Professional Documents
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The One Minute Manager
The One Minute Manager
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INDEX
S.No. Topic
i. Ken Blanchard ii. Spencer Johnson 3. Book Summary Introduction The One Minute Manager The First Secret : One-Minute Goal The Second Secret: One Minute Praising The Appraisal The Third Secret: One Minute Reprimands The One Minute Manager explains Why One Minute Goals work Why One Minute Praisings work Why One Minute Reprimands work A Gift to yourself 4. My critical analysis/review
KEN BLANCHARD
Kenneth Hartley Blanchard is an American author and management expert. His book The One Minute Manager (co-authored with Spencer Johnson) has sold over 13 million copies and has been translated into 37 languages. He has coauthored over 30 other best-selling books. [...] Blanchard is the chief spiritual officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies, an international management training and consulting firm that he and his wife, Marjorie Blanchard, co-founded in 1979 in San Diego, California. Among many accolades, Blanchard has been honored as one of the top 10 Leadership professionals in the international Leadership Gurus survey for 2007 and 2008. The Leadership Gurus survey award, by Global Gurus International identifies the top and most influential Leadership professionals in the world by merit and public voting. Blanchard is a Cornell University trustee emeritus and visiting professor at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. He and his wife were named Cornell Entrepreneurs of the Year in 1991.
SPENCER JOHNSON
Spencer Johnson is known for his 1998 motivational book, titled Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life. It has stayed on the New York Times Bestseller list, and has remained on the Publishers Weekly Hardcover nonfiction list. Johnson received a B.A. degree in psychology from the University of Southern California in 1963, and his M.D. from the Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland. Johnson also wrote the book Yes or No: The Guide to Better Decisions (1992), which has been translated into a number of languages including Spanish, Korean and German . He co-authored the One Minute Manager series of books with management writer Ken Blanchard. His latest book, which can make you happy and successful is The Present.
BOOK SUMMARY
1. Introduction
The book unfolds a journey of a young man with a quest to find an effective manager. Because he wanted to work for one and work for one. His search had taken him over many years to the far corners of the world. He spoke with many managers: with government administrators and military officers, construction superintendents and corporate executives, university presidents and shop foremen, utility supervisors and foundation directors, with the managers of shops and stores, of restaurants, banks and hotels, with men and womenyoung and old. But he was never pleased with what he saw. Either their company sinks or their people. The managers who were interested in results often seemed to be labeled autocratic, while the managers interested in people were often labeled democratic. The young man thought each of these managersthe tough autocrat and the nice democratswere only partially effective. It was just being half a manger. He returned home tired and discouraged. He thought of an effective manager being one capable to balancing both. He has to manage himself as well as the people he works with so that both the organization and the people profit from his presence. His list of effective managers consisted of only few, but no one willing to share their secrets with him. Then he heard of a special manager in a nearby town with whom people loved to work and produce quality results for the organization. He arranged a meeting with the manager with a curiousity to know about him.
The manager talked about getting the organization's efficiency that an organized manner raises the productivity level. The confused young man then referred the manager as more results oriented than people oriented as he felt about the two categories of managers he met earlier. However, the special manager being able to cope well between the organization and his people talked about a behavioral factor that people feeling good about themselves produce good results. He was special because he cares about people and results. He described himself as a "One Minute Manager". The confused young man could not digest the fact of getting good results without taking more than a minute. The manager seeing the stunned face of the man suggested him to have a talk with any of his sub ordinates to further know his management techniques. He gave him a list of his employees with their details so that he can arrange meetings with them individually. The manager also invited the man to come back and see him in case he has any questions after talking to his employees. The manager appreciated the young man's interest and desire to learn how to manage. He warmly told him to present his One Minute Manager as a gift to him just as he got it from somebody that changed his life. He wanted the man to understand it fully. He decided to meet Mr. Trenell, Mr. Levy and Ms. Brown to have the details.
Mr. Trenell shared his personal incident when the manager spent time with him at the beginning of a new task when he was unable to decide for himself what to do. The manger helped him to take a decision by asking him questions that he was able to ask himself but did not at that time. He was helped how to solve a problem when he gets one and that too without wasting the manager's time.
other things that annoy the manager play no role when he is giving a praising. Or even if the manager is busy, he give the praising to the deserving person at every cost. This instills a feeling in the employer's mind to work harder to again have a One Minute Praising from the manager.
