also, you know, socio political considerations. And rather than just like, to your point, Sam. Ted, talking my way through that and just sort of seeing like I'm pontificating, what I really try to do is like, I hold that very long horizon as a hypothesis in my own mind, and then I pay a lot of attention to what it means for right now. And so if I have a hypothesis that AI will usher in the end of organizations, let's just say, hypothetically, what does that mean for the ready in a quarter? What does it mean for the essential intent that I just created? If you read it, it shows up there. So it's like, my job right now isn't to convince everybody that I work with that that's what's going to happen and that I'm right and that I'm ahead. My job right now is to hold a hypothesis about the future, test a component of it or the very early, early signals of it in the present, and keep those things in a feedback loop with each other to be like, how is what I'm saying landing? What am I reading that validates it? How can I be sharing that perspective from other people? How can I have people on this podcast who I can have this conversation with so I can keep furthering my thinking and seeding it rather than being like, we all need to be caught up and working on the same timeline.

[B]

Yeah, and I appreciate that you just used the word caught up there, because what I was thinking about is, you know, how did one get into the future? You know, you took steps and you ended up now where you are in the future. And it can be frustrating to kind of look back and say to folks like, look, I found the path now in one big step. You all join me here, right? But that's not how people experience it. They have to go on their own journey into the future. And you can help them do that, even though it's not going to feel like the future to you, but it is to them. So decreasing their cycle time and how quickly they're learning, showing people kind of what that next step is, helping them experience it for themselves, then that's how you accelerate people to bring them into what you're seeing.

[A]

That's really smart. And it sparks one more thing for me, which is, given what you told us about really being, you know, being out ahead and being not on time with the rest of your organization, I think that it can be very bolstering and very helpful if you are one of those people who, who can see the future and wants to like live in the future a little bit more. Find your people to talk to about that so that you can have the kind of like I am similar to you caller and I need the juice of being around people who also are thinking about three years from now. And the way not to do that is to make my clients have that conversation with me because like they don't want to. They don't want to and that's their prerogative. So like, I also just think carving out a space for yourself so that whatever futurist domain is particularly compelling to you, you have a network or just, you know, three or four like minded people that you can sort of go like, this is what I'm seeing. Is this what you're seeing? What are you seeing? What are you thinking about? What are you reading? So that you sort of don't have to like be burdened by your own organization's lack of curiosity about this, but also you don't have to burden them with their lack of curiosity about this. I think that can help you because I think that this is a very valuable skill. And just because it's not easy to integrate into your present context doesn't mean you shouldn't feed it. You just might have to feed it somewhere else.

[B]

That's it for this mini. If you've got a question of your own, hit us [e-mail] we'll see you.

[A]

Back here next week for a full episode of At Work with the Ready. Thanks for listening.