High output management

However influential and innovative this book has once been, it seems outdated now. Instead you should read a more modern management book that took its good ideas and brought them into the 21st century.

Written in a conversational style by a technology-focused, operations leader.

Originally written in 1983, it's showing it's age as many lessons and learnings on people-management practices have been built into the modern management training curricula.

A few chapters on organisation design, centralisation, decentralisation, scaled teams, large organisations and the trade-offs. Nicely written. Still perfectly valid in today's world.

If I put aside the people-management aspects of the book, we see that Andy Grove has a good eye and understanding of optimisation and effectiveness. This is missing from many management/leadership books. His focus on excellence and flow, and his specific reflections are useful.

You can find other material on operations management in other books, but here he puts is side-by-side with leadership and people-skills. I think it's a good mix.

Systems thinking applied to management.

Clear, direct, and very pragmatic.

A bit on the dry side but still very good. It won't make you a great manager, but it will definitely reinforce good habits. I wish Andy wrote a second edition with more IT focus rather than using his "breakfast factory" example. Overall, definitely a keeper.