#6 | Sunday reads for EMs
My favourite reads of the week to make your Sunday a little more inspiring.
👋 Hey, it’s Stephane. This is a new series in which every Sunday I share with you my favourite reads of the week. To accelerate your growth see: 50 Notion Templates | The EM’s Field Guide | CodeCrafters | Get Hired as an EM | 1:1 Coaching
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Thayer Method
tl;dr: This one's worth reading if you're tired of bad large meetings. The core insight: shift from "what should we present?" to "what should we work on together?" Pre-reading becomes mandatory, not optional, and meeting time gets used for actual problem-solving instead of information broadcasting. Key tactical move is starting meetings with silent review periods to force preparation accountability.
Leadership at scale: From chaos to empowerment
tl;dr: Great read for anyone managing multiple teams. The mental model shift here is "manage the system, not the people" - focus on outcomes rather than tracking work done, which tells you "everything and nothing". Practical framework: set guardrails and context, then let teams make local decisions. The biggest waste is excessive reporting that creates bottlenecks instead of flow.
Hard Things First
tl;dr: Excellence requires confronting difficult problems early, not hoping they'll resolve themselves later. The psychological insight is that teams build confidence and proper habits when they tackle hard parts upfront. Key leadership tool mentioned: thorough diagnosis before execution to identify real blockers. Simple but often overlooked - most project failures happen because teams avoid rather than address the challenging aspects early.
What async communication behaviors lead to better outcomes for software engineers
tl;dr: Research-backed insights on what actually makes async work effective. Counter-intuitive finding: "bursty" communication (concentrated activity in short periods) beats evenly distributed messages. Information diversity matters more than message volume, and team communication patterns predict success better than individual skill levels. Practical takeaway: create intentional collaboration windows rather than constant low-level chatter.
Underused Techniques for Effective Emails
tl;dr: Developer-focused email tactics that can actually reduce context switching in your org. I liked the "complete replies vs quick ones" concept - one thoughtful email beats eight back-and-forth messages that create 80 collective context switches. Bottom-line-up-front (BLUF) structure and the Markdown Here browser extension are immediately actionable. Thread-splitting discipline prevents the classic "why am I on this email?" problem.
The Pragmatic Engineer 2025 Survey: What's in your tech stack
tl;dr: Data on current tooling trends across 3,000+ engineers. Cursor's rapid rise to #2 IDE despite being only 2 years old is noteworthy. GitHub Copilot dominates at larger companies while smaller companies experiment more with alternative AI tools. JIRA remains the most-hated tool by far. Useful for benchmarking your team's stack against industry trends, but mostly observational rather than immediately actionable.
Most popular from last Sunday
How to delegate while maintaining high standards
What did you read recently that you would like to share?