High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove

Notes

• Grove’s Principle of Didactic Management - “Ask one more question”
  • when you think the other party has said everything ask one more question
  • keep the flow by asking more until both parties feel satisfied
• productivity can be increased by performing work at higher rate or by increasing the leverage of activities (e.g. by work simplification)
• manager’s output = team output + output of neighbouring teams under their influence
• manager’s job is to strive for the highest leverage
• high leverage activities:
  1. when many people are affected by one manager
  2. when a person’s activity or behaviour over a long time is affected by manager’s input
  3. when a large group’s work is affected by an individual supplying key piece of knowledge or information
• big part of managers role is information gathering
• delegation is another way of applying leverage
• training others

Production operations

• process - building a software
• assembly - the software itself
• test - assessing the quality of the software

Meetings

• process oriented (scheduled on regular basis)
  • 1:1
    • purpose: mutual teaching and exchange of information
    • should be scheduled in frequency matching the job- or task-relevant maturity (e.g. more frequently with new team member)
    • agenda and tone should be set by the subordinate
    • emphasis should be on indicators that signal trouble
    • keep a file with notes for next meeting and action points from previous
  • staff meeting
    • between manager and the peers of the team
    • manager should be active only if the discussion is stalling or going off track
• mission-oriented meetings
  • held ad-hoc to address specific issues
  • the objective of the meeting must be clear
  • keep the meetings reasonable sized, decision-making is not a spectator sport
  • meeting should have a driver
    • responsible for preparing the meeting, keeping discipline during the meeting, and summarising it afterwards
  • shouldn’t consist more than 20% of the meetings, in smoothly running organisation all issues would be addressed before they arise in process oriented meetings

Decision making

• the process:
  1. free discussion
  • all aspects of the issue should be openly and freely discussed
  2. clear decision
  3. full support
  • all involved parties should commit to the decision (doesn’t mean agree)
• if solution is wrong, repeat the steps
• the decision should be made on the middle level between reliance on technical knowledge and hands-on experience versus expertise and previous experience with similar solutions
• six important questions for decisions making:
  1. what decision needs to be made
  2. when does it have to be made
  3. who will decide
  4. who will need to be consulted prior to making the decision
  5. who will ratify or veto the decision
  6. who will need to be informed of the decision
• being clear about the decision making process beforehand is important to prevent hard feelings

Planning

1. establish projected need or demand

• examine your environment: customers’ expectations, performance of other groups that affect you, competition.
• examine the environment in two timeframes: now vs. sometime in the future (e.g. in 1 year)
• difference analysis - the environment demands now vs. in the future
  • how you react to the difference is key outcome of the planning process

2. establish your current status

• current capabilities and projects and their delivery

3. compare and reconcile steps 1. and 2.

• what do you need to close the gap?
• what can you do to close the gap?
• consider both questions separately and answer: what affect your actions will have and when
• the set of actions you decide on is strategy
• management by objectives (MBO)
  • answer to two questions
    1. where do I want to go? (objective)
    2. how will I evaluate if I am getting there? (key result)

Behaviour

• when person is not doing their job there are only two possible reasons: they can’t do it or they won’t do it
  • manager can affect this by motivation and training
• Maslow hierarchy of needs:
  1. Physiological (things that money can buy such as food or clothing)
  2. Safety/Security (e.g. medical insurance)
  3. Social/Affiliation (e.g. belonging to the group)
  4. Esteem/Recognition (exists in the eyes of the beholder, e.g. you dictate what you need for esteem/recognition, once gratified it no longer motivates)
  5. Self-Actualizaton (the need to achieve one’s utter personal best)
• competence-driven - driven to master specific task
• achievement-driven - attempting to achieve no matter what the task is
• motivation by money dimishes with higher income
• the motivation persists for those who have money as proxy for achievement
  • if absolute sum is important to the person then it is mostly about physiological need
  • if what matters is how the sum stacks against other peers then it is mostly about esteem/recognition or self-actualization

task-relevant maturity (TRM)

• combination of education, training, and experience
• can be high in one job and low in another
• management style for specific maturity:
  • low - structured; task oriented; what, when, how
  • medium - individual oriented; mutual reasoning and communication
  • high - minimal involvement of the manager

Reviews & feedback

• assessing performance
  • clarify for yourself in advance the expectations
  • you can characterize performance by output measures (the yield) and internal measures (the means to achieve the yield)
  • needs to weight in if the person is long-term oriented vs short-term oriented (no general rule here)
  • similarly there might be lag between actions and actual results
• delivering the assessment
  • 3 Ls:
    • level - level yourself with the person and be frank
    • listen - what matters is getting the right thoughts communicated, words are just the means for it
    • leave yourself out - the review is about and for the person
  • there’s finite capacity to absorbing feedback
    • write down things and group similar feedback
• stages of under-performers: ignore, deny, blame others, assume responsibility, find solution
  • three possible outcomes when delivering “blast” review (harsh feedback)
    • they accept the assessment and commit to solution
    • they don’t accept the assessment but still commit to solution
    • they neither accept the assessment nor the solution
• reviewing the ace
  • high performers need strong feedback even more than average performers as they account for disproportional amount of work

Compensation and career

• career progression consists of alternating between meets requirements and exceeds requirements until one stagnates at meets requirements
• people are fine with meeting requirements while achiever strive for exceeding requirements
• when person is promoted and becomes under-achiever it’s better for both the organisation and the person to adjust their position
  • the management oughts to own to the error

Practice

Tasks from the end of the book to practice what one has learned

• for a project you are working on, identify limiting step and map the flow of work around it
• identify 6 indicators for your group’s output, they should measure both quality and quantity
• conduct work simplification on your most tedious, time-consuming task
• define output of your organiszation and organizations that you can influence
• define how you will monitor the next project that you delegate
• define 3 objectives for yourself and create key indicators for all of them