#233 – March 16, 2025
Exponential training and suboptimal standardization
Delegating Complex Tasks
6 minutes by Stay Saasy
In this article, the author discusses two effective methods for leaders to delegate complex tasks: "Exponential Training" and "Suboptimal Standardization." Exponential Training involves deeply training one person who then trains others, creating a growing pool of experts over time, while Suboptimal Standardization requires creating clear decision frameworks with quality control checkpoints.
AI developer tools are solving the wrong problem
sponsored by Unblocked
The biggest challenge in software development isn’t writing code. It’s having enough context to know what code to write. What you need is a way to find answers without having to search across a dozen tools or interrupt teammates.
How To Praise
7 minutes by Péter Szász
The potential of positive feedback and the framework to construct and deliver it, reinforcing the right behaviours to help individuals reach their full potential.
Cutting middle management is costing capacity for change
4 minutes by Katie Leonard
While cutting management layers creates short-term cost savings, it eliminates crucial functions like strategy translation, employee development, cross-team coordination, and problem-solving that are essential for long-term innovation and effectiveness.
What holds people back from questions and how to overcome it
7 minutes by Irina Stanescu
Fear of asking questions leads to misalignment, frustration, and preventable mistakes. Avoid asking questions from insecurity or attack and frame it with curiosity instead.
Wicked problems need an inter-disciplinary approach
14 minutes by Rob Lambert
Rob discusses how organizations tend to categorize employees into distinct disciplines and departments, creating silos that hinder solving complex business problems. He argues that "wicked problems" - systemic, interconnected challenges that cross functional boundaries - cannot be effectively addressed by single disciplines working in isolation. Bringing people together from different disciplines is an effective way to solve wicked problems.
Harmony: A practical solution for composability
sponsored by bit
Harmony is a minimalistic open-source library for composing highly performant and consistent platforms from independent business features. It empowers developers to seamlessly integrate API-centric features into shell applications while maintaining optimal user experience, performance, safety, and developer experience.
And the most popular article from the last issue was: