High Output Management

by Andrew S. Grove

Because manufacturing people trust their indicators, they won’t allow material to begin its journey through the factory if they think it is already operating at capacity. If they did, material might go halfway through and back up behind a bottleneck. Instead, factory managers say “no” at the outset and keep the start level from overloading the system. Other kinds of managers find this hard to apply because their indicators of capacity are not as well established or not as believable. How much time do you need to read your mail, to write your reports, to meet with ...

Remember too that your time is your one finite resource, and when you say “yes” to one thing you are inevitably saying “no” to another.

The next production principle you can apply is to allow slack—a bit of looseness in your scheduling. Highway planners, for example, know that a freeway can handle an optimum number of vehicles. Having fewer cars means that the road is not being used at capacity. But at that optimum point, if just a few more cars are allowed to enter the traffic flow, everything comes to a crunching halt. With the new metering devices that control access during the rush hour, planners can get a fix on the right number. The same thing can be done for managerial work. There is an optimum degree of loading, with enough slack built in so that one unanticipated phone call will not ruin your schedule for the rest of the day. You need some slack.

manager should carry a raw material inventory in terms of projects. This is not to be confused with his work-in-process inventory, because that, like eggs in a continuous boiler, tends to spoil or become obsolete over time. Instead this inventory should consist of things you need to do but don’t need to finish right away—discretionary projects, the kind the manager can work on to increase his group’s productivity over the long term. Withou...

final principle. Most production practices follow well-established procedures and, rather than reinventing the wheel repeatedly, use a specific method that has been shown to work before. But managers tend to be inconsistent and bring a welter of approaches to the same task. We should work to change that. As we become more consistent, we should also remember that the value of an administrative procedure is contained not in formal statements but in the real thinking that led to its establishment. This mean...

As a rule of thumb, a manager whose work is largely supervisory should have six to eight subordinates; three or four are too few and ten are too many. This range comes from a guideline that a manager should allocate about a half day per week to each of his subordinates. (Two days a week per subordinate would probably lead to meddling; an hour a week does not provide enough opportunity for monitoring.)

The next important production concept we can apply to managerial work is to strive toward regularity. We could obviously run our breakfast factory more efficiently if customers arrived in a steady and predictable stream rather than dropping in by ones and twos.

we should always be looking for sources of future high-priority trouble by cutting windows into the black box of our organization. Recognizing you’ve got a time bomb on your hands means you can address a problem when you want to, not after the bomb has gone off.

There are better ways. Let’s apply a production concept. Manufacturers turn out standard products. By analogy, if you can pin down what kind of interruptions you’re getting, you can prepare standard responses for those that pop up most often. Customers don’t come up with totally new questions and problems day in and day out, and because the same ones tend to surface repeatedly, a manager can reduce time spent handling interruptions using standard responses. Having them available also means that a manager can delegate much of the job to less experienced personnel.

Also, if you use the production principle of batching—that is,

problems for scheduled times, instead of interrupting you whenever they want.

So, instead of going into hiding, a manager can hang a sign on his door that says, “I am doing individual work. Please don’t interrupt me unless it really can’t wait until 2:00.” Then hold an open office hour, and be completely receptive to anybody who wants to see you. The key is this: understand that interrupters have legitimate problems that need to be handled. That’s why they’re bringing them to you. But you can channel the time needed to deal with them into organized, scheduled form by providing an alternative to interruption—a scheduled meeting or an office hour. The point is to impose a pattern

that’s how you should try to handle the interruptions that plague you.

big part of a middle manager’s work is to supply information and know-how, and to impart a sense of the preferred method of handling things to the groups under his control and influence. A manager also makes and helps to make decisions. Both kinds of basic managerial tasks can only occur during face-to-face encounters, and therefore only during meetings. Thus I will assert again that a meeting is nothing less than the medium through which managerial work is performed. That means we should not be fighting their very existence, but rather using the time spent in them as efficiently as possible.

people attending should know how the meeting is run, what kinds of substantive matters are discussed, and what is to be accomplished. It should be designed to allow a manager to “batch” transactions, to use the same “production” set-up time and effort to take care of many similar managerial tasks. Moreover, given the regularity, you and the others attending can begin to forecast the time required for the kinds of work to be done.

one-on-one is a meeting between a supervisor and a subordinate, and it is the principal way their business relationship is maintained.

Its main purpose is mutual teaching and exchange of information. By talking about specific problems and situations, the supervisor teaches the subordinate his skills and know-how, and suggests ways to approach things. At the same time, the subordinate provides the supervisor with detailed information about what he is doing and what he is concerned about.

