The hottest Management Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
Category
Top Business Topics

The Impact of One Great Leader

Fish Food for Thought • 26 implied HN points • 18 Feb 26
💼 Business Management
  1. A single clear sentence from a credible leader can reframe how someone sees themselves and send their career down a very different path.
  2. Powerful mentorship is often short and works by naming undervalued strengths, offering a new identity, and granting permission to act rather than giving long advice.
  3. Leaders should point out others’ potential because that recognition lowers barriers and compounds into bigger opportunities. People earlier in their careers should pay attention and act when a credible person reflects a new possibility for them.

How I'm Building My Business To Run Without Me

VERY GOOD PRODUCTIZED GUIDES • 179 implied HN points • 04 Jul 24
💼 Business Management
  1. Many business owners think their business can't run without them due to fear of losing quality. But with the right systems, it can thrive even in their absence.
  2. Bottlenecks come from controlling client communication and deliverables too tightly. Letting go and empowering others can free up time and improve efficiency.
  3. Creating clear processes and hiring help allows business owners to focus on growth. Shifting to scalable models can also help in generating consistent income.

Living Evil: Covid, Counter-Strike And An Unnecessary Rebranding

Richard Lewis • 1886 implied HN points • 28 Apr 23
🕹 Technology Management
  1. Evil Geniuses faced challenges during the Covid-19 pandemic with management disregarding safety protocols and putting staff at risk.
  2. The Counter-Strike team's decline was highlighted by poor management decisions and player dissatisfaction.
  3. An unnecessary rebranding at Evil Geniuses led to public ridicule and internal disapproval, showcasing a disconnect between management and staff.

High-performance engineering managers

Elevate • 1113 implied HN points • 09 Jan 24
💼 Business Management
  1. Effective managers have key traits that significantly impact employee performance, happiness, and retention, as proven by Google's Project Oxygen.
  2. Soft skills like coaching, communication, and support are more valued than technical expertise by employees, emphasizing the importance of emotional intelligence in management.
  3. Using rigorous people analytics, organizations can identify and develop high-impact management behaviors specific to their unique culture, leading to improved leadership and employee satisfaction.
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There's a whole lot of ugly out there when it comes to growth teams.

Elena's Growth Scoop • 904 implied HN points • 29 Jan 24
💼 Business Management
  1. The growth teams face systematic failures in the industry due to various issues like unclear growth fundamentals and bad strategic decisions from executives.
  2. Symptoms of a bad growth team include not focusing on monetization, neglecting retention, and obsessing over 'hacks' instead of building sustainable growth engines.
  3. To build a successful growth team, companies need to prioritize monetization, retention, and data-driven decision-making, and ensure alignment between departments for optimal results.

The Ownership Problem: Why We Get Territorial And What To Do About It

The Caring Techie Newsletter • 13 implied HN points • 24 Feb 26
🎭️ Culture Management
  1. Territorial behavior is treating parts of the work as yours to protect instead of yours to share; it shows up as shutting down ideas, hoarding knowledge, and funnelling decisions through one person.
  2. It usually stems from lack of trust, fear of losing control or job security, past bad experiences, or simply being overwhelmed.
  3. You can counter it by leading with curiosity, doing your homework, including owners early, and—if you’re the territorial one—engaging ideas, asking questions, being principled when you say no, and naming what you actually need. Unchecked territoriality slows teams and will be costlier as AI and generated code blur ownership.

The first principle behind "first principles"

Building the Builders • 11 implied HN points • 25 Feb 26
💼 Business Management
  1. First-principles thinking means digging down to the most fundamental truths of a problem and reasoning up from there. This uncovers causal forces and opportunities that surface-level assumptions miss.
  2. Ask basic, high-leverage questions about core needs or essential components instead of accepting proxies or industry norms. Those questions steer you toward different and often better solutions.
  3. Thinking from first principles is hard and risky and requires building your own observations and trusting your judgment. But it’s the path to original breakthroughs rather than just incremental tweaks.

People Frameworks

Fish Food for Thought • 36 implied HN points • 04 Feb 26
💼 Business Management
  1. Assume people are competent and mean well; instead of blaming, ask what made success hard and focus on clarifying expectations.
  2. Behavior usually has a backstory — look for constraints, patterns, and incentives rather than jumping to character judgments, and trust by default while verifying when needed.
  3. Treat failures as data for learning, not moral proof; ask whether a choice makes sense given the person’s information and constraints and fix systems or incentives accordingly.

