High Output Management Quotes

“Adapt or die. Some”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“A manager’s output = The output of his organization + The output of the neighboring organizations under his influence”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“The achievement-driven path to self-actualization is not quite like this. Some people—not the majority—are moved by an abstract need to achieve in all that they do. A psychology lab experiment illustrated the behavior of such people. Some volunteers were put into a room in which pegs were set at various places on the floor. Each person was given some rings but not instructed what to do with them. People eventually started to toss the rings onto the pegs. Some casually tossed the rings at faraway pegs; others stood over the pegs and dropped the rings down onto them. Still others walked just far enough away from the pegs so that to toss a ring onto a peg constituted a challenge. These people worked at the boundary of their capability.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“But be sure to know exactly what you’re doing, and avoid the charade of insincere delegation, which can produce immense negative managerial leverage.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“Middle managers are the muscle and bone of every sizable organization, no matter how loose or “flattened” the hierarchy, but they are largely ignored despite their immense importance to our society and economy.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“if your organization uses e-mail, a lot more people know what’s going on in your business than did before, and they know it a lot faster than they used to.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“When products and services become largely indistinguishable from each other, all there is by the way of competitive advantage is time.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“There is no question that having standards and believing in them and staffing an administrative unit objectively using forecasted workloads will help you to maintain and enhance productivity.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“To find that right answer, you must develop a clear understanding of the trade-offs between the various factors—manpower, capacity, and inventory—and you must reduce the understanding to a quantifiable set of relationships.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“So if you want to work and continue to work, you must continually dedicate yourself to retaining your individual competitive advantage.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“Are you adding real value or merely passing information along? How do you add more value? By continually looking for ways to make things truly better in your department. You are a manager. 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.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“the real sign of malorganization is when people spend more than 25 percent of their time in ad hoc mission-oriented meetings.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“But if we have carefully chosen indicators that characterize an administrative unit and watch them closely, we are ready to apply the methods of factory control to administrative work. We can use de facto standards, inferred from the trend data, to forecast the number of people needed to accomplish various anticipated tasks. By rigorous application of the principles of forecasting, manpower can be reassigned from one area to another, and the headcount made to match the forecasted growth or decline in administrative activity. Without rigor, the staffing of administrative units would always be left at its highest level and, given Parkinson’s famous law, people would find ways to let whatever they’re doing fill the time available for its completion.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“ask both the manufacturing and the sales departments to prepare a forecast, so that people are responsible for performing against their own predictions.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“Which five would they be? Put another way, which five pieces of information would you want to look at each day, immediately upon arriving at your office?”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“The number of possible indicators you can choose is virtually limitless, but for any set of them to be useful, you have to focus each indicator on a specific operational goal.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“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?”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“Let’s look at how the questions above fit into the four categories.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“But today’s gap represents a failure of planning sometime in the past.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“a genuinely effective indicator will cover the output of the work unit and not simply the activity involved.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“If it becomes clear that you are not going to get your subordinate past the blame-others stage, you will have to assume the formal role of the supervisor, endowed with position power, and say, “This is what I, as your boss, am instructing you to do. I understand that you do not see it my way. You may be right or I may be right. But I am not only empowered, I am required by the organization for which we both work to give you instructions, and this is what I want you to do…” And proceed to secure your subordinate’s commitment to the course of action you want and thereafter monitor his performance against that commitment.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“As for cultural values, 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.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“The output of a manager is the output of the organizational units under his or her supervision or influence”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“In other words, one of the manager’s key tasks is to settle six important questions in advance: •  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?”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“As a means to obtain this leverage, a manager must understand, as Andy writes: “When a person is not doing his job, there can only be two reasons for it. The person either can’t do it or won’t do it; he is either not capable or not motivated.” This insight enables a manager to dramatically focus her efforts. All you can do to improve the output of an employee is motivate and train. There is nothing else.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“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. So the latter should be asked to prepare an outline, which is very important because it forces him to think through in advance all of the issues and points he plans to raise. Moreover, with an outline, the supervisor knows at the outset what is to be covered and can therefore help to set the pace of the meeting according to the “meatiness” of the items on the agenda. An outline also provides a framework for supporting information, which the subordinate should prepare in advance. The subordinate should then walk the supervisor through all the material.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“Because it is easier to monitor something with which you are familiar, if you have a choice you should delegate those activities you know best. But recall the pencil experiment and understand before the fact that this will very likely go against your emotional grain.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“By elevating someone, we are, in effect, creating role models for others in our organization.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“the performance rating of a manager cannot be higher than the one we would accord to his organization! It is very important to assess actual performance, not appearances; real output, not good form.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“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.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management