High Output Management

by Andrew S. Grove

Imagine how productive our country would become if managers could endow all work with the characteristics of competitive sports. To try to do this, we must first overcome cultural prejudice. Our society respects someone’s throwing himself into sports, but anybody who works very long hours is regarded as sick, a workaholic. So the prejudices of the majority say that sports are good and fun, but work is drudgery, a necessary evil, and in no way a source of pleasure. That makes the cliché apply: if you can’t beat them, join them—endow work with the characteristics of competitive sports. And the best way to get that spirit into the workplace is to establish some rules of the game and ways for employees to measure themselves. Eliciting peak performance means going up against something or somebody.