High Output Management
Andrew S. Grove
A practicing CEO teaches managers that their true output is the output of their team, and shows how applying production principles, leverage, and motivation systematically raises that output.
In High Output Management, Intel co-founder and CEO Andrew Grove distills two decades of hands-on managerial experience into a rigorous, practical system for getting high output from teams. Built on three ideas—that any work can be approached with the discipline of manufacturing, that a manager's output equals the combined output of the organizations he supervises and influences, and that peak individual performance can be elicited as in competitive sports—the book equips middle managers (and 'know-how' managers without direct reports) to choose high-leverage activities, run productive meetings, make good decisions, plan, organize hybrid teams, conduct performance reviews, and train. Concrete, example-driven, and unsentimental, it remains a foundational manual for anyone responsible for the productivity of others.
The model it argues
A causal model in which managerial design levers and contextual conditions shape managerial behaviors and subordinate psychological states, which in turn drive team performance and organizational output.
Key ideas
- Application of Production Discipline
- The systematic use of manufacturing principles to organize and improve any productive work, including managerial and administrative tasks.
- Leverage of Managerial Activities
- The amount of organizational output generated per unit of a given managerial activity.
- Information Gathering and Sharing
- The breadth, balance, and redundancy of a manager's information system and his transmission of objectives and values.
- Quality of Meeting Practices
- The disciplined design and conduct of process- and mission-oriented meetings as the medium of managerial work.
- Quality of Decision-Making Process
- The degree to which decisions are reached through free discussion, clear decision, and full support at the lowest competent level.
- Planning and MBO Quality
- The rigor of analyzing demand vs status to act on future gaps and the focus of objectives/key results.
- Hybrid Organization and Dual Reporting Fit
- The appropriateness of the balance between mission and functional organization and the functioning of dual/matrix reporting.
- Fit of Control Mode to Environment
- The match between the operative mode of control and the individual's motivation and the environment's CUA factor.