How often should you have one-on-ones? Or put another way, how do you decide how often somebody needs such a meeting? The answer is the job- or task-relevant maturity of each of your subordinates. In other words, how much experience does a given subordinate have with the specific task at hand? This is not the same as the experience he has in general or how old he is. As we will see later, the most effective management style in a specific instance varies from very close to very loose supervision as a subordinate’s task maturity increases. Accordingly, you should have one-on-ones frequently (for example, once a week) with a subordinate who is inexperienced in a specific situation and less frequently (perhaps once every few weeks) with an experienced veteran.

Частота встреч зависит от того - какие задачи сейчас стоят перед сотрудником - каков его опыт решения именно таких задач Чем меньше опыт тем выше потребность в встречах

How long should a one-on-one meeting last?

one-on-one should last an hour at a minimum. Anything less, in my experience, tends to make the subordinate confine himself to simple things that can be handled quickly.

Встреча должна длиться как минимум час, иначе будут рассмотрены только поверхностные вопросы

Where should a one-on-one take place?

I think you should have the meeting in or near the subordinate’s work area if possible. A supervisor can learn a lot simply by going to his subordinate’s office. Is he organized or not? Does he repeatedly have to spend time looking for a document he wants? Does he get interrupted all ...

key point about a one-on-one: It should be regarded as the subordinate’s meeting, with its agenda and tone set by him. There’s good reason for this. Somebody needs to prepare for the meeting. The supervisor with eight subordinates would have to prepare eight times; the subordinate only once.

Председателем встречи должен быть подчиненный. Т.е. он - определяет повестку - делает черновик встречи (список вопросов которые будут рассмотрены) - заранее готовит вспомогательный материал и информацию, опираясь на вопросы к встрече - во время встречи проводит руководителя по всему этому материалу

What should be covered in a one-on-one? We can start with performance figures, indicators used by the subordinate, such as incoming order rates, production output, or project status. Emphasis should be on indicators that signal trouble. The meeting should also cover anything important that has happened since the last meeting: current hiring problems, people problems in general, organizational problems and future plans, and—very, very important—potential problems. Even when a problem isn’t tangible, even if it’s only an intuition that something’s wrong, a subordinate owes it to his supervisor to tell him, because it triggers a look into the organizational black box. The most important criterion governing matters to be talked about is that they be issues that preoccupy and nag the subordinate. These are often obscure and take time to surface, consider, and resolve.

Что должно быть рассмотрено на встрече? - Цифры производительности - Показатели используемые сотрудником - Упор на сигналы о проблемах - Важныые события с момента прошлой встречи. Что произошло нового. - Проблемы с наймом, с людьми, организационные проблемы - Очень важно - потенциальные проблемы! То что еще не случилось по факту, но парит, беспокоит, настораживает и т.д. обязательно должно быть сообщено руководителю! Потому что такое сообщение побуждает прорезать соответствующее окно в черном ящике, посмотреть на ситуацию под определенным углом и вовремч среагировать. - Планы

What is the role of the supervisor in a one-on-one? He should facilitate the subordinate’s expression of what’s going on and what’s bothering him. The supervisor is there to learn and to coach. Peter Drucker sums up the supervisor’s job here very nicely: “The good time users among managers do not talk to their subordinates about their problems but they know how to make the subordinates talk about theirs.” How is this done? By applying Grove’s Principle of Didactic Management, “Ask one more question!” When the supervisor thinks the subordinate has said all he wants to about a subject, he should ask another question. He should try to keep the flow of thoughts coming by prompting the subordinate with queries until both feel satisfied that they have gotten to the bottom of a problem.

Роль руководителя - помочь подопечному выразить что происходит и что его беспокоит!!! Как это сделать - задай еще один вопрос! - делай запросы способствуя потоку мыслей сотрудника, пока И ОН не будет удовлетворен

One-on-ones should be scheduled on a rolling basis—setting up the next one as the meeting taking place ends. Other commitments can thereby be taken into account and cancellations avoided. If the supervisor uses a set schedule for a one-on-one, such as every second Wednesday morning, and if the subordinate’s vacation happens to fall on that date, the meeting is not going to occur. By scheduling on a rolling basis, this can be easily avoided.

