High Output Management

by Andrew S. Grove

Values and behavioral norms are simply not transmitted easily by talk or memo, but are conveyed very effectively by doing and doing visibly.

A great deal of a manager’s work has to do with allocating resources: manpower, money, and capital.

How you handle your own time is, in my view, the single most important aspect of being a role model and leader.

which of the activities—information-gathering, information-giving, decision-making, nudging, and being a role model—could I have performed outside a meeting? The answer is practically none. Meetings provide an occasion for managerial activities.

Managerial productivity—that is, the output of a manager per unit of time worked—can be increased in three ways:

1. Increasing the rate with which a manager performs his activities, speeding up his work. 2. Increasing the leverage associated with the various managerial activities. 3. Shifting the mix of a manager’s activities from those with lower to those with higher leverage.

HIGH-LEVERAGE ACTIVITIES These can be achieved in three basic ways: • When many people are affected by one manager. • When a person’s activity or behavior over a long period of time is affected by a manager’s brief, well-focused set of words or actions. • When a large group’s work is affected by an individual supplying a unique, key piece of knowledge or information.

Another example is waffling, when a manager puts off a decision that will affect the work of other people. In effect, the lack of a decision is the same as a negative decision; no green light is a red light, and work can stop for a whole organization.

The art of management lies in the capacity to select from the many activities of seemingly comparable significance the one or two or three that provide leverage well beyond the others and concentrate on them.

We all have some things that we don’t really want to delegate simply because we like doing them and would rather not let go. For your managerial effectiveness, this is not too bad so long as it is based on a conscious decision

review rough drafts of reports that you have delegated; don’t wait until your subordinates have spent time polishing them into final form

How often you monitor should not be based on what you believe your subordinate can do in general, but on his experience with a specific task and his prior performance with it—

We ask a subordinate to think through the entire matter carefully before presenting a request for approval. And to monitor how good his thinking is, we ask him quite specific questions about his request during a review meeting. If he answers them convincingly, we’ll approve what he wants. This technique allows us to find out how good the thinking is without having to go through it ourselves.

It is important to say “no” earlier rather than later because we’ve learned that to wait until something reaches a higher value stage and then abort due to lack of capacity means losing more money and time. You can obviously say “no” either explicitly or implicitly, because by not delivering you end up saying what amounts to “no.” 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.

A 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.

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.

Accordingly, we should do everything we can to prevent little stops and starts in our day as well as interruptions brought on by big emergencies. Even though some of the latter are unavoidable, we should always be looking for sources of future high-priority trouble

The point is to impose a pattern on the way a manager copes with problems. To make something regular that was once irregular is a fundamental production principle, and that’s how you should try to handle the interruptions that plague you.

a 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.

two basic kinds of meetings. In the first kind of meeting, called a process-oriented meeting, knowledge is shared and information is exchanged.

The purpose of the second kind of meeting is to solve a specific problem. Meetings of this sort, called mission-oriented, frequently produce a decision.

At Intel we use three kinds of process-oriented meetings: the one-on-one, the staff meeting, and the operation review.

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

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.

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.

I take notes in just about all circumstances, and most often end up never looking at them again. I do it to keep my mind from drifting and also to help me digest the information I hear and see. Since I take notes in outline form, I am forced to categorize the information logically, which helps me to absorb it. Equally important is what “writing it down” symbolizes. Many issues in a one-on-one lead to action required on the part of the subordinate. When he takes a note immediately following the supervisor’s suggestion, the act implies a commitment, like a handshake, that something will be done. The supervisor, also having taken notes, can then follow up at the next one-on-one.

STAFF MEETINGS A staff meeting is one in which a supervisor and all of his subordinates participate, and which therefore presents an opportunity for interaction among peers.

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

How structured should the meeting be? A free-for-all brainstorming session or controlled with a detailed agenda? It should be mostly controlled,

A staff meeting is like the dinner-table conversation of a family,

OPERATION REVIEWS This is the medium of interaction for people who don’t otherwise have much opportunity to deal with one another.

Who are the players at an operation review? The organizing manager, the reviewing manager, the presenters, and the audience.

The reviewing manager is the senior supervisor at whom the review is aimed—like the general manager of an Intel division. He has a very important although more subtle role to play: he should ask questions, make comments, and in general impart the appropriate spirit to the meeting. He is the catalyst needed to provoke audience participation, and by his example he should encourage free expression. He should never preview the material, since that will keep him from reacting spontaneously. Because the senior supervisor is a role model for the junior managers present, he should take his role at the review extremely seriously.

As a rule of thumb, I would recommend four minutes of presentation and discussion time per visual aid,

Mission-Oriented Meetings Unlike a process-oriented meeting, which is a regularly scheduled affair held to exchange knowledge and information, the mission-oriented meeting is usually held ad hoc and is designed to produce a specific output, frequently a decision.

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.

The first stage should be free discussion, in which all points of view and all aspects of an issue are openly welcomed and debated.

The next stage is reaching a clear decision.

Finally, everyone involved must give the decision reached by the group full support. This does not necessarily mean agreement: so long as the participants commit to back the decision, that is a satisfactory outcome.

an organization does not live by its members agreeing with one another at all times about everything. It lives instead by people committing to support the decisions and the moves of the business.

any decision be worked out and reached at the lowest competent level. The reason is that this is where it will be made by people who are closest to the situation and know the most about it.

You can overcome the peer-group syndrome if each of the members has self-confidence, which stems in part from being familiar with the issue under consideration and from experience. But in the end self-confidence mostly comes from a gut-level realization that nobody has ever died from making a wrong business decision, or taking inappropriate action, or being overruled. And everyone in your operation should be made to understand this.

As a manager, you should remind yourself that each time an insight or fact is withheld and an appropriate question is suppressed, the decision-making process is less good than it might have been.

What decision needs to be made? • When does it have to be made? • Who will decide? • Who will need to be consulted prior to making the decision? • Who will ratify or veto the decision? • Who will need to be informed of the decision?

Employing consistent ways by which decisions are to be made has value beyond simply expediting the decision-making itself.

Your general planning process should consist of analogous thinking. Step 1 is to establish projected need or demand: What will the environment demand from you, your business, or your organization? Step 2 is to establish your present status: What are you producing now? What will you be producing as your projects in the pipeline are completed? Put another way, where will your business be if you do nothing different from what you are now doing? Step 3 is to compare and reconcile steps 1 and 2. Namely, what more (or less) do you need to do to produce what your environment will demand?

remember that by saying “yes”—to projects, a course of action, or whatever—you are implicitly saying “no” to something else. Each time you make a commitment, you forfeit your chance to commit to something else.

organizations can come in two extreme forms: in totally mission-oriented form or in totally functional form.

mission-oriented organization (a), which is completely decentralized, each individual business unit pursues what it does—its mission—with little tie-in to other units.

“Good management rests on a reconciliation of centralization and decentralization.” Or, we might say, on a balancing act to get the best combination of responsiveness and leverage.