“The One Minute Manager” by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson offers a simple yet effective management philosophy centered on three key techniques:
- One Minute Goals: Repeatedly set clear, concise goals that can be understood and reviewed within a minute, for beginning at the beginning . This clarity helps in aligning employees’ actions with the desired outcomes, ensuring everyone knows what is expected of them.
- One Minute Praisings: Recognize and praise good work immediately. The key is to be genuine and specific about what was done well, and to especially praise people at the beginning of your collaboration or of new responsibilities to train them in the right directions.
- One Minute Reprimands: Address mistakes or poor performance quickly and directly, but in a way that focuses on the behavior, not the person.
Make sure you always deliver the feedback right away, and not like bad leaders collect bad feedback until a performance review or until you’re generally angry about a person, as this is always contra-productive.
Explain what you expect from a person and compare what they delivered with that. After the reprimand, reaffirm your confidence in the individual’s abilities, this is important to not demoralize someone!
Note that at the beginning of collaboration it’s mainly about praising, while later on it’s mainly about reprimand. This way works, while the other way will confuse people.
The book emphasizes the importance of being fair and respectful while maintaining clear communication. It advocates for a balanced approach to leadership that values both results and people, creating a more efficient and positive work environment.
My personal focus from this book will be the one-minute goal setting. You can’t expect your team to deliver an outcome that you’re happy with if you didn’t share your expectation at the beginning. This is especially something I can improve at.
In addition, I should communicate more, positive and negative objections.