Recognize your management wins

Recognize your management wins
5 minutes by Lara Hogan

Managers find it easy to name their mistakes but struggle to recognize their own wins. Big management wins often happen during hard times, like fixing unfair pay, helping someone change careers, or shifting team culture for the better. To spot your wins, Lara suggests to stay in touch with former reports and track their growth. When past teammates want to work with you again, that's a win worth celebrating.

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Exception, presence, delegation
16 minutes by John Cutler

John explores three key leadership approaches: exception, presence, and delegation. He explains how organizations work best when leaders balance data, direct involvement, and trust in teams. Using examples from companies like Ford, Airbnb, and Nvidia, John argues that today’s workplace problems—stress, overload, and weak coordination—come from relying too heavily on one approach while neglecting the others, especially during rapid AI-driven change.

Small actions spread: The science of the ripple effect
3 minutes by Andi Roberts

Helpful actions spread further than most people think. Research shows that one act of generosity can ripple through a social network up to three degrees, tripling in effect as it passes from person to person. People are wired to copy what they see, not what they are told, so visible behavior matters far more than policies or mission statements. Small steps are never truly small because every action sends a signal that shifts what others believe is normal.

Horizontal vs. vertical context switching for engineering managers
7 minutes by Dunya Kirkali

Context switching costs focus and time, but not all switches are equal. Moving between similar tasks like coding different features is costly but manageable. Shifting between entirely different modes of work, like going from debugging to a career conversation, forces your brain to fully reconfigure, and that penalty adds up fast. Grouping similar work into blocks, delegating recurring tasks, and using location as a mental cue all help reduce the damage.

Sense of urgency
3 minutes by Nikhil Basu Trivedi

Nikhil explains how a sense of urgency drives excellence across industries. Using Chef Thomas Keller and The French Laundry as an example, he shows that urgency is not about rushing results, but about discipline, focus, and consistent effort behind the scenes. Nikhil connects this mindset to entrepreneurship and innovation, arguing that the world’s top performers succeed because they move with purpose, adapt quickly, and constantly raise their standards.

And the most popular article from the last issue was:

• How to stay resilient in a difficult job