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Andrew S. Grove

High Output Management by Andrew S. Grove (1988-11-28) Mass Market Paperback

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Random House USA Inc; 1st Vintage Books ed edition (1988-11-28)
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The output of a manager is the output of the organizational units under his or her supervision or influence.
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A common rule we should always try to heed is to detect and fix any problem in a production process at the lowest-value stage possible.
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High managerial productivity, I argue, depends largely on choosing to perform tasks that possess high leverage.
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How you handle your own time is, in my view, the single most important aspect of being a role model and leader.
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ASIN ‏ : ‎ B019TL9O7U
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 6.4 ounces

Best Sellers Rank: #5,399,831 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Andrew S. Grove

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Andrew S. Grove emigrated to the United States from Hungary in 1956. He participated in the founding of Intel, and became its president in 1979 and chief executive officer in 1987. He was chosen as Time magazine's Man of the Year in 1997. In 1998, he stepped down as CEO of Intel, but continues as chairman of the board. Grove also teaches at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Photo by World Economic Forum from Cologny, Switzerland [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

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Abraham

still very relevant

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 8, 2023

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Even after more than 30 years of the original launch, this book is still relevant to today’s business environment! Beyond understanding OKRs Andy goes in depth of what is needed to be a good manager!

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Daniel

One of the Worst Books I've Ever Read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 24, 2016

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I read this book for a book club at work. I wasn’t exactly thrilled that a management book was chosen as our next book, especially since I am not a manager myself. However, I did see that High Output Management had received rave reviews here on Goodreads. I also saw an article from the Washington Post highlighting this book becoming a cult classic in Silicon Valley with plenty of recommendations from top CEOs. And the recently updated edition has a foreword by Ben Horowitz, who apparently has been the chief promoter of the book in tech circles. He’s a gazillionaire. He’s smart. And The Lean Startup, another Silicon Valley favorite, was quite good. Maybe this will actually be useful. I could not have been more wrong.

High Output Management is one of the worst books I’ve ever read. I repeat. High Output Management, lauded by Brian Chesky, Mark Zuckerburg, and Ben Horowitz, is one of the worst books I have ever read. Now, if you liked this book, you might be thinking, “What do I care what this guy has to say about this book? He’s not even a manager. It was probably just over his head. He doesn’t understand.” Allow me to make my case.

The pain starts with the foreword. Ben Horowitz begins to froth at the mouth about Andy Grove, otherworldly CEO of Intel - the greatest company ever to exist. Horowitz seems to equate Grove and High Output Management to Jesus and the Bible.
Anyone who was anyone in Silicon Valley read this book back when it was first released… Look how cool the cover is. He’s still wearing his key card in the photo! Wow!
Horowitz proceeds to explain the one decent piece of insight of the entire book, that a managers’ output is the output of his subordinates and those under his influence. Then he explains how amazing, absolutely Earth-shattering it is that Andy Grove will share how he runs his meetings. This is what I get to look forward to for the next 200 pages? Kill me now…

After Horowitz’s teenage gush fest, Grove begins the book with a deeply technical explanation of the process to prepare breakfast at a restaurant. The first step is to identify the limiting step, the step in the breakfast prep that takes the longest to complete. Then plan the entire job around that step.
Okay, cool... Not related to anything any of the people who probably read this book work on. It’s more appropriate for an assembly line environment, but okay. He’s using a metaphor. It’ll probably come full circle later on. WRONG! It never comes full circle.
And we arrive at my first major gripe about this book: High Output Management is meant for a production manager on the floor at a manufacturing plant whose sole job is to spit out as many bits and thingys as possible. Anyone not spending their job doing the same thing over and over again in a more-is-better environment will gain almost no value here. The back cover explains how it is “equally appropriate for consultants, teachers, as well as CEOs and startup founders.” And yet, there is no real mention of how this relates to any of them or the modern knowledge worker in general. Which leads me to wonder, why are so many startup founders, in massively unpredictable and creative environments, worshipping this nonsense?

Not only is the book mostly irrelevant, it’s hard to follow. Andy Grove consistently uses grossly overcomplicated reasoning and terminology to explain simple concepts. One quote that I like is, “Most geniuses – especially those who lead others – prosper not by deconstructing intricate complexities but by exploiting unrecognized simplicities.” Grove has no understanding of this concept. High Output Management is littered with complex formulas and unnecessary diagrams that will lull even the most studious professional into a blank stare. Entire chapters could have been written in one paragraph. The chapter called, “Task-Relevant Maturity,” could have been written in one sentence: Learn about your subordinates so you know how to manage them. That’s it. Instead we got a calculus lesson. I can only equate Grove’s obfuscating to trying to sound smart.
He also can’t seem to call things as they are. Grove insists on using bizarre labels to describe very common things. A meeting organizer is a “chairman.” Weekly updates are “operation reviews.” WTF? NO ONE TALKS LIKE THAT. And perhaps it’s the use of buzzwords like “managerial leverage” and “task-relevant maturity” that deceives the reader that Grove actually isn’t writing about anything new. All of his talking points, when you strip away the useless management-speak, are just the same tips you see in a typical article in Fast Company. Set a meeting agenda, train your employees, have one-on-one meetings with your subordinates. Useful for sure. But if this is your first time hearing that the meeting organizer should prepare the agenda, you don’t read enough.

