High Output Management

by Andrew S. Grove

What are the rules of the new environment? First, everything happens faster. Second, anything that can be done will be done, if not by you, then by someone else. Let there be no misunderstanding: These changes lead to a less kind, less gentle, and less predictable workplace. Again, as a manager in such a workplace, you need to develop a higher tolerance for disorder. Now, you should still not accept disorder. In fact, you should do your best to drive what’s around you to order.

As a middle manager, of any sort, you are in effect a chief executive of an organization yourself. Don’t wait for the principles and practices you find appealing to be imposed from the top. As a micro CEO, you can improve your own and your group’s performance and productivity, whether or not the rest of the company follows suit.

The central thought of my book is that the output of a manager is the output of his organization. In principle, every hour of your day should be spent increasing the output or the value of the output of the people whom you’re responsible for.

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.

My day always ends when I’m tired and ready to go home, not when I’m done. I am never done. Like a housewife’s, a manager’s work is never done. There is always more to be done, more that should be done, always more than can be done.

A manager must keep many balls in the air at the same time and shift his energy and attention to activities that will most increase the output of his organization. In other words, he should move to the point where his leverage will be the greatest.

So why are written reports necessary at all? They obviously can’t provide timely information. What they do is constitute an archive of data, help to validate ad hoc inputs, and catch, in safety-net fashion, anything you may have missed. But reports also have another totally different function. As they are formulated and written, the author is forced to be more precise than he might be verbally. Hence their value stems from the discipline and the thinking the writer is forced to impose upon himself as he identifies and deals with trouble spots in his presentation. Reports are more a medium of self-discipline than a way to communicate information. Writing the report is important; reading it often is not.

While we move about, doing what we regard as our jobs, we are role models for people in our organization—our subordinates, our peers, and even our supervisors.

The fact is, no single managerial activity can be said to constitute leadership, and nothing leads as well as example. By this I mean something straightforward. Values and behavioral norms are simply not transmitted easily by talk or memo, but are conveyed very effectively by doing and doing visibly.

Most people use their calendars as a repository of “orders” that come in. Someone throws an order to a manager for his time, and it automatically shows up on his calendar. This is mindless passivity. To gain better control of his time, the manager should use his calendar as a “production” planning tool, taking a firm initiative to schedule work that is not time-critical between those “limiting steps” in the day.

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.

The most common problem cited was uncontrolled interruptions, which in remarkably uniform fashion affected both supervisory and know-how managers. Everyone felt that the interruptions got in the way of his “own” work. Interruptions had a common source, most frequently coming from subordinates and from people outside the managers’ immediate organization but whose work the managers influenced.

The most frequently proposed solutions were not very practical. The idea mentioned most often was to create blocks of time for individual work by hiding physically. But this is a less than happy answer, because the interrupters obviously have legitimate problems, and if the manager responded by hiding, these would pile up. One “solution” was a suggestion that customers not call marketing managers at certain hours. No good.

A key point about a one-on-one: It should be regarded as the subordinate’s meeting, with its agenda and tone set by him.

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.

What should be discussed at a staff meeting? Anything that affects more than two of the people present. 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,

Keep in mind that a meeting called to make a specific decision is hard to keep moving if more than six or seven people attend. Eight people should be the absolute cutoff.

Peers tend to look for a more senior manager, even if he is not the most competent or knowledgeable person involved, to take over and shape a meeting.

One of the reasons why people are reluctant to come out with an opinion in the presence of their peers is the fear of going against the group by stating an opinion that is different from that of the group. Consequently, the group as a whole wanders around for a while, feeling each other out, waiting for a consensus to develop before anyone risks taking a position. If and when a group consensus emerges, one of the members will state it as a group opinion (“I think our position seems to be…”), not as a personal position. After a weak statement of the group position, if the rest of the mob buys in, the position becomes more solid and is restated more forcefully.

remember that by saying “yes”—to projects, a course of action, or whatever—you are implicitly saying “no” to something else.

The system of management by objectives assumes that because our concerns here are short-range, we should know quite well what our environment demands from us. Thus, management by objectives—MBO—concentrates on steps 2 and 3 of the planning process and tries very hard to make them specific.

A successful MBO system needs only to answer two questions: 1. Where do I want to go? (The answer provides the objective.) 2. How will I pace myself to see if I am getting there? (The answer gives us milestones, or key results.)

management has to develop and nurture the common set of values, objectives, and methods essential for the existence of trust. How do we do that? One way is by articulation, by spelling out these values, objectives, and methods. The other, even more important, way is by example. If our behavior at work will be regarded as in line with the values we profess, that fosters the development of a group culture.

The single most important task of a manager is to elicit peak performance from his subordinates. So if two things limit high output, a manager has two ways to tackle the issue: through training and motivation.

One big pitfall to be avoided is the “potential trap.” At all times you should force yourself to assess performance, not potential. By “potential” I mean form rather than substance.

There are three L’s to keep in mind when delivering a review: Level, listen, and leave yourself out.