Let’s say you have a one-on-one with your subordinate every two weeks, and it lasts one and a half hours. Ninety minutes of your time can enhance the quality of your subordinate’s work for two weeks, or for some eighty-plus hours, and also upgrade your understanding of what he’s doing. Clearly, one-on-ones can exert enormous leverage.

development of a common base of information and similar ways of doing and handling things between the supervisor and the subordinate. And this, as noted, is the only way in which e...

the presence of a common supervisor helps peer interaction to develop,

I get a much better understanding of an issue with which I am not familiar by listening to two people with opposing views discuss it than I do by listening to one side only.

I was supposed to be the supervisor, but I found that others in the group were often more familiar with the work of another researcher than I was. Thus, a group discussion on any subject tended to get more detailed and more heated, but always more rewarding, than an exchange between me and one other specialist.

If the meeting degenerates into a conversation between two people working on a problem affecting only them, the supervisor should break it off and move on to something else that will include more of the staff, while suggesting that the two continue their exchange later.

It should be mostly controlled, with an agenda issued far enough in advance that the subordinates will have had the chance to prepare their thoughts for the meeting. But it should also include an “open session”—a designated period of time for the staff to bring up anything they want. This is when a varied set of housekeeping matters can be disposed of, as well as when important issues can be given a tentative first look. If it is justified, you can provide time for a more formal discussion about an issue in the scheduled portion of a future meeting.

The supervisor’s effort at a staff meeting should go into keeping the discussion on track, with the subordinates bearing the brunt of working the issues.

audience at an operation review also has a crucial part to play. One of the distinguishing marks of a good meeting is that the audience participates by asking questions and making comments. If you avoid the presenter’s eyes, yawn, or read the newspaper it’s worse than not being there at all. Lack of interest undermines the confidence of the presenter. Remember that you are spending a big part of your working day at the review. Make that time as valuable for yourself and your organization as you can. Pay attention and jot down things you’ve heard that you might try. Ask questions if something is not clear to you and speak up if you can’t go along with an approach being recommended. And if a presenter makes a factual error, it is your responsibility to go on record. Remember, you are being paid to attend the meeting, which is not meant to be a siesta in the midst of an otherwise busy day. Regard attendance at the meeting for what it is: work.

When a mission-oriented meeting fails to accomplish the purpose for which it was called, the blame belongs to the chairman. Thus the chairman must have a clear understanding of the meeting’s objective—what needs to happen and what decision has to be made. The absolute truth is that if you don’t know what you want, you won’t get it. So before calling a meeting, ask yourself: What am I trying to accomplish? Then ask, is a meeting necessary? Or desirable? Or justifiable? Don’t call a meeting if all the answers aren’t yes.

An estimate of the dollar cost of a manager’s time, including overhead, is about $100 per hour.

As the chairman, you must identify who should attend and then try to get those people to come. It is not enough to ask people and hope for the best; you need to follow up and get commitments.

If someone invited can’t make it himself, see to it that he sends a person with the power to speak for him.

to make a specific decision is hard to keep moving if more than six or seven people attend. Eight people ...

Decision-making is not a spectator sport, because onlookers get in the way of...

chairman is also responsible for maintaining discipline. It is criminal for him to allow people to be late and waste everyone’s time. Remember, wasting time here really means that you are wasting the company’s money, with the meter ticking away at the rate of $100 per hour per person. Do not worry about confronting the late arriver. Just as you would not permit a fellow employee to steal a piece of...

Once the meeting is over, the chairman must nail down exactly what happened by sending out minutes that summarize the discussion that occurred, the decision made, and the actions to be taken. And it’s very important that attendees get the minutes quickly, before they forget what happened. The minutes should also be as clear and as specific as possible, telling the reader what is to be done, who is to do it, and when. All this may seem like too much trouble, but if the meeting was worth calling in the first place, the work needed to produce the minutes is a small additional investment (an activity with high leverage) to ensure that the full benefit is obtained from what was done.

In traditional industries, where the management chain of command was precisely defined, a person making a certain kind of decision was a person occupying a particular position in the organization chart. As the saying went, authority (to make decisions) went with responsibility (position in the management hierarchy). However, in businesses that mostly deal with information and know-how, a manager has to cope with a new phenomenon. Here a rapid divergence develops between power based on position and power based on knowledge, which occurs because the base of knowledge that constitutes the foundation of the business changes rapidly.

The ideal decision-making process.

clear. In fact, particular pains should be taken to frame the terms of the decision with utter clarity. Again, our tendency is to do just the opposite: when we know a decision is controversial we want to obscure matters to avoid an argument. But the argument is not avoided by our being mealy-mouthed, merely postponed. People who don’t like a decision will be a lot madder if they don’t get a prompt and straight story about it.