Every week, we put together a list of our top 5 articles of the past week. Happy reading!
Spotify | An Emergent Organization Stowe Boyd (reading time: 8 minutes)
There’s certainly a lot of buzz around Agile management practices and in particular one organization that embodies these principles, Spotify. While I don’t believe that every company should try to emulate Spotify’s management principles, there is a lot to learn from what they do. This piece looks at what it means to be an emergent organization with a novel framework (entrepreneurial leaders, enabling leaders and architecting leaders).
You have Discovered Product/Market Fit. What about a Moat? Tren Griffin, 25iq (reading time: 11 minutes)
Tren Griffin is one of my favorite business authors and I regularly go back to his work to rediscover topics of interest. We’ve covered the concept of moats (aka: competitive advantage) on this newsletter several times. Tren’s take on the topic is the most on target. There is an obvious quantitative side to a moat (return on capital) but it’s the qualitative side that is the most fun to learn about.
Advantage Flywheels Future Blind (reading time: 2 minutes)
Another key concept of creating a competitive advantage is the notion of flywheels. This amazing post explains quite simply what a flywheel is and presents several well known company examples. Another useful addition to the framework is having multiple aspects to your flywheel.
The Management Strategy That Saved Apollo 11 Matthew Strom (reading time: 5 minutes)
We recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of the moon landing. This short post explores the nature of decision making that allowed the landing to happen. In particular, how can an organization make & accelerate decisions at the lowest levels.
An Overview of Visa Mine Safety Disclosures (reading time: 9 minutes)
A few months ago, we shared a wonderful post on the resilience of CostCo by an anonymous analyst. On this post, the analyst dives into Visa. It’s a brilliant overview of the company, its competitive strengths and outlook for the future. 80% of the world’s transactions are still done with cash which implies a massive growth opportunity.
