High Output Management Quotes

“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

“To make things work, people do not need to side with you; you only need them to commit themselves to pursue a course of action that has been decided upon.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“When the environment changes more rapidly than one can change rules, or when a set of circumstances is so ambiguous and unclear that a contract between the parties that attempted to cover all possibilities would be prohibitively complicated, we need another mode of control, which is based on cultural values.”
― 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

“as you review a manager, should you be judging his performance or the performance of the group under his supervision? You should be doing both. Ultimately what you are after is the performance of the group, but the manager is there to add value in some way.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“The biggest problem with most reviews is that we don’t usually define what it is we want from our subordinates, and, as noted earlier, if we don’t know what we want, we are surely not going to get it.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“The long and short of it: if performance matters in your operation, performance reviews are absolutely necessary.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“The review is usually dedicated to two things: first, the skill level of the subordinate, to determine what skills are missing and to find ways to remedy that lack; and second, to intensify the subordinate’s motivation in order to get him on a higher performance curve for the same skill level (see the illustration on this page).”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“giving performance reviews is a very complicated and difficult business and that we, managers, don’t do an especially good job at it. The fact is that giving such reviews is the single most important form of task-relevant feedback we as supervisors can provide. It is how we assess our subordinates’ level of performance and how we deliver that assessment to them individually. It is also how we allocate the rewards—promotions, dollars, stock options, or whatever we may use. As we saw earlier, the review will influence a subordinate’s performance—positively or negatively—for a long time, which makes the appraisal one of the manager’s highest-leverage activities.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“commonality of operational values, priorities, and preferences—how an organization works together—is a must if the progression in managerial style is to occur. Without that commonality, an organization can become easily confused and lose its sense of purpose. Accordingly, the responsibility for transmitting common values rests squarely with the supervisor. He is, after all, accountable for the output of the people who report to him; then, too, without a shared set of values a supervisor cannot effectively delegate.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“The role of the manager here is also clear: it is that of the coach. First, an ideal coach takes no personal credit for the success of his team, and because of that his players trust him. Second, he is tough on his team. By being critical, he tries to get the best performance his team members can provide. Third, a good coach was likely a good player himself at one time. And having played the game well, he also understands it well.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

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

“our role as managers is, first, to train the individuals (to move them along the horizontal axis shown in the illustration on this page), and, second, to bring them to the point where self-actualization motivates them, because once there, their motivation will be self-sustaining and limitless.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“A simple test can be used to determine where someone is in the motivational hierarchy. If the absolute sum of a raise in salary an individual receives is important to him, he is working mostly within the physiological or safety modes. If, however, what matters to him is how his raise stacks up against what other people got, he is motivated by esteem/recognition or self-actualization, because in this case money is clearly a measure.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“what self-actualization means: the need to achieve one’s utter personal best in a chosen field of endeavor. Once someone’s source of motivation is self-actualization, his drive to perform has no limit. Thus, its most important characteristic is that unlike other sources of motivation, which extinguish themselves after the needs are fulfilled, self-actualization continues to motivate people to ever higher levels of performance.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“For Maslow, motivation is closely tied to the idea of needs, which cause people to have drives, which in turn result in motivation. A need once satisfied stops being a need and therefore stops being a source of motivation. Simply put, if we are to create and maintain a high degree of motivation, we must keep some needs unsatisfied at all times.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“all a manager can do is create an environment in which motivated people can flourish. Because better motivation means better performance, not a change of attitude or feeling, a subordinate’s saying “I feel motivated” means nothing. What matters is if he performs better or worse because his environment changed. An attitude may constitute an indicator, a “window into the black box” of human motivation, but it is not the desired result or output. Better performance at a given skill level is.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“This is why promotion from within tends to be the approach favored by corporations with strong corporate cultures. Bring young people in at relatively low-level, well-defined jobs with low CUA factors, and over time they will share experiences with their peers, supervisors, and subordinates and will learn the values, objectives, and methods of the organization. They will gradually accept, even flourish in, the complex world of multiple bosses and peer decision-making.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“Let’s apply our model to the work of a new employee. What is his motivation? It is very much based on self-interest. So you should give him a clearly structured job with a low CUA factor. If he does well, he will begin to feel more at home, worry less about himself, and start to care more about his team. He learns that if he is on a boat and wants to get ahead, it is better for him to help row than to run to the bow.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“An imaginary composite index can be applied to measure an environment’s complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity, which we’ll call the CUA factor.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management