Writing down his thoughts plays an important role in this process of teaching himself.
Andy Grove, which may surprise some, didn't know a thing about management when Intel (INTC) was started. He was the number three employee at the company behind the number one and two employees, Bob Noyce and Gordon Moore.
With both of them being older than Grove, they were financially established, and had no desire to manage a business in any way. That made Grove the only one available for the job.
Grove was for the most part, a self-taught manager. One of the things Grove did to teach himself, was to write down all his thoughts on paper.
I bring this up because writing for me has been an outlet for years on training myself; although I've had some input from others.
The point is writing, as well as other forms of expressing oneself, like recording your thoughts and listening to them later, is a great teaching tool. The reason is because the human mind needs repetition to grasp something fully, and make it an intuitive part of our managing.
It's also a great way to brainstorm with ideas and thoughts we may have heard others say, which we add our own way of looking at it or twist to the subject or idea.
I'm a firm believer also that if we don't use it we lose it. Writing is the first step into the process of implementing thoughts and ideas. Most the time we don't just jump out of a plane, figuratively thinking ... we think through the possibilities of ideas we have, and from there develop a way to get them done or started.
Writing, or having a means to put down our thoughts, is a key way to give us an edge, and allow our thoughts to ramble and run. It's not only fun, it's amazing the things that can come forth out of simply throwing our ideas around through writing or talking on a recording device.
It's the process of forcing ourselves to think it through that is the key. Whether it's writing or talking, it will discipline us to have to think through things.
The other side of it is we can also catch terrible ideas we think have merit until we try to express them. When we start to express them, we can see in some case how bad they are, and can eliminate them without spending a lot of time pursuing them.
Expressing our ideas and thoughts is one of the key ways of training ourselves to excel in business leadership and management. With Grove it was writing (which I prefer), but whatever works the best is what you should do. It's quite possibly the best training we'll ever get.
Other Andy Grove Resources:
Andy Grove's Rational Exuberance
The Digital Age . . . driven by the passion of Intel's Andrew Grove
The History and Influence of Andy Grove
Andy Grove enters new post-Intel role as activist capitalist
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