On strategy, good and bad (mostly bad)

Simplicity is SOTA • 131 implied HN points • 15 Dec 25
💼 Business Management
  1. Good strategy is a clear, simple response to an important challenge: diagnose the core problem, pick a guiding policy, and specify coherent actions that people can actually implement.
  2. Bad strategy hides behind fluff, vague goals, or infeasible objectives and often fails because leaders avoid hard choices or rely on templates and positive thinking instead of confronting obstacles.
  3. You improve strategic skill by developing deep domain knowledge and design taste, practicing judgment (avoid myopia, question assumptions, and write down your reasoning), and honestly testing strong alternatives and pre-mortems.

Agency motivates more than perks

A Bit Gamey • 33 implied HN points • 08 Feb 26
💼 Business Management
  1. People are motivated more by trust, autonomy and ownership than by perks; give clear responsibility and freedom and they will invest effort and care.
  2. Heavy rules, measurement and presence-for-presence policies push people toward safe, explainable work and kill initiative. Visibility and checklists can look like control but often reduce real progress.
  3. Design for agency by pairing clear outcomes and context with freedom in method; boundaries, not micro‑rules, keep teams creative and resilient—especially as AI takes on rule-following.

📈 Copart

Compounding Quality • 727 implied HN points • 21 Jan 24
💰 Finance Management
  1. Copart is a successful company with a remarkable growth history.
  2. The company's management, led by Willis Johnson and Jay Adair, has been capable and invested in the company's success.
  3. Copart has a sustainable competitive advantage through network effects and economies of scale.

TBM 271: Diagnosing Your Company's Strategy Problem

The Beautiful Mess • 568 implied HN points • 10 Aug 25
💼 Business Management
  1. Companies struggle with strategy when people fail to share good information. Everyone needs to agree on the facts about customers and competitors to make smart decisions.
  2. It's important for everyone in a company to understand what game they're playing and what options they have. When there's confusion about this, it leads to disagreement and missed opportunities.
  3. Making decisions can be tough when options are limited. Companies often hold back from making bold moves because they fear the risks of change, so they keep trying many things without committing to one direction.

From 0 SEO experience to an agency

Kenny’s Sub • 179 implied HN points • 11 Jun 24
💼 Business Management
  1. To succeed, it's important to go all out and fully engage in your work. Learning from past experiences and caring about people can make business more enjoyable and rewarding.
  2. Staying committed to your daily routines helps maintain momentum. Missing a day is okay, but try not to miss two in a row to keep moving forward.
  3. Effective communication is key, especially in sales. By planning questions and being genuinely curious, you can connect better with people and help them achieve their goals.

How on earth do you replace Jürgen Klopp?

Grace on Football • 648 implied HN points • 31 Jan 24
🎾 Sports Management
  1. Liverpool's journey to find structural stability after Klopp's era began with a turbulent start due to a mistaken committee approach.
  2. The success of Liverpool's recent transfers is attributed to a clear structure under Klopp's direction with Edwards as a key figure.
  3. As Liverpool faces the departure of key personnel like Edwards and Schmadtke, the focus is now on finding a new sporting director to seamlessly fit into the existing system.

One list to rule them all

The Engineering Manager • 23 implied HN points • 13 Feb 26
💼 Business Management
  1. A single, stack-ranked list of priorities forces real focus and makes trade-offs visible, so you stop pretending everything is equally important.
  2. Multiple roadmaps and competing P0s create silos, spread engineers thin, and cause decision fatigue, which leaves work perpetually unfinished.
  3. Make a list of every initiative, force a strict one-to-n ranking with no ties, and use that list to guide staffing and the hard conversations about what to stop.

The NHS - Making it Better

Rory’s Always On Newsletter • 1230 implied HN points • 26 Oct 23
🏥 Health & Wellness Management
  1. Patients and healthcare practitioners have had similar experiences of delays and poor communication within the NHS.
  2. Minor software tweaks can lead to significant time and cost savings for the NHS.
  3. Driving change within the NHS requires incentives, a vision for improvement, and individuals committed to pushing through the changes.