The Appraisal
The young man met Ms. Gomez, a competent looking woman in her early 40's. He wanted to compare the organization's effective and efficient operations to that to Mr. One Minute Manager. The man was puzzled to know that the most efficient operation was at this special manager's place only and that with some of the oldest equipment. The man was amazed when Ms. Gomez told him that the manager does have a lot of people turnover, not because they dont like the manager's working philosophy but because after two years they become capable themselves to be a manager. The man was told that the manager was an expert in training people. Ms .Gomez expressed her wish of knowing the secrets of One Minute Management for herself, the man agreed to gift her after he is done with it.
The man was excited for knowing the third secret for being an effective manager that he was going to get from Ms. Brown.
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2. 3. 4. 5.
Reprimand people immediately. Tell people what they did wrongbe specific. Tell people how you feel about what they did wrongand clearly. Stop for a few seconds of uncomfortable silence to let them feel how you feel. The second half of the reprimand:
6. Shake hands, or touch them in a way that lets them know you are honestly on their side. 7. Remind them how much you value them. 8. Reaffirm that you think well of them but not of their performance in this situation. 9. Realize that when the reprimand is over, it is over. The young man was astonished to see the simplicity of the idea of One Minute Management with its three secrets One Minute Goal setting, One Minute Praising, and One Minute Reprimand. However, he was wondering about how the things actually work out so well.
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He told that people are motivated after work when they know what they need to do. As if one can see the pins and can see his rolling ball has knocked out how many pins. They feel happy and excited about hitting the pins. But the situation at most of the organizations is other way round. Most managers know what they want their people to do. They just do not bother to tell their people in a way they would understand. They assume they should know. This creates an effective form of bowling. The pins are there and the bowler is ready to bowl. And when he bowls, there is a sheet across the pins, the ball rolls and slips under the sheet. The sound of pins being hit are audible but the bowler does not get to know how many pins he hit. So the excitement of bowling finishes off. It is the reason why they feel unmotivated to do their work. It is because feedback of the results keeps the employers motivated. Some of the managers at such organization do believe in feedback system but even that does not raises the people's motivation to do work. This feedback is of the form that creates a third form of bowling. When the bowler goes to the line to roll the ball, the pins are still up and the sheet is in place but now there is another ingredient in the gamea supervisor standing behind the sheet. When the bowler rolls the ball, he hears the crash of the falling pins, the supervisor instead of telling him that he hit two pins tells that he missed eight. Those managers do not allow the sheet to be raised so that both he and his employees can clearly see where to hit. This happens because of the presence of normal- distribution-curve mentality. He explained that in order to look good as a manager in most organizations, the manager has to catch some of his people doing things wrong. He has to have a few winners, a few losers, and everyone else somewhere in the middle. The special manager told the young man that being a manager has precisely three options. First is to hire winners, but it is hard to find and also costs much. The second option is if not hiring a winner then hire somebody with a potential of being one. This includes the training of people. And most of the organizations unwilling to do this go with the third approach of just hoping that their employer will work out well. The man compared the first approach of hiring winners with Ms. Brown who was capable enough of working on her own with just one session of goal setting. She handles her responsibility so well being a trained employer. The manager insisted the importance of One Minute Goal setting to be a productive tool and that too an a piece of a paper because it helps people review their performance frequently with the goals set. It helps in comparing their behavioral issues matching to that of the goals. The young man now requested the manager to know about his One Minute Praising's working.
The manager explained the working by taking an analogous example of pigeon's training. In addition he referred the people as being more complicated and their want of not being manipulated by someone else. He urged the man to remember this and respect it in order to be successful in managing people. He started with the pigeon example where one want an untrained pigeon that you want to enter a box in the lower left-hand corner and run across the box to the upper right-hand corner and push a lever with his right foot. The box has a pellet machine to give reward to the pigeon when he does exactly what is expected, pushing the lever. but this would starve the pigeon to death. This is related to the philosophy of holding an annual performance review once a year. The manager believe that the employer should be praised every time he does something right. The results can be verified by the process of training the pigeon. This is done by drawing a line to a place from where the pigeon has to start, when it reaches there successfully, the pigeon gets its food. When the pigeon has been trained to reach that spot, another line is drawn to the next spot and again feeding the pigeon at that spot instead of earlier one when it successfully reaches there. In this way in terms of short-term goals planned for the pigeon, it is trained to reach the upper right hand corner and pushing the lever. In the simple example, the manager told the man that the key to training someone to do a new task is, in the beginning, to catch them doing something approximately right until they can eventually learn to do it exactly right. Another case of whale jumping over the rope that is high above the water. This is referred to second case of hiring people and training them to be a winner themselves. The whale was first trained to jump over the rope at the bottom of the pool. It was fed each time it jumps over the rope. And then successively the level of rope was increased. The philosophy of helping a beginner and rewarding it when the beginner is successful at the smaller goals, then the goals are taken to another level. This helps a toddler to walk and run on his own, a baby's cry to speak fluently to express himself. Most managers wait until their people do something exactly right before they praise them. As a result, many people never get to become high performers because their managers concentrate on catching them doing things wrongthat is, anything that falls short of the final desired performance. In the pigeon example, it would be like putting the pigeon in the box and not only waiting until he hits the lever to give him any food but putting some electric grills around the box to punish him periodically just to keep him motivated. It would ultimately result in a hostile environment for the employer to work in. the new and inexperienced people are left alone in such organizations where the managers periodically zap them to keep them moving. Those people result into a variation of efficiency levels of their working as well as the organizations. So resulting into a poor business performance. The inexperienced person should be made understand of what the organization expects them to do and holding a One Minute Goal setting with them. And giving them a One Minute Praising of making them feel motivated enough to maintain their good performance.
