S2 Ep. 12 Aaron Dignan – Leadership and Legitimacy through Consent and Coherence

Boundaryless Conversations Podcast

We often view leadership as such an individual role, but does it have to be? Today’s guest, Aaron Dignan, shares a radically different approach to leadership as something that needs to be more coherent and inclusive with everyone involved. Through the power of consent and purpose, organizations can drive real systemic change.

Aaron Dignan is the founder of The Ready, a global organizational transformation and coaching practice, where he helps both large and small companies adopt new forms of self-organization and dynamic teaming. Over the last ten years, Aaron has studied organizations and teams with a new way of working that prioritizes adaptivity and autonomy over efficiency and control.

Aaron is the co-host of the Brave New Work podcast, an active angel investor and helps build partnerships between the startups and end-ups he advises. He’s also a co-founder of Responsive.org, and has sat on advisory boards for GE, American Express, PepsiCo, and Cooper Hewitt. He is the author of Game Frame and Brave New Work.

In this conversation, we’re not afraid to go deep as we look into a boundaryless future. Tune in as we explore how The Ready funds new ideas in the business, the role of “micro-socialist” experiments in an organization, and how to balance your personal development and uniqueness alongside the development of an organization.

Remember that you can find the show notes and transcripts from all our episodes on our Medium publication: https://platformdesigntoolkit.com/Podcast-S2E12-Aaron-Dignan

To find out more about Aaron’s work:

> Website: https://theready.com/

> Website: https://www.bravenewwork.com/

> Aaron’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/aarondignan

> The Ready’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/theready

> Podcast: https://www.bravenewwork.com/podcast

Other references and mentions:

> Aaron Dignan, Brave New Work: Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?, 2019: https://www.amazon.com/Brave-New-Work-Reinvent-Organization/dp/0525536205

> “Brave New Work and Capitalism”, on the Brave New Work Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/brave-new-work-and-capitalism/id1488554600?i=1000506063704

> Dark Matter Labs’ “Letter to Our Future”, on how they think about organizing their work: https://provocations.darkmatterlabs.org/amsterdam-2019-2020-letter-to-our-future-dbd67a035ffe

> Wendell Berry, The Unsettling of America: Culture & Agriculture:,https://www.amazon.com/Unsettling-America-Culture-Agriculture/dp/0871568772

> Participatory City: http://www.participatorycity.org/

Find out more about the show and the research at Boundaryless at www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/podcast

Thanks for the ad-hoc music to Liosound / Walter Mobilio. Find his portfolio here: www.platformdesigntoolkit.com/music

Recorded on 27 January 2021.