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High Output Management

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In this legendary business book and Silicon Valley staple, the former chairman and CEO of Intel shares his perspective on how to build and run a company. A practical handbook for navigating real-life business scenarios and a powerful management manifesto with the ability to revolutionize the way we work. 

The essential skill of creating and maintaining new businesses—the art of the entrepreneur—can be summed up in a single word: managing. Born of Grove’s experiences at one of America’s leading technology companies (as CEO and employee number three at Intel), High Output Management is equally appropriate for sales managers, accountants, consultants, and teachers, as well as CEOs and startup founders. Grove covers techniques for creating highly productive teams, demonstrating methods of motivation that lead to peak performance. 

"Generous enough with advice and observations to be required reading." — The Wall Street Journal

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

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About the author

Andrew S. Grove

31 books362 followers
Andrew Stephen ("Andy") Grove (born 2 September 1936), is a Hungarian-born American businessman, engineer, and author. He is a science pioneer in the semiconductor industry. He escaped from Communist-controlled Hungary at the age of 20 and moved to the United States where he finished his education. He later became CEO of Intel Corporation and helped transform the company into the world's largest manufacturer of semiconductors.

In 1968, As a result of his work at Intel, and from his books and professional articles, Grove had a considerable influence on the management of modern electronics manufacturing industries worldwide. He has been called the "guy who drove the growth phase" of Silicon Valley.Steve Jobs, when he was considering returning to be Apple's CEO, called Grove, who was someone he "idolized," for his personal advice. One source notes that by his accomplishments at Intel alone, he "merits a place alongside the great business leaders of the 20th century."

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Displaying 1 - 30 of 977 reviews
Profile Image for Daniel.
13 reviews20 followers
February 24, 2016
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.
Profile Image for Muhammad Arrabi.
50 reviews12 followers
March 4, 2013
This is definitely one of the BEST Business Books one must read. And it's the best "Management to Engineers" book I can think of.
This book is listed on Quora as the best people management book one can read. It has been recommended by so many top VCs there.

Andrew Grove is the legendary CEO of Intel. Yet, his background is scientific research. This book is one of the best and concise guides on how to be an excellent manager (from managing a small team, all the way to a whole company).

His language is filled with engineering examples. It's also concise and to the point. And has an amazing clarity of thought.

I highly recommend it. (along with Collin's Good to Great, and Lencioni's Advantage)
208 reviews45 followers
October 15, 2012
In some circles, Grove has as bad a reputation as Bill Gates. And while I can't comment on his other books (e.g., Only the Paranoid Survive), this book doesn't give that impression.

Grove's management philosophy is well developed, I think more useful than Rudy Giuliani's (Leadership), and still valid thirty years after the book was originally published. Additionally, Grove gives useful advice to people who aren't managers.

Shortly before reading this book, I read T.J. Rodgers' No Excuses Management. While I think Rodgers' book is useful, I have to recommend this one over it. Grove goes into more detail, and his advice is more applicable to me than Rodgers', and his advice has held up better over a longer period of time than Rodgers'.

I'd submit my resume to Intel because of this book, if it weren't for all the cubicles.
Profile Image for posthuman.
64 reviews127 followers
January 8, 2020
Intel co-founder Andy Grove was a brilliant CEO and a mediocre writer. His breakout business book of 1983 is no breezy beach read. A good deal of the material covered in High Output Management feels dated and his prose is dry as sand and crackers. But there are enough gems in here that it's well worth the read if you work in a managing role in a large organization (or a small organization that is growing).
Profile Image for José Luis.
321 reviews22 followers
November 18, 2016
It is a bestseller that survives through time, although it was first published in 1983 and since then management has changed a lot and has already incorporated the ideas the book spreads. But it is invaluable because Andrew Grove tells the reader his lessons learned as a effective manager at Intel. The book is for sure a compact course in Management, driven to managers focused on productivity and team work. I would read it again and again, no doubt about that. Highly recommended if you want to take a glimpse on the duties of a manager at a global company like Intel. (his latter book Only the paranoid survive, which I read some time ago, is also highly recommended).
Profile Image for Bozhidar.
25 reviews79 followers
December 11, 2018
I'm not in the habit of writing book reviews (who has time for all of the reviews we have to write these days, anyways?), but I feel like this book deserves a few words.

