Year of Books 2021: High Output Management by Andrew Grove

(credit: Education Details Onbline, October 31, 2017)

All views, opinions and statements are my own.

Greetings!

In 2015, Mark Zuckerberg shared on Facebook one of his New Year’s resolutions, A Year of Books, and of course, created a Facebook page dedicated to the project. Here’s what the first post says:

We will read a new book every two weeks and discuss it here. Our books will emphasize learning about new cultures, beliefs, histories and technologies. Suggestions for new books to read are always welcome. We ask that everyone who participates read the books and we will moderate the discussions and group membership to keep us on topic.

Since then, a lot has been said about Mark and Facebook, but I’ll admit that his words have changed how I think about learning and the type of commitments that will get me there — e.g. annual goal to read “X” books. On this particular goal, here's an important insight shared by Julian Shapiro "you get zero kudos for reading 100 books a year. You get massive kudos for learning efficiently and making interesting things."

This year, I’m trying something new and bringing you value along the way. For each book I read (excludes fiction), I’ll publish a Medium post with my takeaways. While I hope this will spark your interest and help you succeed, this will also help me, since IMO there’s no better way to learn than receiving and digesting new information, processing and summarizing it, and explaining it to someone else (hopefully in an understandable way!) .

Let’s get started!

Overview (description provided by Amazon)

Reference: High Output Management (link here)

In this legendary business book and Silicon Valley staple, the former chairman and CEO (and employee number three) of Intel shares his perspective on how to build and run a company.

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, 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 — throughout, High Output Management is a practical handbook for navigating real-life business scenarios and a powerful management manifesto with the ability to revolutionize the way we work.

Key Takeaways (TL;DR)

1. Manager's role: share context, set objectives, develop & motivate, and more.
2. Manager's output = output from direct Org + Org(s) under his/her influence.
3. A real business can/must be measured (past, present, and future); "winning" means unlocking customer and business value.
4. Team performance detractors: lack of ability and lack of motivation; I'll add "not having the right people on the bus."
5. #AlwaysBePlanning: vision (5–10y) + objectives (1y)+ near-term results (monthly/quarterly)
6. It's all about how YOU manage the calendar: plan ahead, budget some flexibility, establish team-wide "calendar themes," and get a well-oiled reporting machine going.
7. Delegation is not abdication; there’s no one-size-fits-all approach and helping the “task performer” succeed is on you.
8. For successful one-on-one meetings, prep ahead, truly connect, active listen (plans, progress, problems, and blockers), and make room for context setting and candid feedback.

Key Takeaways (One-click down)

#1 Manager’s role: share context, set objectives, develop & motivate, and more

A (great!) manager should:

• Over-communicate context,
• Set clear, bold, and near and long-term objectives, and
• Develop (it includes training and mentoring) and motivate

Also worth mentioning:

• Help with prioritization and resource allocation (when and if needed),
• Be intentional and declarative when it comes to his / her preferences (meetings, reporting, communication, etc.) and expectations.

#2 Manager’s output = output from direct Org + Org(s) under his/her influence.

As a manager, your output is a combination of:

• Output of your direct Organization, and
• Output of Organizations under your influence.

The more the you grow (e.g. title and people management-wise) the more limiting is to be that “one person” that knows how to perform something. Spreading and sharing knowledge and “hacks” on how to perform a given task is critical to build a truly empowered (and ideally, high-performing) team.

#3 A real business can/must be measured (past, present, and future); “winning” means unlocking customer and business value.

Identify a couple of metrics that truly represent the current status and future of the business.

One single metric is not enough (unless you combine things into a proxy metric — more here by the awesome Gib Biddle), but ten metrics may be more than what you can afford to drive meaningful insights and ensure focus.

If you are measuring something, it’s critical to understand the past (last year, quarter, month, etc.), where you are today (actuals), where you want to be (target), and where you think you will be (forecast).

Keep in mind the "value unlocked" by the work you and your team will do in pursuit of the target. There’s nothing worse than hitting the target and realizing that it means nothing in terms of legitimate customer and business outcomes — you scored A+ on the work that should not have been done.

And since we're talking about value, it feels odd to have to say this, but don't forget to learn from you customers. With all the busyness going on and because it take focus, time, and effort, managers may end up ignoring one of the highest-leverage investments they can make: frequently learn from customer feedback and/or complains.

#4 Team performance detractors: lack of ability and lack of motivation; I’ll add “not having the right people on the bus.”

The manager’s role is to elicit peak performance of each team member. If someone (or a team) is not doing the job, it’s mostly driven by:

Lack of Ability

• Consequence of absence of training and/or mentorship.
• The quick test offered by Andrew Grove is “if the person’s life depended on a particular work to be completed, would he/she be able to survive?”

Lack of Motivation

• Consequence of absence of a shared vision, context, and trust in the strategy and leadership team, or event a sentiment of being unempowered.
• Provided that basic needs are covered — e.g. food, stable environment at home, job security— the highest degree of motivation with limitless possibilities is Self-actualization (Harvard Business Review has this great article on The Elements of Value).
• Self-actualization is mostly competence-driven (e.g. excel at playing the violin after 10,000 hours of practice) or results-driven i.e. testing the limits and inner “need to win.”

