The hottest Management Substack posts right now

And their main takeaways
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Top Business Topics

Pub Landlord

Net Interest • 16 implied HN points • 29 Nov 24
💼 Business Hospitality Entrepreneurship Management Finance
  1. Buying a pub can be a great opportunity if you have the right team and concept. In this case, a popular chef and manager helped attract more customers.
  2. It’s important to adapt to market demands, like adding lodging to increase profits. This idea allowed them to earn more money alongside the pub's main offerings.
  3. Running a pub can lead to highs and lows, especially in the hospitality business. Success can come with great rewards, but challenges are always around the corner.

Great Leaders Don't Manage, They Conduct

Maestro's Musings • 52 implied HN points • 13 Sep 24
💼 Business Leadership Entrepreneurship Management Organization Innovation
  1. Great leaders act like conductors in an orchestra, guiding their teams with a clear vision and making sure every part works in harmony. They don’t just manage from a distance; they stay involved and connected.
  2. The concept of 'Founder Mode' emphasizes that founders should understand every aspect of their company and focus on what truly matters. This helps them lead effectively without getting lost in many details.
  3. Maestro's mission is to empower leaders and employees alike to see how their work fits into the bigger picture. When everyone understands their role, the whole team can perform better together.

When Creatives Quit

The Intersection • 217 implied HN points • 27 Aug 23
💼 Business Management Creativity Career development Employment Leadership
  1. Quitting can be a complex decision, especially for creatives tied to visas or seeking new challenges.
  2. As managers, it's important to listen and not react immediately when creatives want to quit.
  3. Offering value beyond monetary incentives, nurturing like flowers, and accepting when it's time to let creatives go are key to managing a creative team.
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The collapse of Alibaba’s New Retail? - Part 1: Shopping Malls & Home Furnishing

Tech Buzz China Insider • 79 implied HN points • 15 Mar 24
💼 Business Retail Investments E-commerce Management
  1. Alibaba's New Retail initiatives, including offline investments, are facing challenges and potential failures.
  2. The focus on consumption upgrade led Alibaba to miss the shifting consumer trends towards practical and inexpensive purchases, affecting their strategies.
  3. There is a shift within Alibaba towards returning to prioritizing online business, user experience, and supporting small and medium businesses once again.

dancing martial arts masters of the bicycle factory

Dan Davies - "Back of Mind" • 216 implied HN points • 31 May 23
💼 Business Management Organization Restructuring Production Assembly
  1. Assembling a folding bicycle involves over a thousand components and skilled bike builders for final assembly.
  2. Piecework payment system led to highly skilled assemblers who could work at incredible speeds.
  3. Transitioning to a production line system from piecework can be culturally disruptive and challenging, impacting the identity and skills of employees.

Datadog, Inc. Investment Thesis

The Wolf of Harcourt Street • 459 implied HN points • 14 Apr 23
💰 Finance Investment Revenue Management Risks Opportunities
  1. Datadog is a leading company in cloud-based monitoring, with a diverse customer base and a focus on R&D for innovation and growth.
  2. The cloud monitoring industry is dynamic, with risks like disruption from new technologies and increased competition, but Datadog's market leadership positions it well to benefit from industry growth.
  3. Datadog utilizes a 'Land and Expand' strategy, showing potential for growth as businesses continue to adopt cloud computing technology, offering opportunities for revenue expansion and market share increase.

Tencent CEO Pony Ma's speech at the firm's annual staff meeting

Ginger River Review • 98 implied HN points • 12 Feb 24
💼 Business Technology Finance Media Management AI
  1. Tencent CEO discussed the future of key business segments like WeChat, AI, Platform and Content Group, Cloud and Smart Industries Group, and games.
  2. Internal management and leadership were emphasized, advocating for a return to product experience and detailing strategic approaches for growth.
  3. Focus was placed on global expansion in the gaming industry, the importance of employee morale, signifying revolutionary changes in Tencent's business approach.

How Yasir Al-Rumayyan Became The Most Powerful Person In Sports

Huddle Up • 19 implied HN points • 20 Nov 24
🎾 Sports Management Finance Culture Politics Economics
  1. Yasir Al-Rumayyan has become a key figure in sports, connecting with major players like FIFA's president and Tiger Woods. His influence helps him shape decisions in various sports leagues.
  2. Saudi Arabia is using its wealth to expand into sports, with its state-controlled oil company making huge profits. This financial power supports the country's long-term growth strategy.
  3. Al-Rumayyan's rise shows how money and relationships can create significant influence in global sports, impacting leagues like UFC, Formula 1, and soccer.

