The hottest Decision-making Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Business Topics

Insights from Peter Drucker's Iconic Book "The Effective Executive"

The Digital Leader Newsletter -- By John Rossman • 235 implied HN points • 20 Jul 23
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Being an effective executive is about managing yourself, not just others.
  2. Key practices for effective leadership include focusing on opportunities, not just problems, and running productive meetings.
  3. Decision-making involves understanding principles, making opinion-based choices, and following through with effective communication.

When Inner Knowing directs us in Ways that Make No Sense

The Leadership Lab • 177 implied HN points • 28 Nov 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Decision-making
  1. Integrity involves energetic wholeness, energy flow, congruence, and alignment, allowing for the full flow of energy and aliveness.
  2. Denying impulses can lead to complexity and drama in life, it's important to honor and confront our deepest wants.
  3. In decision-making, focus on learning about yourself and staying present in the process, moving beyond the idea of right or wrong answers.

In Pursuit of the Perfect Decision

The Breaking Point • 199 implied HN points • 29 Nov 23
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Perfect decisions are impossible to make, but it's worth pursuing better decisions.
  2. Having a great decision-making framework helps eliminate bad options and leaves us with good choices.
  3. Stressing about choosing the perfect option isn't necessary; focus on making a really good decision instead.

Leaving the Military: What I Learned

The Radar • 119 implied HN points • 29 Jan 24
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. In civilian life, don't expect people to understand or care about your military experiences. You are a new kid on the block.
  2. Be cautious of trust and mutual support in civilian teams. Not everyone has the same values and can work against you.
  3. Job security is different in the civilian world. Always be prepared for uncertainties and be mindful of stricter performance expectations tied to pay.
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TBM 278: The Power of Firsthand Experience

The Beautiful Mess • 793 implied HN points • 17 Mar 24
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Having firsthand experience is crucial in understanding product concepts, like observing failed launches or successful market fit.
  2. Seeing a team hit dead ends before succeeding can encourage more leeway for experimentation and resilience.
  3. Direct access to customers, effective team dynamics, and confronting false assumptions can greatly impact decision-making and product success.

goodhart in the youth club

Dan Davies - "Back of Mind" • 216 implied HN points • 26 Apr 23
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Decisions about people will always involve unique cases that don't fit neatly into data sets.
  2. Industrializing decision-making processes can be efficient but may introduce bias and fail to capture complex information.
  3. Including qualitative data like the impact of funding youth clubs in accounting systems requires careful consideration to avoid distorting measurements.

This Is The Most Important Thing We Can Build With AI

America 2.0 (by Gary Sheng) • 216 implied HN points • 05 Apr 23
🕹 Technology Decision-making
  1. A human-powered, AI-supercharged network is crucial to make collective decisions and bring about positive change.
  2. The bottleneck to effective coordination lies in the quality of input data in attempts to coordinate.
  3. An AI-powered civic information network can revolutionize our ability to understand collective desires and serve the community better.

Win the War, Lose the Battle

The Radar • 59 implied HN points • 09 Apr 24
💾 History Decision-making
  1. Firing military commanders without clear explanations can have significant strategic consequences and impact an organization's long-term success.
  2. The responsible exercise of authority is crucial for the best interest of military organizations and the importance of transparency in such decisions.
  3. Unwarranted firings can not only destroy individual careers but also detrimentally affect the entire organization and potentially alter the course of history.

Good value governance

The Uncertainty Mindset (soon to become tbd) • 119 implied HN points • 12 Jan 24
🇺🇸 U.S. Politics Decision-making
  1. There's a lot of uncertainty in today's world, not just risk. This means leaders need to understand how these two concepts differ to make better decisions.
  2. Mixing up uncertainty with risk can lead to poor choices and wasted resources. It's important to clarify what you're dealing with to avoid making mistakes.
  3. When leaders are clear about uncertainty, they can use their limited resources more effectively. Strategies that focus on uncertainty tend to be cheaper and work better than traditional risk management.

Some ways Software Engineers can 10x results with Bayesian Thinking [Math Mondays]

Technology Made Simple • 199 implied HN points • 13 Jun 23
🕹 Technology Decision-making
  1. Bayesian Thinking can improve software engineering productivity by updating beliefs with new knowledge.
  2. Bayesian methods help in tasks like prioritizing, A/B testing, bug fixing, risk assessment, and machine learning.
  3. Using Bayesian Thinking in software engineering can lead to more efficient and effective decision-making.

