Name: High Output Management
Rating: 4.395348837209302 (86 reviews)
ISBN: 9780679762881

Andrew S. Grove

The president of Silicon Valley's Intel Corporation sets forth the three basic ideas of his management philosophy and details numerous specific techniques to increase productivity in the manager's work and that of his colleagues and subordinates

High Output Management

Some good tips and frameworks, some wonky politics that sometimes detract from the book and had me put it down a few times. E.g. in the intro when they try to use their management philosophy to fix(?) policing.

Heiki Riesenkampf

** spoiler alert **
           The book influenced a lot of common best practices in management in today. Some unconventional ideas and worth a read for the same reason one should read Darwin before Dawkins.

Cristian Garcia

I need time to digest and apply this. A great reading.

Simao Freitas

Although the examples are a bit outdated and refer to orgs with very clear hierarchy, the insights are super actionable and very pragmatic. It’s a nice and quick read but it’s content heavy, with little room for filler text.

brendan sudol

A few takeaways:

1. should focus on output (what we achieve) vs activity (what we do)
2. generally two reasons a person isn’t doing job - either can’t do it (not capable, needs training) or won’t do it (not motivated)
3. need to adjust management style based on “task-relevant maturity” of person, just like parenting style changes as child ages; important not to confuse person’s general competence and maturity with his/her task-relevant maturity

Chris Raastad

Overall, pretty good book, especially for new managers. Basically required reading for any manager of any field. I enjoyed hearing the words from Mr. Grove himself. The book stays surprisingly relevant over the years. I give it 4/5, since there were only 3 groundbreaking ideas I got from the book, the rest made sense and otherwise not life-changing. Easy read.

TLDR: the output of a manager is the output of the individuals or organization of his/her influence or control. I.e. for the CEO that's the entire company.

One insightful idea was the the Modes of Control, which you can read about in this blog:
https://www.colemanm.org/post/modes-o...
It's surprisingly applicable to both work-life and macroeconomics. It's a 2x2 square of Individual Motivation vs. CUA (complexity, uncertainty, and ambiguity). 

TLDR:
* high self-interest & low CUA = Free market forces (I want to buy apples from the store, lowest price wins)
* high group interest & low CUA = contractual obligations (freelance / contractor work, billed per hour, some salary work)
* high group interest & high CUA = cultural values (mission driven work, salary work with unclear criteria of success, most management)
* high self-interest & high CUA = danger zone (chaos, every-man-for-himself mentality, i-wanna-quit, early days of covid)

The second idea I really liked is the stages of problem solving in the context of performance reviews. It's the steps and realizations an individual needs to go through to own a problem and solve.

TLDR:
* Ignore
* Deny
* Blame others
* Assume responsibility
* Find solution

Andy does a good job describing the importance and process of constructing and delivering performance reviews (something I have not seen done well much in my career to this day, except Alvar, good job Alvar).

Finally is Task Relevant Maturity (TRM), its the three stages of task maturity of a person and how that influences the management style of that individual.

TLDR:
* Low TRM = structured management, task-oriented, tell what, when, and how
* Medium TRM = Individual oriented, emphasis on two-way communication, support, mutual reasoning
* High TRM = little involvement of manager, establish objectives and monitor.

It's a good book and worth picking up. :)

ANDREW BRYK

One of the best business books I have ever read. Will likely re-read in the future

Angel Herrera

The best business book I have ever read

Quite fascinating. I dismissed this book without reading it originally. Boy, was I wrong. 

Grove brings a hardcore mass-production engineer’s perspective into properly setting up an human organization. This book is full of simple, but not easy, ideas that will help any team achieve more.

Nikolay Bachiyski

Andy Grove was the CEO of a Intel – a large corporation both doing rocket-science-level research and running manufacturing plants. The advice in the book somehow had to fit both scenarios. I am managing a small engineering team and I know I found it super-useful. Starting with the surprisingly clear definition of a manager’s output (“output of the organizational units under her or his supervision or influence”) to the more tactical ideas how to organize a company’s departments or what’s a good performance evaluation.

“High Output Management” doesn't treat people like snowflakes, but it’s still mostly about people. When talking about large organizations, many management ideologies abstract the humans to resources. I really liked that “High Output Management” didn’t do that and instead showed the importance of communication and relationships between people.

Of course, “High Output Management” isn’t for everybody. The prose is far from vivid and sometimes I had a hard time to relate to the examples or metaphors. While the style may be easy to overcome, some of the strict hierarchy/dual reporting/100% measurable output have many drawbacks that were either omitted or just not prominent enough. Not a deal-breaker, but don’t get too excited about those practices that sounds perfect on paper, but history has shown it’s not all roses.

In summary, if you can relate to the term “high output”, or at least if you don’t wince when you hear it, give this little book a try.

Lance Willett

Not sure what took me so long on this one. The beginning is a slog, slow-going and kind of boring. The middle and end are worth it. Stick with it if you haven’t been able to get through this one.

Turns out much of what it takes to run a productive company is spelled out here with Intel of the 70s and 80s as a backdrop. From productivity, quality assurance, leadership, organizational structure, meetings, how to run 1-1s, to structuring rewards and compensation. Comprehensive and opinionated.

Favorite quote: “How you handle your own time is, in my view, the single most important aspect of being a role model and leader.” Which is echoed by, “In principle, every hour of your day should be spent increasing the output or the value of the output of the people whom you’re responsible for.”

Much like Peter Drucker’s “Effective Executive” book, Grove points out that high output teams and companies start with everyone in the group managing themselves well.

Hat tip: Cate Huston. Read on Kindle in October and November 2018.

Pawel Cebula

Ilia Markov

It's a managerial classic, definitely has many useful pieces of information, but I found it hard to follow as an audiobook — should re-read on paper.

High Output Management

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