Weekly Pulse is content curation and highlights from readings, books, podcasts, insights, ramblings, and other interesting things I discovered and digested during the week.
So, let's go with some discoveries from the week!
#1 - How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight
#2 - How to Turn Everyday Stress Into Optimal Stress
#3 - Who Has the Next Big Idea
#4 - Responses to Disruptive Strategic Innovation
#5 - Your Approach to Hiring Is All Wrong
#6 - The Internet of Things (IoT)
#7 - Book Notes: Agile Software Engineering - Orit Hazzan and Yael Dubinsky
How Management Teams Can Have a Good Fight
Source: Harvard Business ReviewAuthor: Kathleen M. Eisenhardt, Jean L. Kahwajy, and L.J. Bourgeois III
Year: 1999
Summary: Top-level managers know that conflict over issues is natural and even necessary. Management teams that challenge one another’s thinking to develop a more complete understanding of their choices, create a richer range of options and make better decisions. But the challenge–familiar to anyone who has ever been part of a management team–is to keep constructive conflict over issues from degenerating into interpersonal conflict.
3 Highlights:
"... Constructive conflict helps teams make high-stakes decisions under considerable uncertainty and move quickly in the face of intense pressure — essential capacities in today’s fast-paced markets...."
"... The key? Mitigate interpersonal conflict. Most conflicts take a personal turn all too soon..."
"... Arm yourselves with a wealth of data about your business and your competitors. This encourages you to debate critical issues, not argue out of ignorance..."
How to Turn Everyday Stress Into Optimal Stress
Source: McKinseyAuthor: Jan Ascher and Fleur Tonies
Year: 2021
Summary: Here’s a medical fact: there is nothing inherently negative about the physiological side of stress. It is a hormonal jolt of adrenaline and cortisol brought on by our sympathetic nervous system that gives us a boost of physical energy and mental focus to confront an actual or perceived threat. In a normal stress response, when the threat passes, the heightened state is followed by calming effects of our parasympathetic nervous system, a natural brake returning us to a state of recovery and rest. Our body and mind calm, we restore our resources, and we prepare for the next challenge.
3 Highlights:
"... tress gives us the physical energy and mental focus we need to respond to important situations. Stress in itself isn’t bad, but when we manage it badly, fail to seek help—or both—we suffer in wide-ranging ways..."
"... Too often, however, we don’t calm down but continue to experience stressors without the restorative effects of a normal stress response..."
"... Managed well, stress can be an ally rather than an enemy. Here’s how to use it to your advantage..."
Who Has the Next Big Idea
Source: Fast CompanyAuthor: Daniel Pink
Year: 2001
Summary: The tale goes like this: In the early 1990s, many American businesses had lost their way and began seeking salvation. Prophets appeared with the answers. Beware incremental improvements, they warned. Redemption — and higher share prices — depended on fundamentally rethinking and radically redesigning the core processes of every business.
3 Highlights:
"... The Next Big Thing that will dominate business discourse for the coming decade is the destruction of walls between enterprises..."
"... Discipline, structure, repeatability. Say it loud, and say it proud. Reengineering, like religion, begins with first principles. But it endures through faith..."
"... The new leader must be a charismatic persuader, someone to whom others can relate, a person who can set sights higher than the next quarter’s earnings report. Such leaders, he says, aren’t cold and distant. They have a sense of “empathic identification..."
Responses to Disruptive Strategic Innovation
Source: MIT Sloan Management ReviewAuthor: Constantinos D. Charitou and Constantinos C. Markides
Year: 2003
Summary: Disruptive strategic innovations are not necessarily superior to the traditional ways of competing, nor are they always destined to conquer the market. Rushing to embrace them can be detrimental for established companies when other responses, including ignoring the innovation, make more sense.
3 Highlights:
"... Every organization needs to determine its own specific response according to the unique circumstances facing it..."
"... The idea that established competitors have the option of embracing somebody else’s disruptive innovation and growing it into a mass-market is neither new nor novel..."
"... The leading companies were facing a dilemma: Their attackers utilized strategies that were both different from and in conflict with their own. Thus, if the established companies were to respond by adopting the strategies of their attackers, they would run the risk of damaging their existing business and undermining their existing strategies. However, they couldn’t simply ignore the disruptions. What, then, was an appropriate response?..."
Your Approach to Hiring Is All Wrong
Source: Harvard Business ReviewAuthor: Peter Cappelli
Year: 2019
Summary: Businesses have never done as much hiring as they do today and have never done a worse job of it, says Peter Cappelli of Wharton. When applications come, software sifts through them for keywords that hiring managers want to see. Vendors offer an array of smart-sounding tools that claim to predict who will be a good hire—but whether they produce satisfactory results is unknown.
3 Highlights:
"... The rise of data science–driven algorithms to find and assess job candidates is promising because they are not constrained by prior theory and results, but worrying because data scientists seem to know so little about the context of employment..."
"... It’s impossible to get better at hiring if you can’t tell whether the candidates you select become good employees. If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will take you there..."
"... Organizations that don’t check to see how well their practices predict the quality of their hires are lacking in one of the most consequential aspects of modern business..."
The Internet of Things (IoT)
Source: William Meller - New articleSummary: The Internet of things (IoT) describes physical objects that connect and exchange data with other systems over the Internet. The precious thing here is that now we can collect this large amount of data (non-personal), bring some Data Science to the conversation, and predict healthcare concerns in a population or a trend in terms of risk to human health.
3 Highlights:
"... In this hyperconnected world, digital systems can record, monitor, and adjust each interaction between connected things..."
"... By means of low-cost computing, the cloud, big data, analytics, and mobile technologies, physical things can share and collect data with minimal human intervention..."
"... Now that we can connect everyday objects to the internet via embedded devices, seamless communication is possible between people, processes, and things..."
Book Notes: Agile Software Engineering - Orit Hazzan and Yael Dubinsky
Source: William Meller - Book Notes
This book presents a complete software engineering course from the agile approach in a holistic and comprehensive learning environment that fits both industry and academia.
The book is based on the authors’ comprehensive experience of teaching and implementing agile software development over the past six years. A course on agile software engineering has been shaped during these years, in an iterative process that was accompanied by an ongoing research project. This course is presented in this book. In parallel to the course creation and shaping process, the agile approach has emerged and spread, becoming one of the worldwide mainstream approaches for software project management.
I am incredibly grateful that you have taken the time to read this post.
Your support and engagement mean the world to me, and I truly appreciate your interest in the topics I write about.
I hope that you have found this post informative, educational and engaging.
If you are interested in reading more of my work, please visit other articles here on the website.
I promise to continue providing valuable and high-quality content for your enjoyment and education.
Thank you again for reading and I hope to see you soon!
You can check out the article below to learn how I organize my reading:
There are even more good things I've prepared for you!
Subscribe below or click here to receive new posts in your Email!
Do you want to read some book notes and recommendations? Discover more here!
Do you want to have amazing weekly content curation? Discover more here!
Ready to make a positive impact?
Support my work by sharing my content with your network.
Your simple act of kindness can reach new heights and help spread valuable information.
Want to show your support in a tangible way? A virtual coffee is a small but mighty way to show your appreciation and give me the extra energy to keep crafting valuable content!
