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Depthfinding

What is Depthfinding?

Depthfinding is a modern framework built for sensing threats and discovering opportunities.

Most leaders rely on decades-old “best” practices that treat their companies like aquariums: closed environments that are easy to predict, manipulate, and control. 

But companies aren’t aquariums. They’re oceans. They are complex and uncertain environments.

Inspired by real oceanographic terms, Depthfinding breaks down organizational challenges into four distinct yet interdependent zones, from the external marketplace to individual experience.

Navigating the zones

  • Icon representing The Sky zone — where external threats and opportunities are sensed.

    The Sky

    What’s changing around you and how will it affect your organization? This zone is where threats and opportunities are sensed in the environment.

  • Icon representing The Sunshine Zone — where visible organizational assets and structures live.

    The Sunshine Zone

    What are you trying to achieve? How will you know you’re making progress? This zone is where your organization’s visible assets and structures live.

  • Icon representing The Twilight Zone — where murky ways of working and experimenting are found.

    The Twilight Zone

    How are you working together to execute? This zone concerns how you work. It’s where you find murky ways of working and experimenting.

  • Icon representing The Midnight Zone — where invisible individual feelings and reactions live.

    The Midnight Zone

    How are people experiencing what’s happening at your organization? This zone is where invisible individual feelings and reactions live.

How does it work?
Diagram of The Ready's Depthfinding framework showing four zones: The Sky, The Sunshine Zone, The Twilight Zone, and The Midnight Zone, each representing a different layer of organizational awareness.

Depthfinding teaches you how to sense which zones you’re either over- or under-invested in. When you’re equipped with this full picture, you can navigate your organization with clarity.

Download the guide
ocean_DepthfidingWeb.jpg 
Who is it for?

Depthfinding is for those ready to guide their organization through complexity with greater ease and impact.

Ready to talk? 
Why now?

You can’t solve modern problems with outdated moves.

Your biggest challenges are cross-functional but your organization isn’t. Any strategy—from embracing AI, to choosing your next op model, to launching a new product—requires horizontal collaboration.

You’ve tried adding project, delivery, and change managers into the mix. Maybe you’ve hired a big consultancy to keep things on the rails. You’re task force- and design sprinted-out. The harder you work, the harder work gets.

That’s because the environment is changing faster than your strategy, and your strategy is changing faster than your organization. The longer your company survives and the bigger it gets, the wider those gaps grow.

90%

of senior executives say they failed to reach their strategic goals because of poor implementation.

77%

of professionals have experienced burnout in their current jobs.

Sources: “Closing the Gap.” Economist Intelligence Unit, 2017; “Workplace Burnout Survey.” Deloitte, 2018.

  • "The Ready’s expertise was invaluable in transforming our marketing organization’s operational challenges into opportunities. They helped us break down longstanding silos which dramatically improved cross-functional collaboration."

    — Senior Director, Technology

  • "Some of these things have been asks for five years and with The Ready we got it done in six weeks."

    — Vice President, Health Care

  • "You’ve shown us that if it’s safe to try, we should dive in and try it. I appreciate the guardrails you have given us, and the energy and thoughtfulness with which you guided us into unchartered but charter-able territory."

    — Senior Director, Public Sector

  • "Through The Ready’s guided approach to testing new operating models, we’ve improved the speed and quality of our decision-making and have greater clarity alignment around shared objectives."

    — Senior Director, Technology

Depthfinding is about creating healthy, high-performing, and sustainable organizations that can solve the next hundred challenges.

Explore more Depthfinding resources.

Dive into the organizational ocean with Rodney Evans.

Depthfinding — a miniseries from At Work with The Ready podcast.

At Work With The Ready presents Depthfinding.

In this podcast miniseries, Rodney Evans and Sam Spurlin walk you through The Ready’s framework for solving your trickiest organizational problems. Learn what Depthfinding can help you solve.

Listen now