Another theme of the book I have a problem with is that Andy Grove sees human effort as just another metric to quantify and optimize for. Our subordinates can be tinkered with to accomplish our goals if only we have the right equation. Maybe this is what attracts those in the startup community. That even human beings can be hacked by putting the right code into the machine. Grove obviously isn’t the first to think this way about managing others. But it’s a way of thinking that has caused generational resentment towards Corporate America.

Somehow, despite all of these flaws, Andy Grove could almost be forgiven if he didn’t commit this one fallacy: Grove doesn’t acknowledge how he concluded which/if any of his methods actually caused Intel’s or any of their managers’ success. He didn’t even isolate the characteristics of his top managers versus the average so we could at least guess for ourselves. All of the arguments were purely anecdotal and most likely suffering from confirmation bias, leaving the assembly line supervisors with only Grove’s word that these tactics actually work.

Grove mentions how delegation is an essential aspect of management. Um… Really? You’re telling me Steve Jobs was a legendary CEO because he was great at delegating? This is all you need to know about this and practically every other management book. In my opinion, what every book about management misses is that management isn’t nearly as important as a manager thinks it is. If you want to be a great manager, provide your guidance and get out of the way. No one wants to be managed. People want to be lead. Real leaders like Steve Jobs and Elon Musk, notorious for being brutal bosses, have succeeded most likely in spite of their management skills. People like them succeed because they bring out the best in their team and inspire others to go where no one else has gone before. They seek to create a world that doesn’t yet exist and bring others along for the ride. This is the difference between a manager and a leader. Of course tasks like delegation, planning, and running effective meetings play a role, but no one is buying that they were the crux of Andy Grove’s success. This is a lesson that many people never learn. Most people, even the uber rich and successful, are terrible at understanding why they succeeded in a given domain. They often just pick the things that are obvious and easy to quantify.

I think it’s not a stretch to think that I’ll be in a position of leadership at some point in my life. But when that day comes, I will not be using anything I learned from High Output Management.

77 people found this helpful

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Carlos Pires Junior

Excellent book with practical ideas

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 7, 2022

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This books is decades old, but business and processes are centuries old. This book autor is a master on approaching business challenges with an analytical and practical ideas that you can apply even today. A must read!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 20, 2015

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High Output Management provides a comprehensive overview of a managers role and purpose. The book focuses around a central thesis that a manager's objective is to increase the output of the work of those below and around him. A manager should therefore choose high-leverage activities that have a multiplicative impact on the overall output of his subordinates and peers. For example, providing clear direction to a team may only require a small amount of the manager's time, but yields tremendous value in terms of the output of the team.

This book is great for both new and experienced managers since it provides valuable frameworks and strategies for all kinds of common managerial tasks. Below are the core topics covered in this book:

* Delegation - In order to maximize leverage, a manager needs an optimal number of subordinates to whom he can delegate to. Successful delegation provides lots of leverage, whereas poor delegation ends up netting no leverage since it turns into errors and micro-management.
* Meetings - Meetings are extraordinarily expensive to a company. There are three types of recurring meetings: one-on-one's, staff meetings, and operational reviews. Each of these meetings should have a clear framework for maximizing value and minimizing time-waste. There are also one-off meetings centered around making a particular decision - such meetings should be especially carefully planned and executed since they are often scheduled ad-hoc without a clear purpose and with too many participants.
* Making decisions - When making decisions, there's a fragile power dynamic that needs to be carefully handled. Managers should facilitate free and open discussion amongst all parties until a consensus emerges. In cases where a consensus does not emerge naturally, the manager should push for a decision.
* Dual reporting - Dual reporting is inevitable in most large organizations. Consider advertising: should each division of a company decide and pursue its own advertising campaign, or should all of it be handled through a single corporate entity? The optimum solution calls for the use of dual reporting where each division controls most of their own advertising messages but a coordinating body of peers consisting of the various divisional marketing managers chooses the advertising agency and creative direction.
* Motivating employees - Our society respects someone's throwing himself into sports, but anybody who works very long hours is regarded as sick or a workaholic. Imagine how productive our country would become if managers could endow all work with the characteristics of competitive sports? Eliciting peak performance means going up against something or somebody, and turning the workplace into a playing field where subordinates become athletes dedicated to performing at the limit of their capabilities.
* Performance reviews - Performance reviews are easily mistaken as simply a way to assess performance and evaluate compensation. The fundamental goal of a performance review is to improve the subordinates performance. A review will influence a subordinate's performance for a long time, which makes the activity one of the manager's highest-leverage activities. Thus great care needs to be taken in the preparation and delivery of a performance review.