It's simply phenomenal! Sure, it's a bit dated (it was written originally in the 80s and slightly updated in the 90s), but most of the content in it is timeless. The foundational ideas about running a business, building a team, managing a team, etc transcend both time and industries. The only thing that really changes seems to be what's considered a good idea/practice at any given time.

It's really refreshing to read the management playbook of true manager, who has proven himself and the merits of his ideas/beliefs. It's also very refreshing that often Andy admits that there's no recipe for success and all you can do is experiment and see what works best for you. You'll rarely see people as successful as him be so humble and frank about the challenges they face.

The book is certainly not a page turner, but even if you can't stomach all of it I can heartily recommend reading at least Part II (Management is a Team Game) and Part IV (The Players). I enjoyed those parts immensely and I deeply regretted not having read this book years ago. Once I actually read some abbreviated version of the book, but without all the context the ideas simply didn't stick with me.
Profile Image for Alexander Pavlov.
20 reviews6 followers
April 19, 2017
Настольная книга многих известных IT-предпринимателей и CEO современности. Гроув описывает свое видение подходов к эффективному менеджменту. Причём под менеджментом он понимает не только тех, кто непосредственно руководит другими, но и тех, кто влияет на работ�� других посредством своих знаний и экспертизы.
Создается впечатление, что изначально книга писалась, как настольная книга для менеджеров Интел.
Написана в 1983 году, но 90% написанного актуально до сих пор и будет ещё долго актуально. Причём не только в IT.
Profile Image for Sarah.
38 reviews
July 5, 2015
Most of it felt more appropriate for a manufacturing company than today's world, but the fundamentals still resonated.
Profile Image for Simon Eskildsen.
215 reviews1,079 followers
March 22, 2016
This is the best book I've read on leadership, building organizations and spending your time on the most important tasks for your team.
Profile Image for Simon Kozlov.
26 reviews68 followers
September 8, 2019
Осторожно, многабукф!
Прочитал High Output Management, широко известную в Долине книжку про менеджмент из восьмидесятых. Ее написал Andy Grove, который CEO Интел и за нее топит Ben Horowithz и куча народу в Долине, от известных CEO до просто людей с которыми ты разговариваешь (https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/o...)
Книжка действительно добротная и веет классикой, думаю ставить 4 или 5 баллов.
У Энди хорошо получается структурировать сложный мир людей, компаний и отношений, в простые тезисы, которые конечно очень упрощают, но при этом несут полезную информацию.
Поэтому это одна из таких книжек про менеджмент, которые если читать без контекста (т.е. если ты не менеджил сам или делал это мало), то покажется что она вся состоит из очевидностей и трюизмов.
А если сам это сколько-то прохавал - начинаешь понимать, о чем он, и думать, что ж ты такие простые вещи не замечал.
Его центральный тезис: middle managers (к которым от относит так называемых knowledge managers, то есть люди без прямых подчиненных, но оказывающих значительное влияние на большие организации за счет экспертизы и авторитета) это backbone компании (то есть если они нихера не делают и непродуктвны, нихера не будет работать). Основной критерий продуктивности менеджера - выхлоп (output) его команды и команд, на которых он имеет влияние. Output для каждой команды разный (фичи, закрытые продажи, выпущенные девайсы итд) и менеджер должен его знать и мерять.
Ну и вот он рассказывает свое представление о том, как middle managers быть в этом смысле продуктивными.
Книжка знаменита многими вещами - насколько я понимаю, именно из нее растут привычные нам сейчас OKRs или 1:1s.
Мне она прежде всего понравилась тем, что Энди поднимает очень реальные сложные вопросы ребром - на которые полностью ответить невозможно, но он и не пытается целиком. Он рассказывает те части, про которых у него есть простая позиция или наблюдения.
Ну вот как мини-пример, он обсуждает вопрос, можно ли быть менеджеру в дружеских отношениях с подчиненными. И говорит - да всякое бывает, но вот есть простой тест. Представь, что ты менеджер и у тебя дружбан в подчинении, и тебе надо ему выдать очень серьезный negative feedback, performance или еще чего. Если у тебя в этот момент желудок никак не двигается - тогда можешь и дружить.
Остальное видимо допишу когда буду снова в поезде :)
Вечером Caltrain как обычно сбил машину, и продолжения не получилось!
Книжку пересказывать не буду, приведу просто еще примеров которые запомнились.
- Так как основная цель менеджера - увеличивать output своей и смежных организаций, то это включает в себя увеличение производительности конкретно подчиненных. Способов увеличить производительность подчиненного у менеджера ровно два - мотивировать и обучать (умеет Энди упросить). Например, вот performance review при том что все ненавидят их делать, крайне влияет на мотивацию сотрудника на годы. Посему - делать perf review одно из наиболее важных и эффективных занятий для менеджера.
"Знайте, главный грузчик может слова сказать, после которых каждый захочет поразгружать" (для незнакомых с референсом и тех кого еще не тошнит от КВН -
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gg4Rx...)
Ну и у него еще всякие наблюдения про мотивацию и обучен��е, в частности топит чтобы люди внутренние лекции и курсы делали сами.
Я прям подумал, что можно обретенные на youtube скиллы применить.
- Другая мысль, которая мне понравилась - про структуру компаний. Ща, скопипасчу из другого канала.
Нашел!
Вот он раскрывает свое понимание темы централизации внутри компании
Мол, всегда есть выбор - хочешь ли ты независимые подразделения, которые владеют полным циклом, или наоборот, функциональные подразделения, которые владеют одной функцией на всю компанию (недвижимость делают для всей компании, логистику, или еще чего)
И мол идеального решения нет, в компании нужны и такие, и такие, искусство менеджмента во многом и заключается в том, чтобы этот баланс найти и менять по ходу жизни
И вот pros and cons у них говорит такие
Что у функциональных юнитов много плюсов - они дают доступ к economy of scale, итд итп, и один минус - что их клиентам приходится биться за приоритеты, убеждать, играть в политику, и всегда это проходит болью
А у тех которые полным циклом (он их называет mission-driven), наоборот, полно разных минусов, но есть один плюс - это возможность более быстро реагировать на изменение потребностей рынка
Во всем другом они хуже, чем функциональные
Но вот этот плюс для некоторых частей компании перевешивает все остальное. И вот менеджеру надо решить где оно.