Bill vs. Ted

The Radar • 59 implied HN points • 03 Apr 24
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. In promotion processes, advocacy, arbitrariness, and detachment can influence outcomes, sometimes leading to the wrong candidate being chosen.
  2. The complexity and overbuilt nature of promotion processes can obscure the best candidate, favoring manipulation over merit.
  3. Balancing objectivity and fairness in promotions is crucial, as promoting the right people leads to positive organizational outcomes.

mastering group dynamics

Midnight Musings • 1 HN point • 20 Sep 24
🎭️ Culture Decision-making
  1. Effective group dynamics rely on creating a shared identity where group outcomes are prioritized over personal gains. This unity helps groups work better together.
  2. Good discussions should focus on factual observations rather than emotions or personal pride. This means everyone should feel equally invited to share their views, which leads to better decisions.
  3. Instead of competing to win arguments, groups should aim for collaboration and understanding. Keeping conversations calm and focused helps maintain positive group relationships.

TBM 229: Winnable and Unwinnable Games (Part 3)

The Beautiful Mess • 1110 implied HN points • 07 Jul 23
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Hierarchy creates a chain of communication in which information gets oversimplified as it moves up, leading to an unwinnable game
  2. Passing information up the chain results in details being shaped and possibly distorted based on audience and perceived urgency
  3. The ideal conditions for a 'good game' are challenged in scenarios where goals become unclear, feedback loops are long, and motivations are dwindled

A new strategy doesn't always have a happy ending

Ruben Ugarte's Growth Needle™ • 39 implied HN points • 07 May 24
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Starting a new strategy can be hard because it involves making tough emotional choices, not just doing more work.
  2. Leaders may need to make difficult decisions, like letting people go or stopping projects that aren't working, which can be challenging.
  3. Being honest among team members is really important to deal with these emotional decisions effectively.

7 proven mental models for engineering managers

Leading Developers • 218 implied HN points • 04 Feb 25
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Use mental models to help make better decisions as a manager. They can guide you to avoid mistakes and think more clearly.
  2. Consider the opposite of what you want to achieve. This helps in identifying what to avoid and improves decision-making.
  3. Always think about the long-term effects of your choices. It's important to consider not just what happens now, but what could happen later.

The Cure to Many Corporate Ills

The Digital Leader Newsletter -- By John Rossman • 176 implied HN points • 18 May 23
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Customer centricity is vital for businesses to succeed by focusing on customers' needs and expectations.
  2. Amazon's example shows the power of customer-centricity in driving innovation and improving customer experience.
  3. To become more customer-centric, businesses can start by defining what it means for them, exploring current examples, envisioning future scenarios, and drafting guidelines.

Testing Yourself

Points And Figures • 666 implied HN points • 27 Jan 24
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Trading in the pits required strong self-belief and comfort with risk
  2. Success in trading was highly psychological, combining self-confidence, quick decision-making, and adaptation
  3. Venture capitalists who take real risks and make markets are more likely to succeed

TBM 210: Just...

The Beautiful Mess • 1097 implied HN points • 01 Apr 23
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Beware of falling into the "just-ing" trap when facing complex problems - don't rush to simplistic solutions.
  2. Embrace the complexity of a problem before taking action - explore, capture, and then shift to gradual action.
  3. Create an environment that encourages exploring messy situations, making experiments safe, and learning from actions taken.

Leading Leadership Teams

Suzan's Fieldnotes • 78 implied HN points • 29 Jan 24
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Starting a business, focus on being a leader right from the beginning.
  2. Consider the layers of leadership, from individual roles to organizational dynamics.
  3. Be intentional about building a leadership team, hire thoughtfully and maintain a balance in team size.

The drunkard and the lady

inexactscience • 79 implied HN points • 23 Jan 24
📖 Philosophy Decision-making
  1. Having a vision can help you make significant progress in life. Instead of just wandering aimlessly, a clear goal can lead you to where you want to go.
  2. Without a direction, your progress will be limited and unpredictable. You might only cover a small distance instead of reaching your true potential.
  3. In life, it's important to develop a sense of direction. The more focused and goal-oriented you are, the further you'll move towards your aspirations.

Impact of 'noise' on assessing school shooting threats

School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports • 39 implied HN points • 15 Apr 24
🚌 Education Decision-making
  1. Noise is the unwanted variability in decisions made by different experts looking at the same information.
  2. Variability in assessing threats leads to inconsistency and high costs, such as locking down schools and deploying officers.
  3. Conducting noise audits can reveal inconsistencies in decision-making, highlighting the importance of understanding and reducing noise in evaluating school shooting threats.

