Start with the Gnarliest Problem
The Change Signal with Rodney Evans
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Three key insights: Change work isn't transformative anymore—it's operational; your organization does everything the same dysfunctional way; and everyone secretly benefits from broken patterns.
My guest, Rodney Evans from TheReady, has abandoned talking about "adaptability" because people's eyes glaze over. Instead, she starts every conversation with leaders by asking about their gnarliest cross-functional problem that can't be solved.
Why does this work? Because everyone has experienced that moment where important work gets "chopped up, parceled out across the org chart where it goes to die."
Rodney introduces her depth-finding model — four organizational zones from sky to midnight that reveal how change actually happens. The insight that stopped me cold: how your organization does hiring is how it rewards, makes strategy, and handles everything else.
A particularly uncomfortable truth? Broken organizational patterns persist because everybody gets something out of them, even while complaining. The solution involves naming the pattern and stepping outside it through small interventions in how work actually gets done.
This conversation will shift how you see organizational change from discrete projects to continuous evolution. If you're tired of the same problems recurring, Rodney Evans offers a different way forward.
ABOUT RODNEY:
Rodney Evans is a partner at The Ready and cohost of the podcast Brave New Work. She’s spent 20+ years helping organizations reinvent how they work. She helps teams navigate ambiguity, distribute power, and build new ways of working that actually stick.
Rodney’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rodneyeevans
