Brave New Work

Are You Ready to Reinvent Your Organization?

By: Aaron Dignan

Narrated by: Aaron Dignan

Length: 8 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

“This is the management book of the year. Clear, powerful, and urgent, it's a must-read for anyone who cares about where they work and how they work.” (Seth Godin, author of This Is Marketing)

“This book is a breath of fresh air. Read it now, and make sure your boss does, too.” (Adam Grant, New York Times best-selling author of Give and Take, Originals, and Option B with Sheryl Sandberg)

When fast-scaling startups and global organizations get stuck, they call Aaron Dignan. In this book, he reveals his proven approach for eliminating red tape, dissolving bureaucracy, and doing the best work of your life.

He’s found that nearly everyone, from Wall Street to Silicon Valley, points to the same frustrations: lack of trust, bottlenecks in decision making, siloed functions and teams, meeting and email overload, tiresome budgeting, short-term thinking, and more. Is there any hope for a solution? Haven’t countless business gurus promised the answer, yet changed almost nothing about the way we work? That’s because we fail to recognize that organizations aren’t machines to be predicted and controlled. They’re complex human systems full of potential waiting to be released. Dignan says you can’t fix a team, department, or organization by tinkering around the edges.

Over the years, he has helped his clients completely reinvent their operating systems - the fundamental principles and practices that shape their culture - with extraordinary success. Imagine a bank that abandoned traditional budgeting, only to outperform its competition for decades. An appliance manufacturer that divided itself into 2,000 autonomous teams, resulting not in chaos but rapid growth. A healthcare provider with an HQ of just 50 people supporting over 14,000 people in the field - that is named the “best place to work” year after year. And even a team that saved $3 million per year by cancelling one monthly meeting. Their stories may sound improbable, but in Brave New Work you’ll learn exactly how they and other organizations are inventing a smarter, healthier, and more effective way to work. Not through top down mandates, but through a groundswell of autonomy, trust, and transparency.

Whether you lead a team of 10 or 10,000, improving your operating system is the single most powerful thing you can do. The only question is, are you ready?

©2019 Aaron Dignan (P)2019 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

"I am now a convert. Aaron sums up all the crazy ideas about how to create teams and companies that maximize their potential by decentralizing their power - a once idealist notion that is now possible and essential. For a book that might start a revolution, it's surprisingly practical and undogmatic. There’s no fluff - it's all meat, and real news. I could think of dozens of people I know who I now want to read and study it." (Kevin Kelly, author of The Inevitable, and cofounder, Wired magazine)

"Human beings can’t thrive in a work culture that uses burnout and 'being always on' as proxies for dedication and success. In Brave New Work, Aaron Dignan shows us that, in fact, workplaces that empower people to take care of themselves are far more likely to deliver sustainable performance and happiness." (Arianna Huffington, Founder & CEO, Thrive Global)

"Complexity conscious. People positive. These words from Aaron’s book keep ringing in my ears as I work. He reframes the way we see companies and the way we see each other inside them, and gives us practical tools to transform ourselves and our environments. Whether you lead a company, work at one, or imagine yourself founding one someday, read this book immediately and start an evolution." (Miguel McKelvey, cofounder, WeWork)

lots of good points

this book had a lot of great ideas. and made me think about the way I work and how my organization works.

Must read / listen if you expect to succeed in the future

Hands down the best “business” book of the new millennium. Aaron’s clear and concise approach to explaining the pitfalls of our legacy work environments and how we can change is enlightening.

I Keep Coming Back To This

Aaron has assembled an extremely useful resource for challenging the way we work and finding more human approaches to performing as a team.

Must read! Highly enjoyed it

Work and organizations are failing us, this offers a promising alternative. Grab a copy today!

totally awesome!

amazing summary of where some us are and where all business needs to go. you will be inspired!

Let’s get going people!

Who couldn’t benefit from the advice in this book? Rethink what you’re doing and free up our your people for their best, most important, and socially beneficial work! I concur.

Putting work culture at the center

Aaron introduces a thoughtful approach to reorganizing work structure in a way that puts an organization's culture at the center. By developing work around the employee that empowers them to be strong customer advocates, Brave New Work illustrates how to get the most out your employees, stakeholders and ecosystem.

A practical guide to the future

The future is now and Brave New Work tells us how to navigate and succeed in business like no other book I’ve seen. Not sure where to start on future proofing your organization? Right here.

Simply Incredible

I’m applying a lot of what I’ve learned here towards my business that I’m working on ♥️

Very engaging

Best book I have read all year! So #1 out of 8 books, so far! this should be issued to all MBA students. depression rates will be much lowe.