Pros: very quick read, easy to apply to all situations
Cons: a little hard to take seriously, a bit too fable-ish
The Bottom Line: It's easy to read, general enough to apply to just about anything, and the points are clear. It's a little on the cheesy side, but overall an extremely worthwhile read.
elderberries's Full Review: D. Kenneth Blanchard - The One Minute Manager: The...
I recently was promoted to a manager position in my company, and was looking for some literature to help me be the best manager I could. This one was recommended to me by my father, whose values of "live well, work hard" are about as clear as can be. When I told my husband I was going to get this book, he said it was old and obsolete.
Well, it was certainly not obsolete! This book is definitely something that I'd recommend - if for no other reason than for the fact that it's quick and easy to read, and is a good reminder of practices that really should just be common sense.
How do you make people work well? Make sure they understand what to do, and that they know when they're doing it right.
Summary
To be an effective manager, it's important, as I said earlier, to make sure your employees know exactly what is is they're supposed to do, and that they know when they're doing things right or not. Giving people a clear knowledge of their goals and progress empowers them to solve their own problems, and leaves the manager free to do other things.
- Create One Minute Goals, which is basically a short top-line summary of what the goal is, that can be read in less than a minute.
- Conduct One Minute Praisings. When an employee does something right, take a minute to tell them about it, and tell them how that makes you feel.
- Conduct One Minute Reprimands. When someone does something wrong, take a minute to let them know. Tell them what they did wrong, and tell them right away (so they learn immediately from their experiences).
Pros
My paperback copy is 103 pages, in big text, and some pages have only half a page of text. In other words, it's simple to read, and can easily be done in one sitting. For someone who is in need of time-management help and trying to juggle employees, short is good.
The book is vague enough in its references to be able to apply to most situations. There are a lot of non-work related analogies, like comparisons to bowling or golf as well, and I had no trouble grasping any of the points.
Cons
The book was so simple that it was hard to take seriously at times. The part that stood out in this aspect was an employee being interviewed about the system who explains happily, "I get a praising as soon as I've done something right."
Who on earth would actually say things like this? I understand that the book essentially teaches you to train people by reinforcing good behavior and punishing negative behavior, as you would a child or a dog, but the characters in the book are so simplistic that they almost sound as if they are a dog.
However, the book is written in a parable form, and it's obvious that they story isn't supposed to come off as serious or real, so I can forgive the transparent characters and uninspired dialogue. The point of the book is to get you to motivate and enable people without taking all your time doing it, and I think it serves that purpose extremely well.
For more than twenty years, millions of managers in Fortune 500 companies and small businesses nationwide have followed The One Minute Manager's techn...More at HotBookSale
- The One Minute Manager has been named one of the most influential business books of the century by USA Today and US News & World Report.More at Buy.com Marketplaces
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