Making Values More Valuable

PeopleStorming • 79 implied HN points • 17 Jan 24
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. When developing company values, focus on creating a behavioral strategy rather than aspirational identity markers.
  2. Effective values highlight difficult tradeoffs between important elements like speed and inclusion.
  3. Frame values using the formula 'We favor X over Y' to capture key tradeoffs and promote decision-making alignment.

The case for narrow utilitarianism

inexactscience • 99 implied HN points • 08 Dec 23
📖 Philosophy Decision-making
  1. Utilitarianism is about making choices that increase overall well-being and treats everyone equally. It's a way of thinking that encourages using data and math to improve lives.
  2. While utilitarianism sounds good, taking it too far can lead to poor decisions and people justifying bad behavior. It's important to recognize our own biases and limits.
  3. Narrow utilitarianism suggests we apply these ideas only in clear situations where we understand the problems well. It's better to stay focused and cautious rather than trying to force comparisons between very different choices.

Life on a Leash

The Common Reader • 992 implied HN points • 25 Feb 23
📖 Philosophy Decision-making
  1. Productivity in business relies on information flow, but this can limit autonomy and initiative.
  2. Corporate life is becoming more bureaucratic, hindering autonomy and fostering dissatisfaction.
  3. Organizational charts and technology influence autonomy in business, with a need to balance information flow and decision-making.

Moving Beyond System 1 and 2

Living Fossils • 19 implied HN points • 12 Nov 25
📖 Philosophy Decision-making
  1. System 1 thinking is quick and automatic, but it can lead to mistakes, especially if we don't take a moment to reflect before making judgments.
  2. People often react based on social cues rather than pure logic, which means they might prioritize fitting in over careful thinking.
  3. Our minds operate with different modules that are activated by specific situations, so we might not always be 'lazy'—we’re just responding to the context we find ourselves in.

Small multiplies

benn.substack • 485 implied HN points • 09 Feb 24
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Dan Campbell and the Detroit Lions have been aggressive in going for it on fourth downs
  2. Data can provide small advantages in decision-making, especially in frequent, low-leverage situations
  3. It's more effective to focus on doing what you're naturally good at and doing it consistently rather than constantly pursuing big data-driven optimizations

3 Ways to Make More Innovative Decisions

Ruben Ugarte's Growth Needle™ • 59 implied HN points • 06 Feb 24
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Innovative decisions are about thinking outside the box. They involve finding unique solutions to problems, rather than just solving them traditionally.
  2. Everyone makes many decisions daily, but not all are innovative. It's important to recognize the difference to encourage creativity in decision-making.
  3. Learning about your natural abilities can help improve your decision-making. Understanding what you're good at can lead to more innovative choices.

Reading the game

The Uncertainty Mindset (soon to become tbd) • 119 implied HN points • 20 Sep 23
📖 Philosophy Decision-making
  1. Most games are about taking risks rather than dealing with true uncertainty. In games, the rules and winning conditions are usually clear.
  2. Understanding the difference between risky situations and those filled with true uncertainty is important. Real-life problems, like climate change, involve a lot more unknowns.
  3. To get better at handling uncertainty, we should expose ourselves regularly to uncertain situations. This helps us learn and grow in a world that often feels unpredictable.

A 3-Part Series: Thriving Across the Worlds of Finance, Business, Data, and Technology

The Data Score • 118 implied HN points • 09 Aug 23
💼 Business Decision-making
  1. Problems in the fields of finance, business, data, and technology are becoming more interconnected and complex.
  2. There is a need to break down silos and create alignment among stakeholders to make more impactful decisions.
  3. Increasing overlap between business, data, and technology requires expertise from multiple domains to navigate high-risk environments.

Be in control

10x your mind • 119 implied HN points • 23 Mar 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Decision-making
  1. Being in control of our lives is crucial because decisions shape our future.
  2. The 10-10-10 framework helps in decision-making by considering how you'll feel in 10 mins, 10 months, and 10 years.
  3. The power of making the right decision lies within you, as each individual has a unique mindset and perspective.

Ten Useful Concepts

The Ruffian • 454 implied HN points • 20 Jan 24
🚌 Education Decision-making
  1. Vampire Problems involve big life decisions with little data to go on
  2. Legibility is about making societies understandable for rulers, but can overlook the important things
  3. Minus K represents the willful ignorance and avoidance of understanding oneself and others under stress