High Output Management

By Andy Grove

https://archive.org/details/dli.ernet.213936/mode/1up?view=theater

Task Relevant Maturity

• It's personal maturity vs TRM
• Shift is typically from detailed to encouraging personally to minimal with mutual agreed objectives. bUT: presence or absence of monitoring is difference between delegating and abdicating
  • From structured to communication-oriented to minimal / monitoring
• What by when and how - what-when-how mode
• Management bias is mode 1 and 3 - not the medium. Because under ok time, we tend to avoid bc we don't think it is needed?
• Oddly enough, their work rela¬ tionship remained distant, their personal fiiendship hav¬ ing no effect on it.
• Become friends with inferiors? Depends on if both càn handle it. If yes, that is better. Would require high personal maturity.

2 Difficult Tasks

• 203 The purpose of the interview is to:

• select a good performer

• educate him as to who you and the company are

• determine if a mutual match exists

• sell him on the job

Self-Actualization

• 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 play¬ ers 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. give jerseys to our people
• Because people are motivated in sports - turn jobs sports like. We then initiated a program in which each building’s upkeep was periodically scored by a resident senior manager, dubbed a “building czar.” The score was then compared with those given the other buildings. The condition of all of them dramatically improved almost immediately
• Thus, our role as managers is, first, to train the individuals (to move them along the horizontal axis shown in the illustration on page 158), and, second, to bring them to the point where self-actualization moti¬ vates them, because once there, their motivation will be self-sustaining and limitless.
  • Note avg per capital income is $14k - so we need 7x more to be happy on average. This does not address distribution, either.
• Achievement (as in high achiever) vs competence (performance). But, achievement seems to not be grounded in universal purpose, but more in selfish purpose
• Once in the self-actualization mode, a person needs measures to gauge his progress and achievement. The most important type of measure is feedback on his per¬ formance. For the self-actualized person driven to im¬ prove his competence, the feedback mechanism lies within that individual himself
• 167 A simple test can be used to determine where some¬ one 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 moti¬ vated by esteem/recognition or self-actualization, be¬ cause in this case money is clearly a measure.
• money as a measure of achievement will motivate without limit
• So it appears that at the upper level of the need hierarchy, when one is self-actualized, money in itself is no longer a source of motivation but rather a measure of achievement.
• The Ph.D. in computer science who knows an answer in the abstract, yet does not apply it to create some tangible output, gets little recognition, but a junior engineer who produces results is highly valued and es¬ teemed.
• Moreover, if we want to cultivate achievement-driven motivation, we need to create an environment that val¬ ues and emphasizes output.
• 165 When the need to stretch is not spontaneous, manage¬ ment needs to create an environment to foster it.
• Competence, and achieving at all they do abstractly, are two ways of self-actualization. Missing for me is purpose-based achievement
• Two inner forces can drive a person to use all of his capabilities. He can be -driven or achievement-driven.
• Once someone’s source of motivation is self-actualization, his drive to perform has no limit.
• All of the sources of motivation we’ve talked about so far are self-limiting.
• 163 The physiological, safety/security, and social needs all can motivate us to show up for work, but other needs— esteem and self-actualization—make us perform once we are there.
• For Maslow, motivation is closely tied to the idea of needs, which cause people to have drives, which in turn result in motivation - thus there must be a persitent need that is unfilled
• because moti¬ vation has to come from within somebody. Accordingly, all a manager can do is create an environment in which motivated people can flourish.
• So if two things limit high output, a manager has two ways to tackle the issue: through training and motivation.
• The single most important task of a manager is to elicit peak performance from his subordinates
• 164 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.
• 139 Another Wrinkle: The Two-Plane Organization

Whenever a person becomes involved in coordination— something not part of his regular daily work—we en¬ counter a subtle variation of dual reporting

• OSE - 80/20 Dual Reporting. Functional units provide remixable or AI generators. Mission groups or business units do the adaptation. Central org provides the 'internal subcontracting'. Profits go to central, with profit sharing with divisions/biz units/mission groups.
• Hybrid organizations and the accom¬ panying dual reporting principle, like a democracy, are not great in and of themselves. They just happen to be the best way for any business to be organized.
• 135 The point is that a strong and posi¬ tive corporate culture is absolutely essential if dual re¬ porting and decision-making by peers are to work.
• 131 An unintended consequence of the moon shot was the development of a new organizational approach: matrix management.
• 127 Grove’s Law: All large organizations with a common business purpos
• 126 What are some of the advantages of organizing much of a company in a mission-oriented form? There is only one. It is that the individual units can stay in touch with the needs of their business or product areas and initiate changes rapidly when those needs change. That is it.
• Mission groups vs functional groups. Functional groups vs business units.
• The functional groups can be viewed as if they were internal subcontractors
• 123 Alfred Sloan summed up decades of experience at General Motors by saying, “Good manage¬ ment rests on a reconciliation of centralization and de¬ centralization.” (hybrid org)
• The idea behind MBO is extremely simple: If you don’t know where you’re going, you will not get there. Or, as an old Indian saying puts it, “If you don’t know where you’re going, any road will get you there.”
  • Where am I going?
  • How do I pace myself to get there?
• 110 idea that planners can be people apart from those implementing the plan simply does not work
• 109 as you plan you must answer the question: What do I have to do today to solve—or better, avoid— tomorrow’s problem?
• Development engineer vs production engineer vs product engineer - latter wants more documentation
• one of the man¬ ager’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?
• 100 Employing consistent ways by which decisions are to be made has value beyond simply expediting the deci¬ sion-making itself.
• Address the peer group syndrome by 'You can overcome the peer-group syndrome if each of the members has self-confidence, which stems in part from developing balls
• Will I have to deal with this? Make it no: 'One of the reasons why people are reluctant to come out with an opinion in the presence of their peers is the fear of going against the group by stating an opinion that is differ¬ ent from that of the group.'
• 93 pride, ambition, fear, and insecurity must be dealt with
• 92 decisions made at lowest competent level. This includes both tech and judgment
• Allocate hlf a day per week to subordinates. Only 6-8 subordinates per manager?
• Value of procedure is in the thinking that led to the procedure - the procedure must be examined critically
• Carry slack, or you can jam. Carry inventory of projects - which can be done in slack time, otherwise manger would meddle in other biz
• Leverage of manager comes from - number of people; focusing people with key direction (brief well focused words or actions (role model)); priorities; key enabling info or tools
• 50. Cul*ture obviates rules and regulations. Part of high Output.
• 2 minute kernel takes a half hour meeting. To avoid this, visit company locations in action.
• 49 reports are a medium of self-discipline and not necessarily of communicating information
• 35 One way to attain the work leverage is by work simplification
• Good indicators - measure output, not activity. Measure a tangible, not quality. Paired indi ators - second of pair can measure quality
• 7 - Pairing indicators - measure one and related negAtive other in a counterbalancing pair