Quotes from Andrew S. Grove

The next stage is reaching a clear decision. Again, the greater the disagreement about the issue, the more important becomes the word clear. In fact, particular pains should be taken to frame the terms of the decision with utter clarity.

Finally, everyone involved must give the decision reached by the group full support. This does not necessarily mean agreement: so long as the participants commit to back the decision, that is a satisfactory outcome.

To make things work, people do not need to side with you; you only need them to commit themselves to pursue a course of action that has been decided upon.

an organization does not live by its members agreeing with one another at all times about everything. It lives instead by people committing to support the decisions and the moves of the business.

It's yet another example illustrating that the person who is the star of a previous era is often the last one to adapt to change, the last one to yield to the logic of a strategic inflection point and tends to fall harder than most.

What is the role of the supervisor in the staff meeting—a leader, observer, expediter, questioner, decision-maker? The answer, of course, is all of them. Please

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.

the performance rating of a manager cannot be higher than the one we would accord to his organization!

Much confusion exists between what is strategy and what is tactics. Although the distinction is rarely of practical significance, here's one that might be useful. As you formulate in words what you plan to do, the most abstract and general summary of those actions meaningful to you is your strategy. What you'll do to implement the strategy is your tactics. Frequently, a strategy at one managerial level is the tactical concern of the next higher level.

you need to develop a higher tolerance for disorder. Now, you should still not accept disorder. In fact, you should do your best to drive what's around you to order.

The review is usually dedicated to two things: first, the skill level of the subordinate, to determine what skills are missing and to find ways to remedy that lack; and second, to intensify the subordinate's motivation in order to get him on a higher performance curve for the same skill level (see the illustration on this page).

The long and short of it: if performance matters in your operation, performance reviews are absolutely necessary.

The absolute truth is that if you don't know what you want, you won't get it. So

The biggest problem with most reviews is that we don't usually define what it is we want from our subordinates, and, as noted earlier, if we don't know what we want, we are surely not going to get it.

the basic requirements of production. These are to build and deliver products in response to the demands of the customer at a scheduled delivery time, at an acceptable quality level, and at the lowest possible cost.

as you review a manager, should you be judging his performance or the performance of the group under his supervision? You should be doing both. Ultimately what you are after is the performance of the group, but the manager is there to add value in some way.

How are we going to do this in the most intelligent way? We start by looking at our production flow. The first thing we must do is to pin down the step in the flow that will determine the overall shape of our operation, which we'll call the limiting step.

Finally, remember that by saying "yes"—to projects, a course of action, or whatever—you are implicitly saying "no" to something else. Each time you make a commitment, you forfeit your chance to commit to something else.

One big pitfall to be avoided is the "potential trap." At all times you should force yourself to assess performance, not potential. By "potential" I mean form rather than substance.

the three fundamental types of production operations: process manufacturing, an activity that physically or chemically changes material just as boiling changes an egg; assembly, in which components are put together to constitute a new entity just as the egg, the toast, and the coffee together make a breakfast; and test, which subjects the components or the total to an examination of its characteristics.

the performance rating of a manager cannot be higher than the one we would accord to his organization! It is very important to assess actual performance, not appearances; real output, not good form.

A manager's output = the output of his organization + the output of the neighboring organizations under his influence.

Business success contains the seeds of its destruction.

By elevating someone, we are, in effect, creating role models for others in our organization.