A Scientist’s Guide to Debugging Engineers

Leading Developers • 81 implied HN points • 23 Dec 25
💼 Business Management
  1. An engineer's emotions and nervous system strongly shape their focus, productivity, and decision-making; feelings are useful signals that need attention.
  2. Small, concrete changes—like daily focus blocks, planning smaller scopes, and committing to finish what you plan—can break bad habits and rebuild confidence and reliability.
  3. Managers should listen for feelings and create psychological safety so engineers can share stress and fears; when leaders acknowledge those concerns, quality and productivity improve.

Where Steve Jurvetson Sees Dead Companies

The Geek Way • 399 implied HN points • 12 Mar 24
💼 Business Management
  1. Software proficiency is crucial in modern business - companies need to adapt and iterate quickly to stay competitive.
  2. Legacy companies face challenges in transitioning to modern software practices and may struggle to keep up with agile competitors.
  3. The 'geek way' of upgrading a company involves more than just technology - it extends to decision-making, culture, and overall organizational strategy.

Improving Servant Leadership

Polymathic Being • 47 implied HN points • 18 Jan 26
💼 Business Management
  1. Good leadership already includes both service and direction, so carving out a separate "servant" category is unnecessary and can encourage people to skip core leadership duties.
  2. Overemphasizing the "servant" label often produces passive-aggressive leaders who avoid giving direction, confronting problems, or taking responsibility, which creates confusion, delays, and erodes trust.
  3. The remedy is to simply be a balanced leader: serve your team while also setting direction, enforcing standards, making hard calls, and adapting your approach to context.

TBM 369: Sources Of Truth

The Beautiful Mess • 502 implied HN points • 27 Jul 25
💼 Business Management
  1. Many problems in product development aren't really about finding the 'truth.' Teams often struggle because they can't agree on what the truth is or if they even want to find it.
  2. Different groups in a company might have their own definitions and understandings of initiatives and goals, creating confusion. Trying to standardize everything can lead to teams working around rules instead of working effectively.
  3. While some companies simplify processes to make things easier, they can end up losing important details. It’s crucial to find a balance between understanding the complexity of the work and not getting overwhelmed by it.

Can new look Chelsea actually succeed?

Grace on Football • 982 implied HN points • 03 Sep 23
🎾 Sports Management
  1. Chelsea has undergone a significant squad overhaul with new signings and a new manager.
  2. There are concerns about Chelsea's financial compliance with UEFA's rules and the long-term sustainability of the club's investments.
  3. The success of Chelsea's revamped team depends on the performance and development of young players in a stable environment.

Psycho bosses will ruin us all!

Writing from London • 530 implied HN points • 24 Jan 24
💼 Business Management
  1. The prosecution of innocent postmasters by the Post Office was a grave miscarriage of justice.
  2. Facial recognition technologies and AI can perpetuate unjust beliefs, impacting society far beyond the UK.
  3. Successful managers are modest and consult with their staff, unlike dictatorial managers who insist on subservience.

Amorphous consulting

The Uncertainty Mindset (soon to become tbd) • 319 implied HN points • 27 Mar 24
💼 Business Management
  1. There are two types of consulting: concrete and amorphous. Concrete consulting is clear and focused on known problems, while amorphous consulting deals with unclear and complex issues.
  2. Amorphous consulting involves starting with open conversations to uncover hidden problems. The consultant learns about the organization’s inner workings that insiders often overlook.
  3. The true value of an amorphous consultant comes from asking the right questions and understanding what clients initially can't see. This helps clarify the scope of the work over time.

New year, new templates

The faintest idea • 599 implied HN points • 03 Jan 24
💼 Business Management
  1. Using visual tools like FigJam can help connect ideas better in meetings and projects. It's a fun way to share updates and collaborate.
  2. Templates for strategy, decision-making, and team management can make work processes smoother and more organized. They help you tackle big problems effectively.
  3. Regular 1:1 meetings are important for team development. They allow for thoughtful discussions and reflections on projects and career growth.

TBM 367: The Wicked "Big Picture" Loop

The Beautiful Mess • 489 implied HN points • 12 Jul 25
💼 Business Management
  1. Leaders want a simple, big picture, but teams often feel pressured to filter information. This leads to missed details and worries about slow progress.
  2. When the simplified approach fails, teams realize they need to show everything, exposing hard truths that can lead to chaos and missed deadlines.
  3. Finding a balance between strict discipline and flexible systems can help keep teams accountable and ensure issues are addressed before they escalate.

