High Output Management by Andrew Grove
I stole this book on management, and I'm not giving it back…
Well, I didn't really ‘steal it’. I borrowed it from a colleague at my last company; he left, and I forgot to give it back. The book is High Output Management by Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel. I read this late in my tenure as CEO at my last company, when we were about 100 employees with middle managers, so it was certainly applicable. Here are some lessons:
Everything is a process: Whether you’re compiling code, hiring staff, or making breakfast, everything can be modeled as a repeatable production process. Understanding the elements of production—inputs, outputs, timing, limiting steps, quality controls, and variability—let us create and improve the "machinery" needed to fulfill our organizational goals.
There are only two ways a manager can maximize performance: training and motivation.
As a middle manager, you're a micro-ceo. Your output is the output of your division.
As a manager, part of your job is to identify where the bottlenecks are, then identify who is the best person to unblock that bottleneck, and then create a process for that bottleneck to happen again.
Apply ‘The breakfast’ assembly line approach: always start the longest process first, and while that's running, start the second longest. It takes longer to boil an egg than to toast bread
Reports are more of a medium for self-discipline. Reading it is not necessary, writing it is.
Value output (i.e., sales) over input (i.e., meetings)
Set a healthy competitive atmosphere: make people compete with each other; when in competition, people are much more likely to take on challenges and become their best selves. This drive to beat the distance, stopwatch, or competition is a result of self-actualization, an idea brought to prominence by the psychologist Abraham Maslow in 1954.
