High Output Management, written by Andrew S. Grove (a renowned Silicon Valley executive and Intel co-founder), offers practical insights and advice on managing successful organizations. First published in 1983, the book remains relevant today and covers a wide range of topics, including productivity, decision-making, communication, team building, and adapting to technological changes. The book's lessons and principles apply to any industry or organization. It’s essential reading for anyone responsible for managing people or organizations, from first-time managers to experienced executives. It provides a foundation for effective leadership and management, emphasizing the importance of continuous improvement and adaptation in a rapidly changing business environment. Andrew S. Grove was a highly distinguished figure in the tech industry, known for his visionary leadership and contributions to the field of technology. He was named Time Magazine's Man of the Year in 1997 and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005 for his contributions to the industry. Grove's legacy lives on through his writings and the impact he had on the tech industry.
All production flows have a basic characteristic: the (raw) material becomes more valuable as it moves through the process.
The key principle is to reject the defective "material" at its lowest-value stage.
A common rule we should always try to heed is to detect and fix any problem in a production process at the lowest-value stage possible. e.g. Find and reject the rotten egg as it's being delivered from the supplier or rejecting the candidate at the phone interview stage rather than the onsite.
Trend Indicators: output measured against time.
Indicators can be a big help in solving all types of problems.if something goes wrong, you will have a book of information that readily shows all the parameters of your operation, allowing you to scan them for unhealthy departures from the norms.
Stagger Chart: Used to get a feel for future business trends (forecasting).
It is a good idea to use stagger charts in both manufacturing and sales forecasts. They will show the trend of change from one forecast to another, as well as the actual results. By repeatedly observing the variance of one forecast from another, you will continually pin down the causes of inaccuracy and improve your ability to forecast both orders and the availability of product.
Focus on vital, measurable indicators of output. It becomes very difficult to distinguish between output and activity. Stressing output is the key to improving productivity, while looking to increase activity can result in just the opposite.
If you either enter the decision-making stage too early or wait too long, you won't derive the full benefit of open discussion. The criterion to follow is this: don't push for a decision prematurely.
Make sure you have heard and considered the real issues rather than the superficial comments that often dominate the early part of a meeting.
But if you feel that you have already heard everything, that all sides of the issue have been raised, it is time to push for a consensus—and failing that, to step in and make a decision. Sometimes free discussion goes on in an unending search for consensus. But, if that happens, people can drift away from the near consensus when they are close to being right, diminishing the chances of reaching the correct decision. So moving on to make the decision at the right time is crucial.
Like other managerial processes, decision-making is likelier to generate high-quality output in a timely fashion if we say clearly at the outset that we expect exactly that. In other words, one of the manager's key tasks is to settle six important questions in advance:
Manage short-term objectives (Objectives) based on long-term plans (Key Results): OKRs.
As you formulate in words what you plan to do, the most abstract and general summary of those actions meaningful to you is strategy. What you'll do to implement your strategy is your tactics.
Much confusion exists between what is strategy and what is tactics.
As organizations get larger, decisions are constantly being made on whether to centralize functions for consistency and greater leverage (functional organizations) or to keep them decentralized for greater speed and responsiveness (mission-oriented organizations).
Functional organizations (e.g. “Recruiting”, “Finance”, “Human Resources”) offer leverage by centralizing services to deliver benefits to an entire enterprise, rather than a subset. The trade-off is increased complexity and delay in managing requests from business units.
In contrast, mission-oriented organizations (e.g. “Component Business Group”, “Systems Business Group”) are decentralized and pursue objectives largely independent of other parts of the enterprise, trading-off leverage for speed (closer proximity to customers and faster time to react). Speed is the only benefit to mission-oriented organizations, in all other cases functional organizations are superior. The exception is conglomerates, when high diversity in business goals makes functional teams impractical.
Dual reporting increases both leverage and speed. Invented at NASA as “matrix management” individuals in dual reporting structures have managers in both mission-oriented and functional teams (e.g. A financial controller reports to both the Division Manager and the Director of Finance). While dual reporting creates complexity, the cost of complexity is outweighed by the benefits of operating in both functional and mission-oriented teams.
When Complexity, Uncertainty and Ambiguity (“CUA”), is low, a team’s performance is influenced by expectations (via role definitions, setting objectives, checking-in and reviewing performance).
When CUA is high, behaviour is influenced by cultural values (as articulated and exemplified by the manager). Managers need to choose which mode to use depending on context.
The single most important task of a manager is to elicit peak performance from his subordinates.
A manager has two ways to improve performance: training and motivation.
Maslow's theory of motivation: motivation is closely tied to the idea of needs, which cause people to have drives, which in turn result in motivation. A need once satisfied, stops being a need and therefore stops being a source of motivation. Simply put, if we are to create and maintain a high degree of motivation, we must keep some needs unsatisfied at all times.
The old saying has it that when we promote our best salesman and make him a manager, we ruin a good salesman and get a bad manager. But if we think about it, we see we have no choice but to promote the good salesman. Should our worst salesman get the job? When we promote our best, we are saying to our subordinates that performance is what counts.
A concise digest of ideas to help get 1% better every day.