> _Вроде у функциональных юнитов главная проблема это cross cutting фичи._
> _В смысле любая product фича получается cross cutting._
> _Ну и теряешь половину времени на разговоры и координацию разных юнитов._
> В условиях современных компаний, это похоже на разделение на продуктовые и инфраструктурные команды.
> Продуктовые должны быть такие, чтобы они могли сами фичу по всему стеку.
> А инфраструктурные специализируются на отдельном аспекте для всех.
> В этом смысле если у тебя продуктовые команды разделены по областям стека, это не очень клево.

- последний пример такой - как слушать во время 1:1. Всегда с каждой стороны есть внутренний вопрос, все ли тебе рассказали, и это особенно сложно когда начальник с подчиненным разговаривают. И вот у Энди мысль такая - после того, как тебе что-то ответили и вы поговорили, надо задать еще один вопрос. Не так важно какой, важно чтобы человек говорил сейчас в моменте, а не подготовленное. И дальше по ситуации.
Еще наверное надо сказать о явных слабых сторонах книжки. С моей колокольни очень явно видны две, возможно как раз потому что с 1983 года мир изменился.
- Очень большой (хотя может и явно не проговариваемый) фокус на повторяемые процессы. Он приводит в начале как пример процессов breakfast restaurant, как появляется конвеер, боттлнеки итд итп и как их менеджить. А потом говорит, что в остальных командах, какие бы они не были - сейлз, написание документации, итд итп все похоже, только производимые юниты другие (закрытые контракты, написанные фичи итд)
И это все надо осторожно применять к миру софта, где все делается один раз и сложность при каждом подходе новая.
Отчего появился вот этот весь Agile итд.
Что в принципе неудивительно, Интел - это железная компания, которая еще и фабрики свои сама менеджит.
- Второе это что она такая олдскульная и хардкорная, в смысле иерархии и что надо ходить строем.
У него на самом деле проклевываются горизонтальные связи в части, где он говорит про dual reporting (что мол часто человек по факту репортит и менеджеру, и какому-то комитету peer'ов, и это нормально и так должно быть)
Но вот этого современного сдувания пылинок с сотрудников, фокуса на всеобщем счастье, росте подчиненных, work-life balance итд у него мало. По хардкору "Ничего личного, эффективность прежде всего".
Это не значит, что он это все не считает важным, просто про это книжка говорит мало.
Вот.

http://closedcircles.com/?invite=62f3...
Profile Image for WhatIReallyRead.
781 reviews535 followers
May 22, 2023
This book was recommended to me by my manager, and I'm glad I picked it up - it's going straight to my 'favorites' shelf. You know how sometimes with business books it feels like there's just one valuable thing it has to say (if that) and the whole thing could have been condensed to a blog post? Well, with High Output Management it's the opposite - each sentence could have been its own blog post. The book is packed with valuable and thought-provoking stuff. I started reading it in audio form but quickly gave up and got an e-book so I could pause to ponder things, make highlights, etc.

