High Output Management

Andy Grove has a way of distilling the complex down to very very simple concepts - and he doesn't allude to big ideas - he just tells it straight. Exactly what works and why. I have bought copies of this book to give to colleagues and staff and indeed we have modelled some of our business practises straight out of the book - why not? Its clear, concise, practical and proven. I really cannot recommend this book enough. If you run a company or manage people within one you should read this book. The content doesn't date. My only wish was that it was also available on Kindle.

This book is probably the most read in all my collection.

I first read High Output Management 13 years ago. Back then it was an extremely valuable resource for a newly minted manager at Intel. I always liked the book and have come back to it over and over again, in fact over the years given ten's of copies to talented managers in my organization. While planning a larger re-org of my business unit I just re-read the book and guess what - its still stands up as one of the most authentic and perhaps best "real world" management books......written completely free of the typical "copy-edit-noise" by the master himself

I spent the first 10 years of my engineering career happily as an individual contributor for startup type organizations. One day the VP of engineering asked me, "I would like you to to hire a few people under you to grow the team. We need to be at 50 people by the end of the year." My reaction was very mixed. On the one hand I liked being recognized with an implied promotion, on the other hand I was being asked to manage. From my perspective at the time the harder problems to solve were technical and I did not covet the job of a professional meeting goer. And besides I already pretty much managed myself, so what value do managers really add anyway?

I wish someone had handed me a copy of Grove's book: "High Output Management" earlier on. In it Grove, one of the worlds most successful and talented engineers, explains the essential value of middle management to an engineering organization. He also explains, among other things, many of the essential the tools for successful middle managers: how to think about priorities, the value of communication, a useful framework for scheduling and illustrating trade-offs and how people are intrinsically motivated. He comes across as credible, concrete and analytical. I.e. as a great engineer who manages great engineers.

I now hand out copies of this book to every engineer I find either considering making the transition to management or ones early in their managerial career struggling with finding self affirmation in the role. Like many great tools or resources, my only complaint is not finding this book sooner.

Should be required reading for every manager. Grove's disciplined, fundamental, organized and results oriented approach is needed in most every business which tend to bureaucracy. "Never confuse motion with progress" would be a good summary of what Grove is saying. His background as a problem solving engineer shows through.

Incredible well thought out book that regardless of the time period is hugely applicable. I was most impressed at the ability for this book to apply so neatly to a smaller start-up structure as well as a large corporation like Intel. I will continue to reference this book for the rest of my career.

Intel is one of the must successful technology corporations of our time. Under the leadership of Andy Grove, it has done stupendous. The question everyone wants to know is: how?

The books goes through the process of creating an organization that creates more. Grove covers just about everything; from meetings to being friends with employees (yes, it is possible). He also walks us through a typical day of us and shows us an intimate view of his thinking process. Grove's writing is characteristically technical and direct. He goes through many personal examples.

Many people might ask: is this book intended for leaders at big companies, or small? Perhaps both. There are a lot of insights about how Intel, a Fortune 500 company, runs and organizes itself. It can also help a small business get tactics it can implement in its organization.

Modern day entrepreneurs have gotten tremendous value from Grove. Ben Horowitz, in his book, credits a lot of lessons from Andy Grove. Google is probably the most famous company that embraces management by objective (MBO), which is today known as Objectives and Key Results (OKRs). The MBO system Intel explains a lot of its success, but is only talked about for 4 pages.

Since the book was written in 1983 (updated in 1995), the writing comes across as a bit dated. Almost every chapter has a chart or graph. I can imagine Grove sharing these principals with his staff on an overhead. The writing is very logical, and analytical. I was surprised to see how procedural Grove's thinking was. I was expecting to see more branding and company culture theories. Perhaps those weren't popular to write about in the 80's, but still a big reason for the company's success. Although a great intro to management for most, it's very basic. It has good points, but not the flare you would expect from one of the world's most successful tech firms. If you're looking for fireworks, they aren't here.

This is a classic management book by Intel's legendary CEO Andy Grove. He covers the different aspects of management such as process and time management, performance evaluation, employees motivation and delivering value.
One of the main lessons that he stresses is that the output of a manager should be measured based on the output of teams he manages and the teams he influences. This is a very important lesson because it is not enough for a leader to be a good employee on the individual level, he should use his influence to deliver value to his employer and help his subordinates advance their careers.
The book is a great read and provides a lot of value!