Platform Papers 2023 Year in Review

Platform Papers • 139 implied HN points • 19 Dec 23
💼 Business Research Marketing Economics Management
  1. 2023 had a record number of articles on platform competition research, with a 16% increase from the previous year.
  2. Marketing articles in platform competition research saw significant growth, accounting for 27% of published articles in 2023.
  3. The main themes in platform competition research covered network effects, platform pricing, winner-takes-all dynamics, and ecosystem governance, highlighting the impact of platforms on their ecosystems.

Vitamins and painkillers — or remedy?

The Jolly Contrarian • 119 implied HN points • 12 Jan 24
💼 Business Management Strategy Consulting Technology Legal
  1. Business offerings can be classified as painkillers (address immediate problems) or vitamins (guard against problems over time).
  2. Painkillers may provide quick revenues, but vitamins are stickier, build better relationships, and offer stable income over the long term.
  3. In the legal operations world, the focus should be on diagnosing and providing practical advice, rather than just masking problems or offering generic solutions.

When Orgs Become Siloed

Suzan's Fieldnotes • 98 implied HN points • 09 Feb 24
💼 Business Leadership Organizational Culture Teamwork Management
  1. Leadership is a shared experience, not an individual effort. A siloed leadership team can lead to a siloed organization. To shift organizational behavior, start at the leadership layer.
  2. Signs of a siloed culture include individualism, rise of 'poop umbrellas', influence behind closed doors, and apathy turning into fear. These signs can lead to missed business goals and a slipping company culture.
  3. Siloed cultures often form unintentionally due to tough market conditions, organizational changes, focus on individual parts instead of the system, and lack of intentional culture. Realignment starts by rallying the team around shared objectives, identifying desired team culture, and rewarding desired values.

How Scott Boras Became The Most Powerful Agent In Sports

Huddle Up • 22 implied HN points • 11 Nov 24
🎾 Sports Athletes Contracts Negotiations Management
  1. Scott Boras is known as the most powerful sports agent in the industry. He has a reputation for making big deals for his clients.
  2. Juan Soto's decision to turn down a massive $440 million contract surprised many. People thought it was a risky move for a young player.
  3. Negotiating big contracts in sports is complex. It's about more than just money; it's about career strategy and future opportunities.

How we built a business out of recession - chapter 24 - a series of unfortunate events

The ZIPster • 26 implied HN points • 08 Nov 24
💼 Business Entrepreneurship Startups Finance Management Challenges
  1. Starting a business can be tough, especially when facing constant challenges. It's important to stay focused and adapt to changing situations as they arise.
  2. Making mistakes is part of the learning process in business. Recognizing and addressing them helps avoid repeating the same errors.
  3. Building good relationships with banks and financial partners is crucial for success. Gaining their trust can help secure the necessary funding to grow the business.

Output vs. Outcomes - Problem #4

Fish Food for Thought • 17 implied HN points • 27 Nov 24
💼 Business Management Strategy Product Development Performance Metrics Corporate culture
  1. It's important to focus on outcomes, not just outputs. Companies should ask themselves if their efforts really make a difference for customers.
  2. Measuring success by outputs can lead to short-term wins but might miss real problems. Companies should aim for quality and value instead of just quantity.
  3. Shifting to an outcome-driven approach means redefining success metrics. Businesses should prioritize customer satisfaction and engagement over just the number of tasks completed.

🦜CD PROJEKT RED: Understanding CDPR, The Paradigm Shift Epic 📚📖 - This 'Cyberpunk' Is Laying The Groundwork for '2077'! (Part 1/2)

Value Investing Substack • 196 implied HN points • 15 May 23
💼 Business Investing Gaming Acquisition Management Industry Analysis
  1. CD Projekt Red faced challenges similar to American Express' Salad Oil Scandal, but their Big Gaming moats could offer a favorable risk-reward balance.
  2. The botched release of Cyberpunk 2077 raised questions about third-party negligence and customer response, but only 2% requested refunds.
  3. CD Projekt Red is aiming for transformation by adopting industry standards and potentially entertaining acquisition offers, while maintaining large insider ownership.

