Some months ago I read the classic management book High Output Management and made a note of quotes that rang particularly true to me. I normally dislike this genre (management books), and disagree with some popular ones (I sympathize with this review of Scaling People, for example), but found High Output Management pretty reasonable. It's also interesting to see the extent to which its recommendations continue to be followed in successful organizations to this date (the book was published in 1983, but is still popular and recommend amongst tech managers). This post is a list of my copied quotes (headings mine).

Delegate activities that are familiar to you

Given a choice, should you delegate activities that are familiar to you or those that aren’t? Before answering, consider the following principle: delegation without follow-through is abdication. You can never wash your hands of a task. Even after you delegate it, you are still responsible for its accomplishment, and monitoring the delegated task is the only practical way for you to ensure a result. Monitoring is not meddling, but means checking to make sure an activity is proceeding in line with expectations. Because it is easier to monitor something with [...]

---

Outline:

(00:46) Delegate activities that are familiar to you

(01:38) Should you have personal relationships with your colleagues?

(02:08) Use random spot-checks

(02:34) On performance reviews

(03:47) Assess substance, not potential

(05:08) Surprises

(05:53) Criticize high achievers

(07:18) On interviewing

(08:07) Measuring problem-solving ability

(09:11) Tricks bad

---

First published:
November 13th, 2025

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/jAH4dYhbw3CkpoHz5/favorite-quotes-from-high-output-management

---

Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

“Favorite quotes from ‘High Output Management’” by Nina Panickssery

LessWrong (30+ Karma)