High Output Management Quotes

“can think of no better way to make the decision-making process straightforward than to apply before the fact the structure imposed by our six questions.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“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

“If the decision-making process has proceeded correctly up to this point, the senior manager will be making the decision having had the full benefit of free discussion wherein all points of view, facts, opinions, and judgments were aired without position-power prejudice. In other words, it is legitimate—in fact, sometimes unavoidable—for the senior person to wield position-power authority if the clear decision stage is reached and no consensus has developed. It is not legitimate—in fact, it is destructive—for him to wield that authority any earlier. This is often not easy. We Americans tend to be reluctant to exercise position power deliberately and explicitly—it is just “not nice” to give orders. Such reluctance on the part of the senior manager can prolong the first phase of the decision-making process—the time of free discussion—past the optimum point, and the decision will be put off.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

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

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

“The next stage is reaching a clear decision. Again, the greater the disagreement about the issue, the more important becomes the word clear. In fact, particular pains should be taken to frame the terms of the decision with utter clarity.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“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 greater the disagreement and controversy, the more important becomes the word free.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“one person usually has more at stake in the outcome of the meeting than others. In fact, it is usually the chairman or the de facto chairman who calls the meeting, and most of what he contributes should occur before it begins. All too often he shows up as if he were just another attendee and hopes that things will develop as he wants. When a mission-oriented meeting fails to accomplish the purpose for which it was called, the blame belongs to the chairman”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

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

“A real time-saver is using a “hold” file where both the supervisor and subordinate accumulate important but not altogether urgent issues for discussion at the next meeting.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“I’d like to suggest some mechanical hints for effective one-on-one meetings. First, both the supervisor and subordinate should have a copy of the outline and both should take notes on it, which serves a number of purposes”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

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

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

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

“Also, if you use the production principle of batching—that is, handling a group of similar chores at one time—many interruptions that come from your subordinates can be accumulated and handled not randomly, but at staff and at one-on-one meetings, the subject of the next chapter. If such meetings are held regularly, people can’t protest too much if they’re asked to batch questions and problems for scheduled times, instead of interrupting you whenever they want.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

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

“But because you must coordinate your work with that of other managers, you can only move toward regularity if others do too. In other words, the same blocks of time must be used for like activities. For example, at Intel Monday mornings have been set aside throughout the corporation as the time when planning groups meet.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“we should try to make our managerial work take on the characteristics of a factory, not a job shop. 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.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“To use your calendar as a production-planning tool, you must accept responsibility for two things: 1.  You should move toward the active use of your calendar, taking the initiative to fill the holes between the time-critical events with non-time-critical though necessary activities. 2.  You should say “no” at the outset to work beyond your capacity to handle. 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.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“To use your calendar as a production-planning tool, you must accept responsibility for two things: 1.  You should move toward the active use of your calendar, taking the initiative to fill the holes between the time-critical events with non-time-critical though necessary activities. 2.  You should say “no” at the outset to work beyond your capacity to handle.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

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

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

“Before you are horrified by how much time I spend in meetings, answer a question: 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. Getting together with others is not, of course, an activity—it is a medium.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“information-gathering is the basis of all other managerial work, which is why I choose to spend so much of my day doing it.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“Your information sources should complement one another, and also be redundant because that gives you a way to verify what you’ve learned.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“our capital authorization process itself is important, not the authorization itself. To prepare and justify a capital spending request, people go through a lot of soul-searching analysis and juggling, and it is this mental exercise that is valuable. The formal authorization is useful only because it enforces the discipline of the process.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

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

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

“What we actually do is difficult to pin down and sum up. Much of it often seems so inconsequential that our position in the business hardly seems justified. Part of the problem here stems from the distinction between our activities, which is what we actually do, and our output, which is what we achieve. The latter seems important, significant, and worthwhile. The former often seems trivial, insignificant, and messy. But a surgeon whose output is a cured patient spends his time scrubbing and cutting and suturing, and this hardly sounds very respectable either.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management

“was once asked by a middle manager at Intel how I could teach in-plant courses, visit manufacturing plants, concern myself with the problems of people several levels removed from me in the organization, and still have time to do my job. I asked him what he thought my job was. He thought for a moment, and then answered his own question, “I guess those things are your job too, aren’t they?” They are absolutely my job—not my entire job, but part of it, because they help add to the output of Intel.”
― Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management