Companies today have two choices: Adapt or die. Some have died in front of our eyes; others are struggling with the adaptation. As they struggle, the methods that worked well for them for decades are becoming history. Companies that have had generations of employees growing up under a no-layoff policy are now dumping ten thousand people at a time onto the street - that's part of adaptation.

Rules of the new environment: Everything happens faster, Anything that can be done will be done, if not by you, then by someone else. These changes will lead to a less kind, less gentle, and less predictable workplace. You need to try and anticipate the unexpected.

The book contains three basic ideas. The first is an output-oriented approach to management. The second is that the work of a business, government bureaucracy, etc. is something pursued not by individuals but by teams. High managerial productivity depends largely on choosing to perform tasks that possess high leverage. The third idea is that a team will perform well only if peak performance is elicited from the individuals in it. Task-relevant feedback is required to get and sustain a high level of performance.

A response company should have fewer levels of managers. This is aided by the fact that one basic role of management - disseminating information, is no longer as important as before, thanks to email. Managers should spend their time increasing the output or value of that output of those whom they're responsible for. That is their most important responsibility. High output is associated with particular combinations of certain managers, tasks, and certain groups of workers - shown by variations in output when managers are rotated.

The presence or absence of monitoring is the difference between a supervisor's delegating a task and abdicating it. It also parallels the development of the relationship between a parent and child. As the child mature, the most effective parental style changes , varying with the 'life-relevant maturity' of the child. Structure moves from being externally imposed to internally given.

An applicant should do 80% of the talking during an interview, and what he talks about should be your main concern. Don't allow them to ramble on forever, getting off the topic.

Companies today have two choices: Adapt or die. Some have died in front of our eyes; others are struggling with the adaptation. As they struggle, the methods that worked well for them for decades are becoming history. Companies that have had generations of employees growing up under a no-layoff policy are now dumping ten thousand people at a time onto the street - that's part of adaptation.

Rules of the new environment: Everything happens faster, Anything that can be done will be done, if not by you, then by someone else. These changes will lead to a less kind, less gentle, and less predictable workplace. You need to try and anticipate the unexpected.

The book contains three basic ideas. The first is an output-oriented approach to management. The second is that the work of a business, government bureaucracy, etc. is something pursued not by individuals but by teams. High managerial productivity depends largely on choosing to perform tasks that possess high leverage. The third idea is that a team will perform well only if peak performance is elicited from the individuals in it. Task-relevant feedback is required to get and sustain a high level of performance.

A response company should have fewer levels of managers. This is aided by the fact that one basic role of management - disseminating information, is no longer as important as before, thanks to email. Managers should spend their time increasing the output or value of that output of those whom they're responsible for. That is their most important responsibility. High output is associated with particular combinations of certain managers, tasks, and certain groups of workers - shown by variations in output when managers are rotated.

The presence or absence of monitoring is the difference between a supervisor's delegating a task and abdicating it. It also parallels the development of the relationship between a parent and child. As the child mature, the most effective parental style changes , varying with the 'life-relevant maturity' of the child. Structure moves from being externally imposed to internally given.

An applicant should do 80% of the talking during an interview, and what he talks about should be your main concern. Don't allow them to ramble on forever, getting off the topic.

Companies today have two choices: Adapt or die. Some have died in front of our eyes; others are struggling with the adaptation. As they struggle, the methods that worked well for them for decades are becoming history. Companies that have had generations of employees growing up under a no-layoff policy are now dumping ten thousand people at a time onto the street - that's part of adaptation.

Rules of the new environment: Everything happens faster, Anything that can be done will be done, if not by you, then by someone else. These changes will lead to a less kind, less gentle, and less predictable workplace. You need to try and anticipate the unexpected.

The book contains three basic ideas. The first is an output-oriented approach to management. The second is that the work of a business, government bureaucracy, etc. is something pursued not by individuals but by teams. High managerial productivity depends largely on choosing to perform tasks that possess high leverage. The third idea is that a team will perform well only if peak performance is elicited from the individuals in it. Task-relevant feedback is required to get and sustain a high level of performance.

A response company should have fewer levels of managers. This is aided by the fact that one basic role of management - disseminating information, is no longer as important as before, thanks to email. Managers should spend their time increasing the output or value of that output of those whom they're responsible for. That is their most important responsibility. High output is associated with particular combinations of certain managers, tasks, and certain groups of workers - shown by variations in output when managers are rotated.