Using Microsoft Intune to Implement and Manage Security

Rod’s Blog • 535 implied HN points • 12 Jan 24
🕹 Technology Management
  1. Microsoft Intune is a cloud-based service to manage and secure devices in an organization.
  2. You can use Intune to enroll devices, create and assign security policies, and enhance security with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint.
  3. Monitoring device security status and alerts in Intune and Defender for Endpoint allows for better protection of devices and data.

The Family

Venture Prose • 1058 implied HN points • 12 Mar 23
💼 Business Management
  1. The Family organization had a lot of ambitious individuals and a strong sense of community, but struggled to find a sustainable business model.
  2. Despite the energy and enthusiasm within The Family, they faced challenges with loose processes, lack of focus, and poor accountability.
  3. Individuals within The Family, like Oussama, played significant roles in both the success and failure of the organization, showcasing the importance of leadership and responsibility.

Fred Smith Built a Great American Company. What Made Him Tick?

Common Sense with Bari Weiss • 524 implied HN points • 24 Jun 25
💼 Business Management
  1. Fred Smith came up with the idea for FedEx while at Yale, despite not doing well in school. He didn't let that grade stop him from building a huge company.
  2. FedEx changed how people expect deliveries with its promise of overnight shipping. Smith had to navigate many rules to make this vision a reality.
  3. As the internet grew, Smith adapted by expanding into ground shipping, helping FedEx stay strong against competitors like UPS and Amazon.

The Jeff Bezos Playbook

The Generalist • 1080 implied HN points • 13 Feb 25
💼 Business Management
  1. Be customer-obsessed, going above and beyond to meet their needs can lead to long-term benefits, even if it means sacrificing short-term profits.
  2. Always be willing to innovate and don't fear failure; it’s a crucial part of success in business.
  3. Sometimes, it's smart to work with your competitors for mutual benefit, as this can set you up for future advantages against them.

You need to neglect mostly everything to win big

Play Permissionless • 319 implied HN points • 18 Mar 24
💼 Business Management
  1. To win big, you only need to get a small number of things right and can afford to mess up everything else. This applies to both companies and individuals.
  2. Winning big often requires unlearning traditional schooling strategies and focusing on doing a great job at a few key aspects while neglecting the rest.
  3. Removing non-essential tasks and focusing solely on what helps deliver better and faster results can lead to significant improvements and ultimately winning big.

Jobs, jobs, jobs

Off to Lunch • 511 implied HN points • 16 Jan 24
💼 Business Management
  1. There is evidence of a weakening job market with a drop in wage growth and job vacancies.
  2. Despite the decline, current job numbers are still stronger than pre-Covid times.
  3. Recruitment firms are noticing a decrease in demand for their services, indicating a shift in the job market.

Speed Is Never Just Speed

Fish Food for Thought • 29 implied HN points • 28 Jan 26
💼 Business Management
  1. Speed is an outcome, not an order — it only appears when focus, collaboration, deliberate transformation, and psychological safety all work together.
  2. Earn the right to move fast by doing the hard basics first — narrow priorities, secure fundamentals, and only then expand into optionality.
  3. Make speed durable by designing systems and a culture of trust — rehearse decision-making under pressure and treat mistakes as learning so people can act without fear.

On Rules and Rulers.

The Future Does Not Fit In The Containers Of The Past • 46 implied HN points • 04 Jan 26
💼 Business Management
  1. True leadership comes from competence, realism, integrity, empathy, vulnerability and the ability to inspire — it’s about influence, not just a title. Rulers may have formal power but often rely on intimidation, inheritance or fear instead of those leadership behaviors.
  2. People use different internal rulers to measure success (money, family, creativity, peace, etc.), so understanding someone’s incentives helps predict and align behavior. Asking how they define success, how they’re evaluated, and how you can help makes cooperation easier.
  3. A few simple, enduring rules cover most of a good life: sleep and move, spend less than you earn and invest for the long term, find mentors and keep learning, and be grateful and true to your word. The real challenge is doing these consistently.

Execs on Eggshells: 'This Puts Us in a Weird Place'

The Ankler • 864 implied HN points • 31 May 23
💼 Business Management
  1. Executives are feeling awkward and unsure of how to engage with writers due to the WGA strike
  2. The strike is impacting the personal and professional relationships in the entertainment industry
  3. Communication about the strike is sensitive, with executives being cautious about what they say and not putting anything in writing