The One Minute Manager Summary

Grab a copy of The One Minute Manager here: https://www.bookdepository.com/New-One-Minute-Manager-Kenneth-Blanchard/9780008128043/?a_aid=adamsbooks 

The Search

The book breaks down effective management through the tale of the ‘One Minute Manager’ through 3 simple secrets.

Secret 1 – One Minute Goals

One minute goal setting is the first of three secrets and the foundation for One Minute Management. Most organisations when you ask people what they do and then ask their boss, normally you get two different lists. In fact some organizations, any relationship between what you think your responsibilities are and what your boss thinks are purely coincidental.

You would get in trouble for doing something that isn’t your job. But the One Minute Manager always makes it clear what our responsibilities are and what we are being held accountable for. Once the manager has told you what needs to be done, or you have agreed what needs to be done, each goal is recorded on no more than a single page. The OMM then feels that a goal and its performance standard should take max 250 words. It should be able to be read in a minute

Both the manager and employee keep a copy so you can check on the process periodically. The OMM believes in the 80-20 goal setting rule, 80% of your important results will come from 20% of your goals

So we only do One Minute Goal setting on the 20% , that’s 3-6 goals total.

Why One Minute Goals Work

You’ve seen unmotivated people at work in the various organizations. But you’ve probably never seen an unmotivated person after work. If you go to the bowling club after work you will see employees after work approach the line, roll the ball, and then start to scream, yell and jump around.

Why are they so happy? Because they got a strike. She knocked down all the pins

Why do you think she and other people are that excited at work?

Because they don’t know where the pins are. How long would they bowl if there were no pins?

Its the same with watching football. How many would sit in front of their TVs on a Sunday afternoon and watch two teams run up and down the field if there were no goals to shoot at?

Clearly the number one motivator of people is feedback on results.

In most organisations, in order to look good as a manager you have to catch people doing things wrong.You have a few winners, few losers and everyone else in the middle. Einstein was once asked what his phone number was, and he went to the phone book to look it up. He said he never cluttered his mind with information he could find elsewhere. Most people would think of people who went to the phone book to look up their number as a loser. But you would miss someone like Einstein

“Everyone is a potential winner – some people are disguised as losers, don’t let their appearances fool you”

Take a minute – look at your goals – look at your performance – see if your behaviour matches those goals

One Minute Goals Summary

• Agree on your goals

• See what good behaviour looks like

• Write goals onto a single sheet of paper less than 250 words

• Read and re-read each goal, which requires only a minute or so each time you do it

• Take a minute every once in a while out of your day to look at your performance, and

• See whether or not your behaviour matches your goal

The Second Secret – One Minute Praisings

Hardly anyone sees the One Minute Manager, except at the start. He knows it would be a lot easier for employees to do well if you get crystal clear feedback from him on how you are doing

After the goals are set, the OMM is watching the employee like a hawk. He always keeping a close eye and taking notes. At first you think it is because you think he doesn’t trust you, that is until I found out from some of the other people who report to him what he was really doing

He was actually trying to catch me doing something right. There is a motto around the business

“Help people reach their full potential. Catch them doing something right”

When The One Minute Manager catches you doing something right, he gives the One Minute Praising. He looks you straight in the eye and tells you precisely what you did right. He then shares with you how good he feels about what you did. It happens straight away, you don’t wait until the annual performance review.

Why One Minute Praising’s Work

Suppose you have 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 the right foot. Suppose that not too far from the entry point is a pallet machine releasing pellets of food to reward and reinforce the pigeon.

What do you think if we put the pigeon in the box and wait until the pigeon runs over to the right hand corner and pushes the lever before we give him food. He would starve to death, we would lose lots of pigeons.

You are meant to draw a line, and give food when pigeon crosses it. Soon you draw the line in the upper right hand corner and give food. Then finally draw a tiny line near the lever.

By setting up these series of lines we are establishing goals that the pigeon can achieve.

So the key to training someone to do a new task is in the beginning catch them doing something approximately right until they eventually learn to do it exactly right.

When you go to SeaWorld and see the whales jump out of the water and wet the first 10 rows. Everyone thinks it is unbelievable… But play this logic

• They use  a rope for the whale to jump over then feed it
• But they start in the large pool from the rope at the bottom
• Every time the whale swims over it gets fed
• Slowly they raise it to the top until its out of the water

What most managers do instead:

Often do to inexperienced people. We welcome them aboard, take them to meet people, then leave them alone. Not only we don’t catch them doing something right, but periodically we zap them to just keep them moving. This is the most popular leadership style of all

“The ‘leave it alone zap style'”

You leave a person alone, expecting good performance from them, and when you don’t get it you zap them.

If inexperienced people don’t perform, then rather than punish them we need to go back to Goal Setting.

One Minute Praising Summary

• Tell people up front that you are going to let them know how they are diong

• Praise people immediately

• Tell people what they did right – specifically

• Tell people how good you feel about what they did right and how it helps the organisation and team

• Stop for a moment of silence to let them “feel” how good you feel

• Encourage them to do more of the same

• Shake hands, or touch people in a way that makes it clear you support their success in the organisation

The Third Secret – The One Minute Reprimands

The One Minute Manager has a lot of turnover, but only because they leave to become managers themselves.

For those who have been there a while, they typically only see the OMM when they do something wrong. If you make a mistake, that’s when you get the one minute reprimand. He looks you straight in the eye, and tells you precisely what you did wrong. Then he shares how he feels – angry, annoyed, frustrated or whatever he is feeling

He gives it as soon as you do something wrong. You won’t get away with sloppiness.

He doesn’t attack you as a person, only the behaviour – it’s easy not to become defensive. When it’s over it is over. It doesn’t last long but you don’t forget it. You won’t make the same mistake twice

Why One Minute Reprimands Work

One reason it worked for The One Minute Manager is that the person receiving the reprimand can ‘hear’ the feedback. Because when the manager deals with one behavior at a time, it seems more fair and clear. Another is that you never attack a persons value or wealth as a person, only reprimand the behaviour

The goal is to eliminate the behaviour and keep the person.

Understand that:

• We are not just our behaviour
• We are the person managing our behaviour
• You will be successful with the one minute reprimand when you really care about the wealth fare of the person you are reprimanding

One Minute Reprimand Summary

• Tell people beforehand you are going to let them know how they are doing in no uncertain terms

• Reprimand people immediately

• Tell people what they did wrong – be specific

• Tell people how you feel about what they did wrong

• Stop for a few seconds of uncomfortable silence to let them feel how you feel

Part 2 of Reprimand

• Shake hands, or touch them to let them know you’re on their side

• Remind them how much you value them

• Reafirm that you think well of them but not of their performance in this situation

• Realize when the reprimand is over

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