These root causes of lack of ability and lack of motivation don’t come overnight and they are mostly driven by gaps from previous decisions, which means that it builds up over months (or years!).

My own version of the above would include a third category: Having the right people on the bus." No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention does a tremendous work of explaining the concept of “increasing talent density on the team” as a key responsibility of every manager.

#5 #AlwaysBePlanning: vision (5–10y) + objectives (1y)+ near-term results (monthly/quarterly)

“ Plans are worthless, but planning is everything” — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Key horizons to keep in mind:

• 5-year: not a plan per se — that would be a waste of time, with so many moving parts around the world — but a longer-term vision that is bold enough to stretch into 5 years. Depending on the stage and maturity of the company or even how transformational the vision is, it might as well translate into a 10-year vision.
• 1 year: yearly objectives, the “O” from the old school of MBO’s (Management by Objectives) and the new school of OKRs (Objectives and Key Results) . Feel free to draft objectives beyond year 1, but don't go overboard, they will be revisited in the future e.g. when year-2 becomes year-1.
• 1 month (or 1 quarter): what Results — measured by your selected metrics — will provide evidence of progress toward the Objectives.

#6 It’s all about how YOU manage the calendar: plan ahead, budget some flexibility, establish team-wide “calendar themes,” and get a well-oiled reporting machine going.

When managing your calendar:

• You can choose to own your calendar, plan ahead, schedule non-urgent (but still important) time, say No or Not Now more frequently, or service “any new customer order” and let other people drive and dictate what matters based on THEIR plan.
• When planning your day / week, build in some flexibility. One change to the calendar — e.g. unexpected phone call or new request — shouldn’t ruin your day or even night.
• Have a backlog of projects that could impact your team’s productivity and improve the overall output. When you have time, there’s a go-to place for you to tackle something that will continue making your team better.
• Interruptions kill productivity, but people do have urgent needs, so “hiding” to get work done may not be the most efficient way to help the Organization. Think about creating blocks of time focused on a couple of themes — e.g. Monday AM for planning, Tuesday PM for metrics review — which will get everyone’s calendars more orchestrated.
• Have dashboards and get your monitoring well-oiled. This will save you a lot of time invested in research when you get that one question from that one VP. That will happen more often than your think and even if you are not asked, the fact that you can’t easily measure your business speaks volume to how you lead a team and product or service.

#7 Delegation is not abdication; there’s no one-size-fits-all approach and helping the “task performer” succeed is on you.

Delegation is not abdication, you are still accountable for the results, so don’t get too far to a point that you are disconnected.

When delegating, or even when onboarding new hires, consider the CUA factor — Complexity, Uncertainty, and Ambiguity — of the task at hand compared to how “ready to tackle the challenge” your employee is. This will inform the amount of handholding needed during the process, total number of reviews expected, and how much you’ll need to lean in to help with the "last 10% of the work," etc. All of that will influence the deadline you as a manager will commit to.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach here. Like any organization and problem to be solved, each individual on your team will grow and strengthen competencies over time (and you are on the hook for that to happen!), which will change how much you need to be involved along the way.

When delegating:

• Set context and…set context. You can’t expect a great outcome if people working on your behalf lack on critical context.
• Don’t wait for the task at hand to be perfect before you review it (increased risk of rework).
• When scheduling reviews, in order to avoid the right preparation for the wrong objective, make sure your team is 100% clear on what’s expected during the review (“rubric for success” — we all have been there).

#8 For successful one-on-one meetings, prep ahead, truly connect, active listen (plans, progress, problems, and blockers), and make room for context setting and candid feedback.

Do not underestimate the value and impact of the one-on-one meeting. In addition to the human connection, think about the multiplier effect. One hour well spent with a direct report (or skip-level) has potential to be converted into days or week’s worth of work once the meeting ends.

Great one-on-one meetings have 3 parts:

Kick-off (on time!)

• (Truly) Connect: What’s going on with the person, family, and team.

Direct Report

• (Varies per meeting) Progress & Plans and Problems & blockers.
• Provide feedback: Things that the manager is doing (but shouldn't) and things that the manager isn't doing (but should).

Manager

• Share relevant context for the person to do his/her work and engage with the team.
• Set expectations on what (I) expected and (II) differentiated performance looks like and key competencies that enable that.
• Provide general feedback.

When preparing to meet with your manager, avoid coming up with the agenda "in the moment." Think through the above, note down things during the week, prioritize the list of items, and head to the meeting ready for a productive session.

Lenny Rachitsky suggests sending a “State of the Me" email before the meeting that includes: Blockers I need help with, My top priorities, and Things on my mind. That email should be read by the manager, so consider sending it the evening before the meeting.

Thank you again for your support. I can’t wait to hear your feedback. It only takes one minute to complete this survey and it will definitely help me along the way.

Cheers, Romulo