Task-Relevant Maturity

Andy Grove emphasizes that ==a manager’s most important responsibility is to elicit top performance from his subordinates.==.

Unfortunately, one management style does not fit all the people in all the scenarios. A fundamental variable to find the best management style is task-relevant maturity (TRM) of the subordinates.

TRM	Effective Management Style
low	structured; task-oriented; detailed-oriented; instruct exactly "what/when/how mode"
medium	Individual-oriented; support, "mutual-reasoning mode"
high	goal-oriented; monitoring mode

A person's TRM depends on the specific work items. It takes time to improve. When TRM reaches the highest level, the person's both knowledge-level and motivation are ready for her manager to delegate work.

The key here is to regard any management mode not as either good or bad but rather as effective or not effective.