High Output Management

The Breakfast Factory

  • Example is a waiter serving a perfect breakfast with all these different parts of the meal that need to be prepared and served at the same time to all be hot is an operational challenge

  • Black Box of production where raw materials enter, labour happens, and value exists

  • The task that takes the longest is the limiting step, to succeed you need to plan the entire operation backward from the time the longest task is done (eg egg being boiled)

  • Your team moves at the speed of its slowest link. Rushing the easy tasks is a waste of cash if the hard work is stuck. That creates a traffic jam, not progress.

  • Real leverage comes from finding the choke point and clearing it. Ignore the noise and fix the delay.

  • Smart leaders work backward from the finish line. They hunt down delays that kill profit before they happen.

  • The goal is flow. If the pieces don't land at the same time, the project is broken. Real power comes from a machine that runs smooth, not one that just runs loud.

  • The only metric that is used to value a manager is the output of the team under their influence

  • Limiting step dictates the schedule

The Leverage Trap

  • Focus on output not activity

  • A managers output is the output of your organisation and neighbouring teams that you influence

  • Leverage when low means you are doing a repetitive task whereas high leverage is training someone/multiple people once so they can execute that task infinitely

  • By doing the task yourself you are engaging with negative leverage

  • If your hour of work does not save ten hours of the teams of confusion then you are just busy not effective

  • If you don’t build a system that runs itself then you own a job not an asset, better to start building then continuously tiring yourself out when managing

The empty calendar trap

  • Productivity is usually defined as the amount of work you finish alone

  • For a manager a meeting is not an interruption of work, it’s the medium of your work that allows you to use high leverage to give information and align your team

  • Locking yourself away to craft assets kills the team's momentum and leaves everyone in the dark. The ego wants to build, but the job is to leverage the crew.

  • Real power shifts from creating assets to guiding minds.

  • Just because that hour spent in a meeting could have been used actually doing the task does not make it a waste of time if it allows the rest of the team to function effectively to then do that task

The Good Micromanager

  • When a task is new and high supervision is required as you cannot delegate effectively until you have established the standards yourself

  • Control means setting the rhythm before the noise starts. Chaos takes over when we trust a title instead of checking the output. Stepping back too early isn't leadership; it's laziness.

  • Build a solid floor, or don't be surprised when your team falls through it.

  • This micro management is appropriate at the start when the employee’s task relevant maturity is low

  • Over time this management style changes dynamically as the employee masters the task

The peer group solution

  • In a complex environment you cannot write a rule for every scenario

  • Make sure every individual checks their own and others work and is aware of any errors

  • If a person broke the workflow they don’t talk to the manger they discuss the problem and fix with the whole team

  • Simple tasks are better for strict rules and checklists

  • Complex tasks then you apply peer group solution methods

The conversation

  • if an individual is not performing to a certain standard you have to be completely honest with them saying the problem and how it’s not being handled

  • Growth hurts. It demands you kill the lie you tell yourself. Weak leaders pick comfort, but strong ones choose the truth. They drag cold facts into the light. That is the only way the real work begins.

  • The employee needs to admit the problem is theirs to fix (assumption of responsibility)

The scoreboard effect

  • Make the team compete to see who’s producing more output

  • While fear motivates survival only competition drives peak

  • Threats breed fear, the bare minimum, not results.

  • Workers hide and do the bare minimum to avoid getting fired. This destroys your empire from the inside. But put a scoreboard up, and the dynamic flips. Work stops being a burden and becomes a sport. Give your team a clear metric to crush, and watch them sprint.

  • Fear freezes action. Games light a fire. True velocity comes from the urge to destroy a rival or break a record. A simple contest turns a dull chore into a battle for status. Nobody runs hard just to stay safe. We run hard when we want to win.

  • Manager can turn the work into a game with visible comparative metrics

Matrix System

  • Has employees answer to two leads to balance speed of execution with functional expertise

  • It creates ambiguity and requires navigating conflict

  • Manager required to be the bridge between the two leads and sees the conflicts as a necessary tool to surface the best possible decisions