Podcast Summary: At Work with The Ready

Episode: Depthfinding: Solve Your Cross-Functional Problems…Finally!

Hosts: Rodney Evans & Sam Spurlin
Date: January 13, 2025

Overview: Introducing Depth Finding

Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin launch a new miniseries introducing “Depth Finding,” a practical framework designed to help organizations see—and work with—the full complexity of their challenges. The episode explores how most workplace issues (like failed strategy execution, cross-functional confusion, or meeting fatigue) are symptoms of activities being concentrated at one “depth” of the organization while ignoring others. The goal is to make complex challenges more visible and solvable—without requiring leaders to get a PhD in systems thinking.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Framing “Depth Finding” and Common Organizational Pain

• The hosts share excitement and a bit of silliness about finally presenting a framework they’ve been developing for about a year.
• Rodney: “The whole idea of depth finding is for us to start to see and understand what has been historically not comprehensible about organizations.” (00:46)
• They emphasize that many organizations suffer from misapplied efforts—trying to fix deep, cross-functional problems only at the surface (asset/document/plan) level.

2. The Four Layers of Depth Finding

Rodney walks through the new visual framework, borrowing terminology from oceanography:

• Sky: External "why"—the environment, market forces, and external threats or opportunities.
• Sunshine Zone: Clear, explicit assets (e.g., strategy decks, org charts, job descriptions)—things documented and visible.
• Twilight Zone: “How” work gets done—routines, habits, meetings, and operating systems. Where actions actually happen.
• Midnight Zone: The invisible, internal “why” for individuals—motivations, emotions, silent fears, and personal interpretations.

Rodney: “The problem with your strategy isn’t the strategy. The problem with your strategy is that it lives at one depth and it gets reacted to at another depth. And we need to be working across all four.” (09:22)

3. Sample Use Cases: From Strategy to New Teams

a) Strategy’s Failure to Steer (Rodney’s example, 05:12–11:55)

• Leadership often thinks their strategy is clear—yet it isn’t executed or understood.
• Overemphasis on the Sunshine Zone (“assets,” like PowerPoint decks) leads to confusion or resistance that really lives in the Midnight Zone (unspoken concerns or disconnects).
• The Twilight Zone, where cross-functional routines and habits live, is typically neglected.

Sam: “What you’re not saying is that the Sunshine Zone doesn’t matter. Of course. More so that we’re probably overinvested in the Sunshine Zone or at the very least underinvested in… the Twilight Zone.” (09:35)

b) Building Leadership Team Purpose (Sam’s example, 13:01–16:28)

• Sam shares his coaching with a senior leader assembling a new leadership team.
• The team focused only on visible work (Sunshine Zone), ignoring strategic context (Sky) and emotional undercurrents (Midnight Zone).
• Using the Depth Finding framework enabled them to schedule intentional time at each “depth” during meetings.

Sam: “All three of the other depths were just not on their radar at all. So we’re starting to have a conversation: maybe there’s a rhythm of giving each depth its own specific time.” (14:35)

c) Compensation Transparency as a Thin Slice (20:00–21:46)

• Compensation policies exist in the Sunshine Zone; market data forms the Sky.
• There’s little in the Twilight Zone—no routine or process for discussing pay decisions or concerns.
• The Midnight Zone is rife with emotion and discontent, which shows up unproductively in other forums.

4. Why This Resonates (and Spreads)

• The Depth Finding framework is “self-spreading”—colleagues and clients start using it without much handholding.
• The model avoids the jargon of complexity science, making systems thinking accessible to those who “don’t give a shit about complexity science” (12:05).
• Naming the invisible—especially the “Midnight Zone”—allows productive conversation without turning work into group therapy.

Sam: “Just naming the fact that there are these things going on for us without getting specific is... really powerful. Once we’ve named it, we can honor it… but this is not the time or space to dig into it. But it’s still there.” (25:44)

5. Key Learnings and Surprises

• The most surprising insight: Midnight Zone is the “killer app”—naming invisible, emotional realities enables all the rest.
• Awareness itself sparks better solutions: “Just people understanding what the fuck is going on… they are walking away…doing something different—and it’s not what they thought they were going to do.” (28:16)
• The model works at all scales—from organization-wide, to teams, to individuals’ personal development.

Sam: “I think a sign that this is touching on something true to complexity is that it seems to work across every size of unit… from the individual to the entire organization.” (32:15)

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Rodney: “You cannot solve a problem created at that depth in the same depth. You gotta look somewhere else.” (10:26)
• Rodney: “Giving people even just that label for what the fuck is going on... they’re able to name this invisible, opaque swath of really important data without actually excavating it in a way that they’re unwilling to do.” (24:21)
• Sam: “Our experience of organizational change… has been: if you just experiment enough, eventually the right thing will emerge. Sometimes that works. Sometimes it’s just thrash.” (29:04)
• Rodney: “You can’t just do anything that is complex in nature at one depth and expect it to work.” (31:10)

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:48 – Introducing the “Depth Finding” miniseries and why it matters now
• 04:56 – Immediate jump into a strategy scenario using Depth Finding
• 06:46 – Explaining the four zones: Sky, Sunshine, Twilight, Midnight
• 09:22 – Why strategies fail: Living at one level, reacted to at another
• 13:01 – Sam’s example: New leadership team and depth-based meeting design
• 20:00 – Thin slice example: Compensation practices across the depths
• 24:21 – Midnight Zone as “killer app” and its value
• 28:16 – The transformative effect of awareness vs. just action
• 32:15 – Depth Finding’s fractal usefulness (org, team, individual)
• 33:39 – What’s next: Practical tools, community input, and miniseries roadmap

How to Engage & What’s Next

• The hosts invite listeners to look at the Depth Finding visual in the show notes and email which “zone” their team overinvests in. Responses will be aggregated and reported in a future episode.
• Future episodes will provide practical tools, deeper dives into using the framework, and evolving content based on listener feedback.

Tone & Style

Conversational, self-aware, playful, yet deeply practical. Sam and Rodney blend humor (“Path. Finding those lasers.” (00:25)) with the candor of experienced consultants eager to make complexity approachable—and effective.

Quick Reference: Depth Finding Zones

1. Sky: Why (external context)
2. Sunshine: What (artifacts and assets)
3. Twilight: How (routines, operating systems, collaboration)
4. Midnight: Human reality (lived experience, emotions, beliefs)

This episode serves as a primer to a deeper, ongoing exploration—inviting listeners to re-examine old problems through a richer, more actionable lens.