It was originally published in 1983, and I can really see how it influenced the industry I work in. Many of the things Andy Grove introduced at Intel haven't been done before - but by now they are considered standard practice, whether we know their origins or not. But it's also profound to read about these, as he introduced them intentionally, for a purpose which he clearly articulates, and many people who follow the rituals today do so mindlessly and therefore completely uselessly.

There were a couple of outdated statements that made me chuckle though, like "If each unit had its own computer, very expensive equipment would be sitting idle much of the time." 😅

Anyway, this is one of the very few business books I read that didn't feel like a waste of time and that I genuinely recommend reading.

Profile Image for Chip Huyen.
Author 6 books3,393 followers
June 15, 2023
Best book on management I've read. The book is not just about management, but about how to build an organization. It doesn't shy away from difficult issues.
Profile Image for Vasiliy Sikorskiy.
91 reviews6 followers
September 30, 2018
Книгу прочитал по настойчивой рекомендации моего одногруппника. За что ему огромная благодарность. Если коротко, то это лучшая книга по менеджменту из всех, которые я читал. Стал впервые руководителем, хочешь быть руководителем получше, являешься хороший руководителем - однозначный маст к прочтению. Ее автор - CEO компании Intel. Ее особенностью является очень прикладной характер, там качественно выведены принципы и фреймворки, которые он рекомендует всем менеджерам. Причём говорит не общо и не верхнеуровнево, а вполне конк��етно. Интересно, кстати, что многое пересекается с принципами менеджмента в Юниум - летучки один на один, двойное подчинение, формат встреч и многое другое. Это меня безусловно порадовало ) во многом книга отталкивается от трёх идей: взгляд на менеджменте как на эффективное производство; результат работы менеджера это результат работы всех команд, которые либо подчиняются ему, либо на которые он оказывает влияние; высокая эффективность команды - это «вытягивание» менеджером высокой эффективности в каждом члене команды. Книга охватывает большинство нужных тем - и встречи, и обратная связь, и принятие решений, и обучение. Как пример одного из быстрых результатов для себя - я увеличил личные встречи до 1,5 часов и стал осознанно искать максимальной детализации на этих встречах. Также с некоторым облегчением прочитал «закон Гроува» про оргструктуру (сам автор его так шутя называет) - любая достаточно большая и эффективная организация в какой-то момент превращается в гибридную. Функциональные или mission-oriented (проектные, по сути) - это утопическая утопия. Задача руководителя лишь определиться, что отдавать «на места», а что централизовывать конкретно в его случае. Короче говоря, ещё раз - книга must к прочтению. У неё есть только 1 проблема - ее е купить в бумажном виде. А электронный - не самого высокого качества пдфка. Ещё можно читать через Kindle на английском языке. Так что если вдруг кто знает, как получить права на нее у издательства «Филин», которое уже закрылось, и/или готов поучаствовать в бумажном тираже - you’re welcome
Profile Image for Sam Stagg.
15 reviews
March 9, 2018
I can see why this book is so popular with left-brain-dominant CEOs in Silicon Valley. Like many management books it promises to give you the recipe for the secret sauce of successful growing businesses. Unlike many, it does actually give you some of the ingredients, though not the whole recipe.

The book is short, to the point, and full of real, actionable things you can do as a manager. Everything is presented with a minimum dose of fuss and a maximum dose of reality. Ultimately, it's a handbook of management hacks (algorithms, even) for people who don't have the time or inclination to learn how to manage people through repeated, annoying, slow, error-strewn lived human experience.

Sadly it's let down for me as an actual book by this very lack of humanity. Everyone in the book is a cipher, and every story which intends to add a splash of human colour merely underlines that Andy Grove doesn't appear to have had a massive amount of empathy for his colleagues. Just imagine being the manager in the Performance Review Chapter who hits all his targets but then gets a bad review because his boss has a weird spidey-sense that things will go wrong in the next year!