26 people found this helpful

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Allen C. Long

Amazing book to reread and study

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 17, 2020

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I'm an avid reader, but this is the first book that has moved me to write a review. In summary it's brilliant and absolutely still 100% relevant.

After finishing reading through the book, I immediately started re-reading it. In the forward by Ben Horowitz, he writes
"First, in as little as one sentence, it lucidly explains concepts that require entire books from lesser writers. Second, it consistently uncovers brand-new management ideas or finds new insights into old standards. Finally, while most management books attempt to teach basic competency, High Output Management, teaches the reader how to be great."
I think that's a really good summary. The first sentence is worth highlighting though. This book contains a ton of wisdom in 230 pages. If there's a flaw with the book, it's that it's too dense with wisdom. It's like an amazing teacher has condensed a full two-year Stanford MBA program into one small book. It is NOT a page turner (though he's a fine writer). There is so much in each page that you need to take breaks to think over what you just read before moving on.

Regarding the forward, you can skip it the first time through. I think it's more useful as a summary review after reading through the book once.

One person found this helpful

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Gavin Deadman

A classic book on management and a great insight in the history of Intel

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on April 24, 2021

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A fascinating read where Grove talks about how he pulled off the greatest transformation in the history of #Intel: moving from the memory business to microprocessors more than a decade after its founding.

During his tenure at Intel Corporation, he described the different reorganisations that the company went through, with the only one which was effective - which just about every large company or enterprise that he knew was organised was in a hybrid form, which consisted of mission-oriented departments. This reminding me of product lines.

Although it was published over 25 years ago, the management practices are timeless, where Grove touches on the negative impact of 'managerial meddling' (disempowerment) and he talks about productivity, work simplification and leverage with the goal to work smarter, not harder!

As Grove says "..the single most important sentence of this book: The output of a manager is the output of the organisation units under his or her supervision or influence".

The key to survival is to learn to add more value, which is ultimately what this book is about.

A classic book on management, which I'd recommend.

Iridium Eyes

Best management book read so far!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 8, 2020

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I found this book a fantastic source of actionable insight. Andy approach is very pragmatic, as you would expect from someone with an engineering background, which distinguishes this book from a mass of fluffy management literature. The perfect gift for someone just moved to a management position to quickly improve, or someone more experienced that would immediately relate with situations and benefit from such a successful CEO advice.

4 people found this helpful

social_unrest

old-fashioned

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 30, 2016

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old-fashioned ideas that might have worked in the 1970s but we've all moved on a lot since then. I particularly objected to his idea that in handling under-performing staff the only options you have are motivation and training. I would say this is not wrong, but it isn't helpful either. And what about "vision" in management? A lot of current problems are caused by blinkered attitudes and sheep-like behaviour. Grove has nothing to say on the topic.
But a good book nevertheless.

14 people found this helpful

Oldsmoker

The dullest book I've ever read, barely made it past the first chapter.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on November 8, 2020

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I bought this because having read Philip Tetlock's Super forecasting (twice) I was curious as to why Cummings regards this as essential reading for his weirdo's and misfits. Basically it is about boiling an egg from a process engineers perspective. If Cummings and his misfits can't boil an egg then how are they going to do the big stuff. The UK is in trouble.

2 people found this helpful

Barry

Simple guide to smart management

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on September 10, 2012

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One of the best business books I've read in a long time. Short book, common sense and to the point. Written by Andrew Grove former CEO of Intel.

I would challenge anyone to review their own workplace, their own work practices using some of Grove's ideas.

Liked the simple idea on the manager's preparation for decision making:

What decision needs to be made?

English: Portrait of Andrew Grove. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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 dcision
Who will need to be informed of the decision?
Pity it does not happen more often.
On meetings I think he is right: two types. Are we talking of a process oriented meeting (one-on-one, staff meetings, operations reviews) or a mission-oriented meeting?
The discussion of hybrid organisations and dual reporting is straightforward and recognises the reality of how many businesses need to be structured.
Liked the honesty of his section on performance appraisal. And his clarity on the importance of this process, the need for preparation and the rationale for the process in the first instance.
Not sure I fully agreed with him on his views on trying to retain people who say they are going to leave.
Finally - he is very clear on the manager's role and responsibility for training - including preparation and delivery of training. I would see this as a major failing with many managers in industry. And a major missed opportunity.

11 people found this helpful

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