This is Part II of a series inspired by Andy Grove's monumental business book, High Output Management. This series is designed for busy leaders seeking an edge on their day. Based on your feedback, we'll be breaking down Groves's 227 power-packed pages into 50-page summaries presented in actionable note format. But first, Dilbert.

If you're just joining us, be sure to read Wisdom from the Grove - Part I, the prelude to this post. 

Notes from pp. 51-100 of High Output Management

Before we jump in, its worth noting the structure of this book: 16 oddly-named chapters spanning four parts.

Part I: The Breakfast Factory

  • The basics of production: Delivering a Breakfast (or a College Graduate, or a Compiler, or a Convicted Criminal. . .)

  • Managing the breakfast factory

Part II: Management is a Team Game

  • Managerial leverage

  • Meetings—the medium of managerial work

  • Decisions, decisions

  • Planning: today's actions for tomorrow's output

Part III: Team of Teams

  • The breakfast factory goes national

  • Hybrid organizations

  • Dual reporting

  • Modes of control

Part IV: The Players

  • The sports analogy

  • Task-relevant maturity

  • Performance appraisal: manager as judge and jury

  • Two difficult task

  • Compensations as task-relevant feedback

  • Why training is the boss' job

The reason I've laid out the whole TOC is to 1) provide a lay of the land, and 2) share that this post will cover the last 3 bullet points of Part II which will put us about 50% through the book.

We'll start with a few quotes which highly Grove's prescient perspective:

  • "Beyond communicating facts, a manager must relay his objectives, preferences, and priorities". . .  [these are] "extremely important and a key part of delegation."

  • "How you handle your own time is the singly most important aspect of being a role model and leader."

  • "Because it is easier to monitor something with which you are familiar, you should delegate activities you know best."

  • "If people are spending more than 25% of their time in ad-hoc, mission-oriented meetings, you're likely facing malorganization [disfunction]."—which Grove attributes primarily to the ineffectiveness (or lack of) process-oriented meetings

  • "A meeting to make a decision should have at most 6-7 people, ideally less."

The premise of Part II is management is a team game. Andy supports this with best practices for getting shit done, i.e. humans working effectively with one another.