The presence or absence of monitoring is the difference between a supervisor's delegating a task and abdicating it. It also parallels the development of the relationship between a parent and child. As the child mature, the most effective parental style changes , varying with the 'life-relevant maturity' of the child. Structure moves from being externally imposed to internally given.

An applicant should do 80% of the talking during an interview, and what he talks about should be your main concern. Don't allow them to ramble on forever, getting off the topic.

Although published 35 years ago, Grove's management concepts still ring true today.

With an engineer's precision, Grove scrutinizes the meetings typically held in large organizations (e.g., one-on-one, operation review, mission-oriented, etc.). He then codifies how to maximize their effectiveness. If adhered to, his principles could remedy many meetings that all too often end in unresolved issues and conflicts -- and confusion.

Grove recognizes that managers sometimes withhold their input for fear of "sounding dumb" and, consequently, being overruled, embarrassed, and losing face. Yet, he asserts that astute decision-making is based on weighing ALL the ideas and objections put forth -- and not merely those most readily accepted. Thus, it's a manager's duty to speak up -- and senior management's duty to listen.

While progressing through the book, readers will acquire an understanding of the importance of the CUA factor (complexity, uncertainty, ambiguity) and TRM (task-relevant maturity) -- and their role in selecting the right personnel for a specific project or job.

Grove also illustrates why it's crucial (albeit difficult) to separate emotions from organizational effectiveness. For example, he describes the importance of gaining a subordinate's commitment to pursue an agreed upon course of action -- even if the latter disagrees with the action. To this he adds, "There seems to be something not quite nice about expecting a person to walk down a path he’d rather not be on. But on the job, we are after a person’s performance, not our psychological comfort."

Read this book, absorb its wisdom -- and apply its principles!

Andy Grove has a well earned reputation for intelligence, humor, and tight management. While this book gives you the basics of Silicon Valley management, it doesn't show the man's genius or give any anecdotes that are interesting. As a primer, it makes its points clearly and comprehensively. But it doesn't present the limitations or unintended consequences of Intel's management style. The reader is simply presented with "here's the best way to do it" even though the techniques generally savage the marketing function and would probably tank companies in highly creative and faddish industries (think fashion, movies, music, or video games).
Worth the read? Maybe. Worth my time? Nah.

Grove does an excellent job of relating production methods to something we can all understand, a food and beverage establishment. Aside from the production model, Grove opens the hood and examines compensation systems, meetings, employee review procedures and processes, and briefly discusses motivation ala Maslow's heirarchy. It's good, easy reading, and may be very informative and thought provoking to the open mind looking top gain a better understanding of Industrial Management.

Although most applicable for improving management of a manufacturing concern, this book is worthwhile reading for anyone trying to run their own business better. I am a partner of a small CPA firm, and found several parts that were useful in running my practice better. I read, re-read, and underlined the chapters on job interviewing and employee reviews. Grove's style has obviously been successful for Intel, and this gives his comments tremendous credibility. I appreciated this, as opposed to the myriad of management books written by authors whose track record is unclear, questionable, or non-existent.

All of his points are logical and reasonable.

Unfortunately he makes it so hard to absorb. He unwittingly makes it pedantic and comes across as a pseudo intellectual. Or he just has terrible communication skills.

You can safely pass on this book.

I can't recommend this to anyone.

Perhaps the strategies in this book work because Intel's people work very hard at implementing them, not because they are inherently better than other ideas.
When I first started at Intel one of the things I noticed right off was how old Intel employees looked for their age (at least the ones that had been there for 7-10 years or more) compared to the other companies I had worked at over the years. I noticed women only in their early 30's who had worked there since their early 20's, for whom the rosy bloom of youth had long since departed from their cheeks. The men also looked older.
I am not especially young-looking for my age, but I frequently get comments from Intel employees about how young I look for my age. Maybe that's because I haven't been here that long. Outside of Intel I rarely get comments like this. I may not look that young to most people for my age, but at least I don't look older than my age.
On an even more sobering note, health researchers have found that people who look old for their age actually have shorter life expectancies, and correspondingly, people who look young for their age have longer life expectancies.
I suspect that Intel's workaholic employees are the main reason for its success, but I wonder if they themselves understand the toll this success has exacted from them.

Grove identifies what is critical in management. Leverage really only
happens when focused on the right things. He gives perspective on how to
determine that. Then also how to get results. This book is specific, to
the point. No fluff. He writes well and he has a track record of
incredible success that few have equaled. If you MUST get results then get the book.