In no way is High Performance Management alone in this failing. I find it very common in a lot of management reading, not to mention in a lot of managers. However, I was hoping for something more substantially human from a book which is so widely and universally recommended.

I would especially recommend this book if your supervisor, manager, or CEO has read and enjoyed it already. You may get a better understanding of some of their management techniques, because they will definitely have taken something from it. You probably will too.
Profile Image for Christopher Lewis Kozoriz.
827 reviews272 followers
December 14, 2020
"A great deal of a manager's work has to do with allocating resources: manpower, money, and capital. But the single most important resource that we allocate from one day to the next is our own time...How you handle your own time is, in my view, the single most important aspect of being a role model and leader." Andrew S. Grove, High Output Management, Page 53)

Different aspects of management taught in this book. Everything from conducting meetings, performance reviews, motivating employees, keeping employees, conducting interviews, the manager's roles and responsibilities...

I read this book in 30 minute bursts, but could not read it more than 30 minutes at time. The author is an engineer and therefore very methodical in his writing. It wasn't boring, but I did find his writing style at times like reading a technical book; therefore, I required to digest one piece at time. I don't have an engineering background and that may be the reason why.

I personally sent an email to billionaire John Doerr in July 2016 and asked him what were his top 5 favourite books, he sent me the following list:

The Defining Decade, Meg Jay
Work Rules!, Laszlo Bock
Startup, Jerry Kaplan
High Output Management, Andrew S. Grove
The Monk and The Riddle, Randy Komisar

As you can see this made his list.

It is well worth the read if you are in management or developing your management skills.
Profile Image for Himanshu Upreti.
82 reviews5 followers
January 2, 2023
“Remember too that your time is your one finite resource, and when you say “yes” to one thing you are inevitably saying “no” to another.”

High Output Management is a cult classic in Silicon Valley even after more than 30 years of its first publishment. Intel co-founder Andrew Grove was a brilliant CEO (also, Time Person of the Year 1997) and led one of the America’s leading technology companies to unparalleled heights. In this classic "Management to Engineers" book, Andrew breaks down the process of management and likens it to the production operations. Throughout the book, he focuses on creating experts rather than merely competent managers. The cherry on top is an entire section dedicated to an often overrated (or underrated depending on perspective) aspect of management: meetings.

All in all, Grove's book is a treasure trove for anyone who is aiming to achieve "high output."
Profile Image for Natalie.
671 reviews
November 9, 2015
I read it because of its reputation. Immediately began reading it again upon finishing it because it is THAT good. So much wisdom and practical advice, delivered with straight shooting engineer style. stop reading this and go read the book!
Profile Image for Maria Lasprilla.
63 reviews14 followers
October 15, 2020
This classic of management finally made it through my list. I am surprised to see how much the years of experience have actually taught me lessons found in this book that the reading just happened to reinforced, and how only some parts in it were really new to me. Perhaps a bit of the specific approaches, or the formal language in the book do not match the reality I have worked in, or my preference, but the principles behind the work are definitely shared. There is a lot of systematic thinking, and intention in the work of management that sadly tends to be seen as "meaningless work" or "pointless activities", but the parallels Grove makes with production in the first part of the book help give all the abstraction more context and a sense of tangibility that otherwise makes it all seem very chaotic and aimless. Theoretically I do like the idea of management not as a fixed role but as a rolling responsibility that is held long enough to have significant impact, but no too long so that it makes people blind in it and comfortable around it. But I am yet to see in practice how this works well in any environment. Nevertheless, many of the lessons that traditional management has to teach are still very useful and applicable, for which I would recommend the book. Just beware that it's not necessarily an entertaining piece, and at least for me reading more than 2-3 chapters at once was the equivalent of "death by formality", but worth the pace.
Profile Image for Rodolpho.
23 reviews5 followers
January 29, 2021
Before you read this book be aware: it was written in the 80’s. Work and management happened in very different contexts back then. In order to extract value from this book and apply to our context today, you’ll have to embark in a self-reflection journey. It may be confusing and painful, yet it will be worth.

Andy Grove tries to make day-to-day management a science that anyone can grasp. The book is practical and pragmatic. It’s not intended to be read once. It’s more of a manual, to be kept at hand, to be scribbled onto, to be reflected upon.

