High Output Management

nobody owes you a career. You own it as a sole proprietor.

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

Anybody who supervises professionals, therefore, walks a tightrope: he needs to be objective, but must not be afraid of using his judgment, even though judgment is by definition subjective.

“In order to build anything great, you have to be an optimist, because by definition you are trying to do something that most people would consider impossible. Optimists most certainly do not listen to leading indicators of bad news.”

Thus, as noted, we are better off catching a bad raw egg than a cooked one, and screening out our college applicant before he visits Intel.

high output means being sensitive to the leverage of what you do during the day.

There is a gate-like inspection and a monitoring step. In the former, all material is held at the “gate” until the inspection tests are completed. If the material passes, it is moved on to the next stage in the production process; if the material fails, it will be returned to an earlier stage, where it will be reworked or scrapped. In the latter, a

But output and activity are by no means the same thing.

The sad news is, nobody owes you a career. You own it as a sole proprietor.