Andrew Grove

The multi-plane organization enables me to serve as a foot soldier rather than as a general when appropriate and useful. This gives the organization important flexibility.

How does a manager motivate his subordinates? For most of us, the word implies doing something to another person. But I don’t think that can happen, because motivation has to come from within somebody. Accordingly, all a manager can do is create an environment in which motivated people can flourish.

A need once satisfied stops being a need and therefore stops being a source of motivation. Simply put, if we are to create and maintain a high degree of motivation, we must keep some needs unsatisfied at all times.

Two inner forces can drive a person to use all of his capabilities. He can be competence-driven or achievement-driven

The point is that both competence- and achievement-oriented people spontaneously try to test the outer limits of their abilities.

Money in the physiological- and security-driven modes only motivates until the need is satisfied, but money as a measure of achievement will motivate without limit

Eliciting peak performance means going up against something or somebody

This is key to the manager’s approach and involvement: he has to see the work as it is seen by the people who do that work every day and then create indicators so that his subordinates can watch their “racetrack” take shape.

Turning the workplace into a playing field can turn our subordinates into “athletes” dedicated to performing at the limit of their capabilities—the key to making our team consistent winners.

Though monitoring is on paper a manager’s most productive approach, we have to work our way up to it in the real world