Concepts like performance, training, meetings! So “standard” and futile in today’s world gain a new meaning and I can say I gained a lot and I have found ways to be a better manager thanks to this book.
Profile Image for Chris Raastad.
48 reviews4 followers
April 18, 2021
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. :)

Profile Image for Aude Hofleitner.
209 reviews4 followers
May 30, 2017
A great read which still feels very relevant even though it was written thirty years ago! Lots of good advice on company organization, efficient meeting, motivation,... I'll definitely go back to the various parts I highlighted while reading
Profile Image for Yevgeniy Brikman.
Author 4 books650 followers
September 2, 2016
Almost 30 years after its publication, this book feels a little bit dated (the praise of email as a new and powerful tool early in the book is a bit of a giveaway). Although many things about how we run businesses have not changed in those 30 years (or the last 300 years), some have, and that limits the scope of where this book is useful. Moreover, some of the practices described in this book (e.g. one-on-ones, goals & objectives, etc) are now fairly well known (perhaps partially because of Andy Grove's influence?), so if you've worked at a large company for any stretch of time, those parts will feel self-evident and skippable. In general, the book is targeted at middle managers in large corporations that largely produce physical products (e.g. Intel), so if that's what you're doing, it's still a good fit. Otherwise, you may want to look elsewhere.

For the most part, the writing is clear and concise, although some of the earlier chapters, rather than focusing on stories and research, spew a lot of platitudes and adopt a "thou shalt" style. You should pay attention at meetings! You should ask good questions! A manager should take his role seriously! This is all true, obvious, and not actionable. We should all also eat healthy and exercise, and yet, most of us fail to do that. This book is still useful as an outline or checklist of what to do, but the reality is that most of us already know what we should do; the really tricky question is how to get people to do it. A book like "Creativity, Inc" offers more real world and actionable answers to these sorts of questions.

A few other thoughts:

This book comes from a world where management is a promotion from individual contributor. There is no faster way to kill a tech org than to signal to your technical talent that individual contributions (e.g. programming, design, etc) are "second class work". World-class technology isn't created in a meeting room; someone actually has to sit at their desk and build it. Modern companies (e.g. Google) are finally beginning to recognize this and creating equivalent "tracks" for both managers and individual contributors (e.g. a VP may be equivalent to a distinguished engineer role), but there is still a long way to go, and books like this don't help.

The final part of the book, "The Players," is strong and as applicable today as ever. Some of the key insights include:

* Knowledge work depends on intrinsic, rather than extrinsic motivators. In other words, a manager can't directly motivate an employee; they can only create the right conditions where the employee's internal drive can flourish.

* I like the idea of using Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to reason about compensation and rewards. You must meet the lower levels (salary, benefits, good colleagues) or the higher needs don't matter. However, beyond a certain point, the lower needs are fulfilled and stop mattering; for example, above a certain salary, a raise becomes a much less powerful lever. Eventually, you get to the self actualization, which is nearly insatiable: give people ample opportunity to learn, to decide their own fate, and to be recognized by their peers, and they will feed off of that nearly indefinitely.

* The chapter on Task Relevant Maturity is also interesting. The idea is that the management style needs to differ based on the maturity of an employee at accomplishing their assigned task. New, inexperienced employees need constant managing, training, and feedback. As the employee's experience and maturity increases, the management style should be more and more hands-off and largely focused on setting goals and providing encouragement. It's actually quite similar to raising a child: the older and more mature they get, the more the parent needs to stand back.

* There is a good discussion on how to give negative feedback in an employee review (or anywhere else, for that matter). When hearing negative feedback, a person will go through the following stages: ignore (what problem?), deny (that's not really a problem!), blame others (it's not my fault!), assume responsibility, and finally, find a solution. The way you act depends on what stage they are at. For example, if you try to pitch a solution when the person is still in denial, you'll fail.




Finally, some of my favorite quotes from the book:

“As a general rule, you have to accept that no matter where you work, you are not an employee—you are in a business with one employee: yourself. You are in competition with millions of similar businesses. There are millions of others all over the world, picking up the pace, capable of doing the same work that you can do and perhaps more eager to do it.”