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Being clear with the concept of goal setting and praising, the young man was wondering about the necessity of third secret of One Minute Management- One Minute Reprimands and its working.
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The manager also explained that touch being such a great emotional attitude can help the employer recover from the reprimand and feel motivated enough to start again with a greater zeal. The young man was impressed about the idea of being honest to people was the manager's power. The young man liked the One Minute Manager and he was haapy to know the reason why people liked to work with him. Seeing the man's dedication and enthusiasm the manager offered him job to help him realize the winner in himself. And the young eventually became a One Minute Manager himself. He set One Minute Goals. He gave One Minute Praisings. He gave One Minute Reprimands. And he encouraged the people he worked to do the same.
A Gift To Yourself
The man helped other people too become a One Minute Manger by giving copies of the notes he prepared when he met that special manager. The new manager was also happy that he could take the knowledge one step further. By giving copies to many other people in the organization, he had solved several practical problems. Everyone who worked with him felt secure. No one felt manipulated or threatened because everyone knew up front what he was doing and why. Sharing the knowledge in this simple and honest way had, of course, saved him a good deal of time. And it had certainly made his job easier. Many of the people reporting to him had become One Minute Managers themselves. And they, in turn, had done the same for many of the people who reported to them. The entire organization had become more effective. He felt good about himselfas a person and as a manager. His caring about people had paid off handsomely. He had risen in the organization, gaining more responsibilities and more rewards. And he knew he had become an effective manager, because both his organization and the people in it had clearly benefited from his presence.
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My critical analysis/review
Take a minute: Look at your goals look at your performance see if your behavior matches your goals
The One Minute Manager has sold over 13 million copies and has been translated into 37 languages, which proves that a good and interesting book doesnt have to be thick. With just 110 pages it provides a lot of information and examples to think about, and compare those with reallife situations. This little book isnt a multimillion bestseller for nothing. It contains techniques and step-bystep plans which are highly effective in everyday life, both for managers and everyone working with other people. The book is very easy to read, well written, has good examples to elaborate on the important key points, and leaves you with a lot of things to think about. During the course of the story, the young man finds that a good manager is an honest man, who leads by example and who genuinely cares for his people. He learns that the original One-Minute Manager has established certain precepts to ensure that a work group is individually more responsible. These are: Set One-Minute Goals to ensure that your people understand perfectly what their duties are, what is expected of them and that there are no surprises. Give One-Minute Praise. Let the people know when they are doing the right thing or when they are doing something right. Give One-Minute Reprimands. Do it immediately and talk only about the incorrect behavior only, not the people personally.
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These concepts have been further propounded in the book. The parable finally ends in the young man adopting and exploiting the one-minute policies and gradually attaining great success and fame, like his tutor. The best quote that I liked from the book is: Not only about effective goal setting, but also about social behavior and the psychological consequences of actions. The book is not only about managing people at work. It creates an enthusiastic feeling of being a winner oneself. In our daily life we need to have such a temperament as explained by the authors in a story. In addition, the book has taught me that the quickest way to increase my productivity, profits, satisfaction, and/or personal prosperity is by providing consistent predictable positive reinforcement for desirable work behavior. The secrets of one-minute management will help a manager boost profits and productivity immediately through increases employee morale and job satisfaction. I can advise this book to everyone, and want to thank the writers Blanchard and Johnson for the great way they have written down their story. For any person who is currently manager striving to get the most from people, or who is planning to become one in the near future, "The One Minute Manager" is an indispensable success tool. It was a great learning experience, reading this book and I am sure I would cherish it for the rest of my life.
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