44. Forget ROI: The Ethical Case for Good Org Design

Описание: Is organizational design only worth doing if it improves ROI?

Most conversations about org design, workplace transformation, and change management get squeezed through the same narrow filter: prove the financial return, justify the investment, make the numbers work. But if work is something most people can’t opt out of, and where we spend the majority of our waking lives...then “it pays off” feels like a painfully low bar.

In this episode of At Work With The Ready, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin explore the ethical case for organizational design. They move beyond spreadsheets and profit metrics to ask bigger questions about leadership, power, transparency, compensation, and the human impact of broken systems. What do organizations owe the people who work inside them? Is better workplace design a moral responsibility — not just a financial strategy?

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Mentioned References:
—r/antiwork:   / antiwork  
—Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi and Flow: https://bookshop.org/p/books/flow-the...
—Target CEO comp package (note: New CEO’s comp package is roughly $16m, vs over $70m for the prior CEO in 2020): https://www.panabee.com/news/target-s...
—triple bottom line: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_...
—John Rawls and A Theory of Justice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Theor...

00:00 Check-In: What’s your energy like right now?
04:20 Divorcing doing what’s “good work” from ROI
08:55 A “good” experience is the exception rather than the rule
10:46 Protecting yourself isn’t “selling out”
16:49 Spending our attention on worthy things
23:26 Leadership vs. worker power disparity is broken
29:39 Ethically designed companies never are publicly traded
33:24 Principles and values of ethical orgs
44:18 Joy at work shouldn’t be nickled and dimed
48:33 Idea 1: Don’t accept performative change initiatives
51:22 Idea 2: Audit your existing principles and values
52:41 Idea 3: Don’t let leadership gaslight you into conforming
54:46 Wrap up: Leave us a review and share the show with a friend

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Season 9 - Episode 6
This episode originally aired on February 24th, 2026.

Sound engineering and design by Taylor Marvin of Coupe Studios: https://coupestudios.com