Well, I'm not going to argue much with Andy Grove. But my answer to "What do executives do?" is: Work on environmental problems.
Problems can be put into three buckets: 1) Can be solved by things 100% under your control. 2) Can be solved only by influencing others to participate, 3) Things that are part of the environment and can really only be mitigated.
Area 1, control, is the realm of the first line manager. The FLM has the people, the budget, the FLM's team has the know-how, so execute well and the problem is solved.
Area 2, influence, is the realm of the middle manager, and also sales and marketing. You need to borrow resources from somebody else, argue for corporate re-allocation of resources, convince a sales prospect to become a customer, etc.
Area 3, environment, is the realm of the executive. You have no control and no influence, unless you can find some levers and then delegate. But some things will not have obvious levers. Example: It rains. No body will stop the rain. But everyone can fix the holes in their roof. Likewise, companies have competitors and an economic environment in which they operate. Predict and make plans.
When I was at Intel, one of the great things that senior Mids got to participate in was "red teaming" as competitors. Given all that Intel knew about a competitor, a team would be give a data dump and a short number of weeks to come up with a strategic plan for that competitor to Eat Intel's Lunch. Then they presented to Intel executive staff. From what I heard, it was an excellent experience all around and very valuable to the company. (Before you ask, no.... I was not ever in any danger of participating....)
>Given all that Intel knew about a competitor, a team would be give a data dump and a short number of weeks to come up with a strategic plan for that competitor to Eat Intel's Lunch. Then they presented to Intel executive staff.
I guess it's safe to say that they didn't predict AMD's Zen?
No doubt they did predict Zen, and planned to counter it with super chips from their new fab. Which didn't work. Not everything does.
Normally a well-run shop has several alternatives running, so when one flops, another is there to step in. They often did that with next-generation chip architecture. That's hard to do with your fab.
In principle they could have had a design ready to go on TSMC if their fab flopped, but scheduling fab capacity takes long-term commitments that they didn't plan to be able to honor.
It is safe to say that Intel is well aware of the capabilities of all their competitors, but obviously not their detailed plans. But even so, even with 100% perfect prediction there are numerous choices of how to proceed.
Problems can be put into three buckets: 1) Can be solved by things 100% under your control. 2) Can be solved only by influencing others to participate, 3) Things that are part of the environment and can really only be mitigated.
Area 1, control, is the realm of the first line manager. The FLM has the people, the budget, the FLM's team has the know-how, so execute well and the problem is solved.
Area 2, influence, is the realm of the middle manager, and also sales and marketing. You need to borrow resources from somebody else, argue for corporate re-allocation of resources, convince a sales prospect to become a customer, etc.
Area 3, environment, is the realm of the executive. You have no control and no influence, unless you can find some levers and then delegate. But some things will not have obvious levers. Example: It rains. No body will stop the rain. But everyone can fix the holes in their roof. Likewise, companies have competitors and an economic environment in which they operate. Predict and make plans.
When I was at Intel, one of the great things that senior Mids got to participate in was "red teaming" as competitors. Given all that Intel knew about a competitor, a team would be give a data dump and a short number of weeks to come up with a strategic plan for that competitor to Eat Intel's Lunch. Then they presented to Intel executive staff. From what I heard, it was an excellent experience all around and very valuable to the company. (Before you ask, no.... I was not ever in any danger of participating....)