General Management

2430 3rd Street, San Francisco

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday 1:00PM - 4:30PM

Overview

Entrepreneurship is the creative spark of capitalism. And general management scales that spark
into a business. It's been that way for only about the last 250 years on Earth. The "creative
destruction" of the Industrial Revolution -- the wealth engine powering every aspect of modern
civilization -- depends on general management to bolster the best of us and to shock-absorb
the worst of us.

Many of you -- the best and brightest of your generation -- are being shoved into leadership
and management roles because you are great at your jobs, because your company is growing
rapidly, or both. But most of you won’t go to business school to study general management.
And you aren’t going to get long apprenticeships learning how to manage from a terrific boss.

Thankfully, many people came before us and struggled with general management. Some of
them left us interesting stories and ideas. That's what this class is about: we borrow lessons
from the past to be better at our jobs today.

This class requires about eight hours of prep work and we spend about ten or twelve hours in
session together. Using simulations, case studies, and group discussions we will tackle: Defining
management; Setting objectives and measuring performance; Managing engineers and artists;
Organization design; Executive communication.

If you do all the assigned readings before class, actively participate in class, and listen to your
colleagues, you will have a wonderful experience. Our code of conduct is simple: treat others
with the respect they deserve as human beings.

Readings

General Management Syllabus

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Chandler, Alfred D. “Samuel Slater, Francis Cabot Lowell, and the Beginnings of the Factory
System in the United States.” HBS No. 9-792-008. Boston: Harvard Business School
Publishing, 1995.

Grove, Andrew S. High Output Management. New York: Vintage Books, 1995. (amazon.com)

Larson, Kate Clifford. Bound for the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American
Hero. New York: Ballentine, 2004.

MacKenzie, Gordon. Orbiting the Giant Hairball - A Corporate Fool’s Guide to Surviving with
Grace. New York: Viking Penguin, 1998. (amazon.com)

McCallum, Daniel C. “Superintendent’s Report to Homer Ramsdell, Esq.” Reports of the

President and Superintendent of the New York and Erie Railroad to the Stockholders for the
Year Ending September 30, 1855. New York: Press of the NY and Erie Railroad Company,
1856.

Minto, Barbara. The Minto Pyramid Principle - Logic in Writing, Thinking and Problem Solving.
London: Minto International, 1996.

“Organization Design at Flip File, Inc.” San Francisco: Harrison Metal, 2018.

Note: Buy Grove and MacKenzie on amazon.com (links included above). Your Minto hard copy will be handed out
on the first day of class. The other readings (pdfs) are linked below. All copyright permissions have been purchased
for the digital copies but only for registered General Management participants. Please do not share the digital
versions with anyone outside the class. Please complete all the readings and study questions for a particular class
before the session.

General Management Syllabus

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Session Summaries

DAY ONE: Session 1 + Session 2 (back to back)

Session 1: Defining Management. Using historical documents and some first-hand accounts
from managers, we will try to agree on a definition of “management.” In this session, we will
also discuss some wildly different management situations -- a textile mill, a railroad, a
microprocessor maker among them -- to see what we can learn from each.

Assignment (<-- whenever you see this in the syllabus, it means please complete these as
preparation before the class begins)

1. Grove, introduction, chapters 1, 2, and 3.

2. McCallum, “Superintendent’s Report.” Link.
3. Prepare to discuss the following:

● What is management to you?

● Do McCallum and Grove agree or disagree with you? With each other?
● What was hard about McCallum’s job? Grove’s?
● Compare Grove’s schedule to your own for a typical day. What do you notice?

Session 2: Setting Objectives and Measuring Performance. Whether you are a CEO or a “micro-
CEO” -- to borrow Grove’s phrasing -- setting goals for yourself and your team will play a large
role in your success as a manager. If you do this part of the job well, you will leave a
meaningful, positive impact on your teams and all the other people they work with over the
years. If you do it poorly, chaos follows.

Assignment

1. Grove, chapters 6 and 13.

2. Chandler, all. Link.
3. What were Slater’s most important accomplishments after arriving in the United States?
What were his strengths and weaknesses as an entrepreneur?

General Management Syllabus

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 DAY TWO: Session 3 + Session 4 (back to back)

Session 3: Engineers and Artists. Values, ambitions, thoughts, and beliefs vary significantly
among people you work with. Understanding how their brains work helps you and your team
get more done. To explore this further, we will look inside the heads and hearts of the Artist
and the Engineer using an assortment of tools from surprising domains and time periods. Think
of this session as if it’s a quilt (but not cloth), a mosaic (but not tiles), or maybe even a tapas-
stew (but not food).

Assignment

1. MacKenzie, chapters 1, 2, and 3.

2. Larson, “Harriet Tubman,” Chapter 10. Link.
3. “Cognitive Distortions of Founders,” video on harrisonmetal.com.
4. “Thank You, Kahneman & Tversky,” video on harrisonmetal.com.
5. “Thank You, Elinor Ostrom,” video on harrisonmetal.com.
6. “Drake’s Equation,” video on harrisonmetal.com.

Session 4: Organization Design. Creating an organization requires dividing responsibility and

work among group members. In this session, let’s focus on how organization design can help
teams succeed and maximize output.

Assignment

1. MacKenzie, chapters 9, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16 and 18.

2. “Factory vs Studio,” video on harrisonmetal.com.
3. Grove, chapters 7 and 8.
4. “Organization Design at Flip File, Inc.” Link.
5. Prepare to discuss the following:
● What do you imagine Daniel McCallum’s org chart looked like?
● Why would you keep a team focused on a single line of business? When would
you centralize a function to share across lines of business?

General Management Syllabus

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 DAY THREE: Session 5 + Session 6 (back to back)

Session 5: Executive Communication. Your ability to manage depends on your ability to

communicate. Whether writing, storytelling, or speaking, great general managers communicate
the right content in a way that influences other people. Great communication skills amplify
your talents and poor communication skills stunt your growth. It’s that simple.

Assignment

1. Minto, chapters 1 through 4. (Will be handed out on Day One of class.)

2. “Thank You, Barbara Minto,” video on harrisonmetal.com.

Session 6: Tricky Situations. As a capstone to the course, we will tackle a diverse bundle of
tricky management situations that are drawn from real life. The tricky situations will deal with
managing people, setting goals, measuring performance, designing organizations, and
communication. We will have fun applying the ideas we’ve discussed and coming up with some
new ones.

Assignment

1. MacKenzie, chapter 24.

2. Optional: think of a tricky situation (past, present, or future) of which you have first-
hand knowledge. Post it to the Slack channel or email it to md@harrisonmetal.com. We
may use these in class discussion. Feel free to disguise names.

General Management Syllabus

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