Duct Tape

Lessons • 196 implied HN points • 05 Apr 23
💼 Business Leadership Management Team Building Hiring Organization
  1. Building a team after finding success is like patching holes in a leaky bucket.
  2. Prioritize hiring anchor leaders based on long-term importance and areas where duct tape won't suffice.
  3. Use duct tape solutions like interim leaders to fill temporary gaps while focusing on key leadership searches.

Why your Leadership team needs a candid self-assessment

The Leadership Lab • 196 implied HN points • 30 Mar 23
💼 Business Leadership Management Self-assessment Team Dynamics Feedback
  1. Assessing your leadership team is crucial, as it impacts the overall success of the company.
  2. Conduct a candid self-assessment with your leadership team, focusing on good questions and embracing candor.
  3. Regularly assessing and addressing improvement areas within the leadership team can significantly boost a company's performance.

Vitamin A for Engineering Teams: Dogfooding your product

The Healthy Engineering Leader • 39 implied HN points • 13 May 24
💼 Business Management Team Building Product Development Leadership User Experience
  1. Vitamin A is important for clear vision, similar to how understanding customer needs helps engineering teams succeed. It helps teams develop a better grasp of their products.
  2. Dogfooding means team members use and test their own products. This practice helps catch bugs and fosters a deeper connection with the user experience.
  3. To promote dogfooding, leaders should encourage testing, celebrate contributions, and refine the process. This creates a culture of empathy and accountability within the team.

Weekly Notes

Rethinking Software • 99 implied HN points • 07 Oct 24
🕹 Technology Software Remote work Management Collaboration Innovation
  1. Different voting strategies can impact both worker democracies and government systems. It’s interesting to see how this science is evolving, especially in companies without managers.
  2. Nature has unique ways of organizing itself which can inspire how we think about teamwork and collaboration. Reading about these ideas can spark new ways of working.
  3. Management often sticks to the status quo with common excuses. It's important to question these justifications to improve work and foster innovation.

Engineering teams are like ADHD brains

peoplefirstengineering • 17 implied HN points • 27 Nov 24
🕹 Technology Software Management Team Dynamics Productivity
  1. Engineering teams have high cognitive load, just like ADHD brains. Both need to manage a lot of information at once, which can be overwhelming.
  2. Interruptions can hurt focus for both ADHD individuals and engineering teams. Managing distractions is crucial for getting work done effectively.
  3. Breaking down tasks helps both ADHD individuals and engineers. Smaller tasks make big projects feel less overwhelming and more manageable.

Blame the Crew

Gordian Knot News • 190 implied HN points • 01 Mar 24
💼 Business Management Construction Regulation
  1. In industries like shipping and nuclear power, there is a tendency to blame the crew or contractors for mistakes rather than holding the owners or regulatory systems accountable.
  2. There is a disparity in performance between building coal plants and nuclear plants, with the nuclear contractor performance often not meeting expectations.
  3. The main difference in performance is attributed to the regulatory system rather than any lack of special technical skills in building nuclear plants.

Hiring Agile Coaches

It Depends / Nimble Autonomy • 19 implied HN points • 30 Jun 24
💼 Business Management Leadership Human Resources Coaching Agile development
  1. Agile coaches play an important role in helping teams improve their processes. A good coach can guide teams to recognize their own mistakes and improve without directly fixing their problems.
  2. When hiring agile coaches, it's essential to look for candidates with a solid background in product development and broad knowledge of agile methods. This experience helps them understand the 'why' behind agile practices.
  3. Building a successful agile coaching practice should start small, hiring one coach at a time. This allows the coach to establish what the role means in the organization before adding more coaches.

A Kick in the Teeth

The Radar • 59 implied HN points • 29 Mar 24
💼 Business Management Compensation Leadership Organizational Culture Employee Relations
  1. Amazon shocked managers with a pay freeze despite record profits and successful quarters, damaging trust and morale.
  2. The pandemic revealed the dedication of Amazon managers, who now feel undervalued due to frozen pay based on share price fluctuations.
  3. Amazon's leadership actions risk eroding trust and confidence, raising questions about their motives, behaviors, and commitment to mutual benefit.

Managing Inside Growing Companies

Lessons • 176 implied HN points • 21 Feb 23
💼 Business Management Leadership Startups Growth Teamwork
  1. Managers inside growing companies need to accept that change is constant, and it's important to focus on facilitating the process of finding solutions rather than having all the answers.
  2. It's okay for managers to acknowledge and accept the things they cannot control, and instead, focus on what they can control to set their team up for success.
  3. Helping people on your team grow and learn is a crucial aspect that managers can control and should prioritize in a growing company environment.