“The sad news is, nobody owes you a career. You own it as a sole proprietor. You must compete with millions of individuals every day, and every day you must enhance your value, hone your competitive advantage, learn, adapt, get out of the way, move from job to job, even from industry to industry if you must and retrench if you need to do so in order to start again.”

“Because indicators direct one’s activities, you should guard against overreacting. This you can do by pairing indicators, so that together both effect and counter-effect are measured. Thus, in the inventory example, you need to monitor both inventory levels and the incidence of shortages. A rise in the latter will obviously lead you to do things to keep inventories from becoming too low.”

“The output of a manager is a result achieved by a group either under her supervision or under her influence. While the manager’s own work is clearly very important, that in itself does not create output. Her organization does. By analogy, a coach or a quarterback alone does not score touchdowns and win games. Entire teams with their participation and guidance and direction do. League standings are kept by team, not by individual. Business—and this means not just the business of commerce but the business of education, the business of government, the business of medicine—is a team activity. And, always, it takes a team to win.”

“Reports are more a medium of self-discipline than a way to communicate information. Writing the report is important; reading it often is not.”

“An estimate of the dollar cost of a manager’s time, including overhead, is about $100 per hour. So a meeting involving ten managers for two hours costs the company $2,000. Most expenditures of $2,000 have to be approved in advance by senior people—like buying a copying machine or making a transatlantic trip—yet a manager can call a meeting and commit $2,000 worth of managerial resources at a whim.”

“Consider a venture capitalist who after making ten million dollars is still very hard at work trying to make another ten. Physiological, safety, or social needs hardly apply here. Moreover, because venture capitalists usually don’t publicize their successes, they are not driven by a need for esteem or recognition. 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. Money in the physiological- and security-driven modes only motivates until the need is satisfied, but money as a measure of achievement will motivate without limit.”

“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 performance. For the self-actualized person driven to improve his competence, the feedback mechanism lies within that individual himself. Our virtuoso violinist knows how the music should sound, knows when it is not right, and will strive tirelessly to get it right. Accordingly, if the possibility for improvement does not exist, the desire to keep practicing vanishes.”

“Why does a person who is not terribly interested in his work at the office stretch himself to the limit running a marathon? What makes him run? He is trying to beat other people or the stopwatch. This is a simple model of self-actualization, wherein people will exert themselves to previously undreamed heights, forcing themselves to run farther or faster, while their efforts fill barrels with sweat. They will do this not for money, but just to beat the distance, the clock, or other people.”

“Money has significance at all levels of Maslow’s motivation hierarchy. As noted earlier, a person needs money to buy food, housing, and insurance policies, which are part of his physiological and safety/security needs. As one moves up the need hierarchy, money begins to mean something else—a measure of one’s worth in a competitive environment. Earlier I described a simple test that can be applied to determine the role money plays for someone. If the absolute amount of a raise in salary is important, that person is probably motivated by physiological or safety/security needs. If the relative amount of a raise—what he got compared to others—is the important issue, that person is likely to be motivated by self-actualization, because money here is a measure, not a necessity.”

“Training is, quite simply, one of the highest-leverage activities a manager can perform.”

Profile Image for Pete.
969 reviews61 followers
June 4, 2022
High Output Management (1983) by Andy Grove (András Gróf) is a short distillation of Grove’s thoughts on management. Grove was a refugee from Hungary who escaped after 1956. He got a PhD in Chemical Engineering and then was one of the three co-founders of Intel.

High Output Management uses the example of a ‘breakfast factory’ to describe how to deal with a changing organisation. There are Four Sections, the first introduces the breakfast factory, the second is about how management is a team game, the third on how management is about teams of teams and the final part on the players.

Grove interestingly writes that middle managers are an absolutely key part of companies. The second section covers managerial leverage, meetings, decisions and planning. The third part looks at how organisations have mission oriented and functional sections. This part discussing the trade offs of centralising functions with the requirement to target certain missions was really good. In the Players section person management is examined.

You can see why High Output Management is highly regarded in Silicon Valley. It’s short and to the point and Grove, the founder of a key company in the rise of the US tech industry, clearly knows what he’s talking about. It does cover a high tech engineering company rather than a software company but many of the ideas are applicable to most organisations.

High Output Management is worth a read for anyone who is in technical management or aspires to be. It’s not a brilliant book but it is certainly a good one. It’s surprising to see that many people either regard it as fantastic or terrible.
24 reviews1 follower
August 21, 2020
I bought this book for practical reasons: I started a new job recently in which I have bigger responsibilities and I'm also working on a personal entrepreneurship project; therefore, I wanted to learn some management skills. Also, this book was widely recommended by some of Tim Ferris guests as the best management book around.