The Satisfaction of Paying Bills

Kamui Whisky Newsletter • 176 implied HN points • 30 Sep 23
💼 Business Entrepreneurship Finance Startups Management Economics
  1. Paying bills can bring a deep sense of satisfaction, especially after overcoming financial hurdles in a startup.
  2. Paying invoices quickly can have a positive impact on relationships with contractors, small businesses, and vendors.
  3. Prioritizing timely payment of invoices and bills is not only responsible but can also be a rewarding practice.

These boots are made for strappin'

Top of the Lyne • 176 implied HN points • 20 May 23
💼 Business Entrepreneurship Marketing Growth Management Startup
  1. In a competitive marketplace, being a late entrant can provide advantages like already solved product-market fit and the ability to focus on differentiation.
  2. Being an outsider in the industry can offer unique perspectives, broaden market focus, and lead to unexpected advantages in customer base.
  3. Successful growth strategies for startups include setting clear goals, charging for the product to get valuable feedback, and optimizing marketing tactics for maximum impact.

✨ Constellation Software - Rolling Up Vertical Market Software

Overlooked by Alexandre Dewez • 176 implied HN points • 13 Mar 23
💼 Business Management Acquisitions Culture Data-driven
  1. Constellation Software is a Canadian company that has achieved success by acquiring vertical market software businesses
  2. The key ingredients behind Constellation Software's success include a decentralized culture, disciplined M&A strategies, and strong fundamentals in the businesses they acquire
  3. Vertical Market Software businesses have strong fundamentals, are mission-critical, face low competition, and are capital-efficient

Is the Data Orchestration category going away?

The Orchestra Data Leadership Newsletter • 39 implied HN points • 04 May 24
🕹 Technology Data Orchestration Software Infrastructure Control Management
  1. Data Teams still prefer classic open source tools over workflow orchestration functionality on Data and AI platforms.
  2. The Data Orchestration category might be fading as orchestration becomes embedded in other platforms and pricing becomes a concern.
  3. A robust system of control and management for data and AI pipelines is vital, encompassing aspects like alerting, lineage, metadata, infrastructure, and multi-tenancy support.

RDEL #25: How can engineering managers improve the OKR and goal setting process?

Research-Driven Engineering Leadership • 99 implied HN points • 15 Jan 24
💼 Business Management Teamwork Strategy Communication Data
  1. Improving the OKR process can enhance team development by focusing on effective goal setting methods.
  2. Investing in data quality and transparency and promoting communication can address challenges in working with others and ensuring alignment on goals.
  3. Striving for consistency, promoting learning communities, and guiding teams in OKR implementation can lead to successful adoption and use of OKRs across the organization.

Don't ignore the neon signs in your organization

Ruben Ugarte's Growth Needle™ • 59 implied HN points • 19 Mar 24
💼 Business Management Strategy Organizational Change Leadership Business Growth
  1. It's important to notice when something isn't working in your organization. Ignoring these signs can prevent progress and improvement.
  2. Sometimes organizations stick to a plan just because they believe hard work will eventually pay off. This can lead to repeated failures instead of trying new approaches.
  3. Listening to small, offhand comments can reveal bigger problems. These 'neon signs' can show the need for a change in strategy or direction.

Intellectual Laziness

MD&A • 404 implied HN points • 04 Jul 23
💼 Business Finance Management Strategy Corporate culture Accounting
  1. Intellectual laziness can lead to catastrophic corporate failures, as seen in the case of GE and SVB.
  2. Managers who prioritize manipulating short-term earnings over creating long-term shareholder value are intellectually lazy.
  3. Intellectual rigor is essential in identifying underrated managers and avoiding overrated ones.

How I Transitioned from Individual Contributor to Manager -- Twice

The Uncommon Executive • 59 implied HN points • 17 Mar 24
💼 Business Management Career growth Professional development
  1. Moving from an individual contributor to a manager role can be challenging, especially in product management where prior management experience is often required.
  2. Key factors for transitioning to a management position include being a high-performer, having influence across the organization, and the presence of a business need for a manager.
  3. Securing sponsorship, networking effectively, and identifying the right mentor or manager to learn from are crucial steps in transitioning to a management role.