Having said that, this book was eye-opening for me, both as an employee (how to make like easier for your managers) and as someone trying to start something on their own (it gives you a framework to start doing some management). This is a short book packed with loads of wisdom, I found myself constantly taking notes as I read each chapter and meditating on how I might put them in practice. I highly recommend this book if you are intending to put the things you read into practice, if that is not the case most likely you will get bored with the stories and tips about management.

The book has three basic ideas that are explained thoroughly:
- Management has to be approached from an output mindset
- Tasks are accomplished by teams, therefore, managers should be measured by the total output of their teams and people influenced by our work
- Tasks are driven by individual performance, therefore, people have to be motivated and well trained.

On each topic the author goes into the detail about how to effectively manage teams and/or companies, as well as provide plenty of examples of his experience as Intel's CEO.
Profile Image for Taufan Satrio.
32 reviews4 followers
July 29, 2020
I was initially skeptical of how relevant the teachings would be, given that this book was published 25 years ago. Glad that it proved me wrong: Grove provided lasting insights and takeaways that are largely unaffected by time. For example: 'A manager's output is the output of the people under his responsibility' still holds true even today. Grove also tackles major issues such as meetings, decisions, planning, appraisals, and difficult conversations.

The book is loaded with engineering examples up to a point where you could see Grove's expertise as a manager and a leader originates from his technical know-how as a former engineer in a manufacturing company. In some cases, this has its shortcoming: it takes more effort to extract the values and apply it to your circumstance because of the tight-coupling with a manufacturing company and its metaphors (e.g The Breakfast Company) and it might not relate to everyone.

At the end of the day, Grove provided bountiful generic lessons to take and apply but only if one persists through the occasionally technical parts and continuously ask yourself "how might this apply to me?"
Profile Image for Chaitanya Bapat.
39 reviews3 followers
December 21, 2022
It was recommended by my company's technology book reading club. So I gave this one a shot. It's written by the storied CEO of Intel Andrew Grove acknowledged for Intel's shift from memory chip industry to microprocessor industry. Book itself is an interesting perspective towards mid-level management and how to extract the best performance out of subordinates. I see some parallels still applied in the present day (2018-2022 ) managers at AWS and Meta, which suggests there are some things that are standing the test of time. However, many other suggestions like - training subordinates as 1 of the 2 main duties / high-leverage activities of manager is something I don't see actively done, atleast in the 3-4 teams i've been part of.

For more - https://medium.com/read-with-chai/hig...
Profile Image for Valentin.
17 reviews
March 12, 2024
A good "call to action" book.

In some of my managerial endeavors, I have discovered these presented techniques as being taught and applied. But there were also some elements of novelty encountered.

The nice part about the book is that the language is simple, not overcomplicating simple and straightforward things.

I like the emphasis on Trainings and that one of the benefits of being a Trainer is mentioned: You earn the most knowledge by giving a Training to others, not necessarily the others earn it.

In conclusion, if you are struggling even with starting a personal project, or even with the vision of what it could become, this book is a highly required catalyst to get yourself up to speed. (At least for me it had this effect)
140 reviews
October 15, 2023
Found this a little frustrating. The author seems to have little interest in communicating about his subject and instead writes in the equivalent style of a manual. Compare this to The Goal which I feel is better at getting the point across, although I recognise that it trades off specificity.

Some worthwhile areas are explored here, but it only really gets going when there is a tangible scenario to reference.
Profile Image for Jacek Bartczak.
196 reviews64 followers
November 22, 2018
It is hard to rate this book - it was published 35 years ago so many tips probably already spread out via newer books, articles, podcasts and so on. Even I was (and I am) supervised accordingly to those rules so they weren't nothing new for me.

Grove's tips help approach complex problems with simple steps which once used systematically will optimize how a company works and its employees will feel understood. On the hand those rules sound simple, on the other, I know how easily they can be forgotten.
Profile Image for Eduards Sizovs.
118 reviews160 followers
October 12, 2019
Manager's output = output of the organization under his/her influence. I enjoyed the scientific approach described in this book – you can and should measure things. Even training should have a measurable outcome. 🎓
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