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The One Minute Manager

(One Minute Manager)

Kenneth H. Blanchard (Goodreads Author),

Spencer Johnson

3.92 · Rating details · 109,051 ratings · 1,820 reviews

For more than twenty years, millions of managers in Fortune 500 companies and small businesses nationwide have followed The One Minute Manager's techniques, thus increasing their productivity, job satisfaction, and personal prosperity. These very real results were achieved through learning the management techniques that spell profitability for the organization and its empl ...more

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Hardcover, 111 pages

Published October 7th 2003 by William Morrow & Company (first published 1981)

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Nov 27, 2011 James rated it did not like it

Shelves: business-and-leadership, business-fiction

There is this genre I call business fiction. The characteristics of the genre are as follows:

1. A Simple contrived narrative with a pedantic plod.
2. An aim at communicating common sense wisdom for the business world.
3. A healthy overlay of positive thinking.
4. characters you could care less about because they are one dimensional, mindless automatons sent by the author to fulfill his didactic purposes but do not breath, bleed, or have any life of their own.
5. Lots of slogans that would look nic There is this genre I call business fiction. The characteristics of the genre are as follows:

1. A Simple contrived narrative with a pedantic plod.
2. An aim at communicating common sense wisdom for the business world.
3. A healthy overlay of positive thinking.
4. characters you could care less about because they are one dimensional, mindless automatons sent by the author to fulfill his didactic purposes but do not breath, bleed, or have any life of their own.
5. Lots of slogans that would look nice on a plaque over your desk. Maybe a nice motivational poster.

Well truth be told, some authors in the genre have more quality than others. Not this one, but it distinguishes itself as providing the template for all such books that followed. Written thirty years ago, this New York Times bestseller, follows the adventures of a young man in search for the greatest management model in the universe. Presumably this is to rule the galaxy (though this is more implied than said). Some of the managers he observes are focused on people but not results. Others focus on results but screw people over. That is until he discovers the 'One Minute Manager.' A manager so named because he doesn't have to spend much time with his people. At all. A minute here and there will suffice.

Actually there is some helpful management advice:

1. Have employees write out a 250 word summary of their goals (main objectives) which you both keep on file. The process of clarifying things so that both managers and employees know what their objectives are means greater success and less communication is necessary.
2. The One Minute praise-Catch your employee doing something right and specifically praise them for that action and let them know how valuable it is for you.
3. The One minute reprimand-when employees do something wrong, immediately and specifically reprimand them for that action, though put it in the context of their overall good work.

This is all helpful advice in managing people. That way, they are clear on objectives, feel valued and know exactly where they screw up without having to deal with an angry build up. But really this is the entire substance of the book. Along the way the characters, spout off the same advice and show each other motivational messages on plaques. There is also a lot of advice about touching people to communicate you care. It isn't normally the case, but my guess is that this book would be much better as a movie. Wait for it. ...more

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Nov 11, 2009 Chad Warner rated it liked it

Recommended to Chad by: Al Tomes

This short book packs a lot of advice about effective management into an allegorical story. The tips are realistic and practical, and not too preachy. Here are my notes, mostly quoted straight from the book:

Manager Types
Autocratic
- "Tough"
- Interested in results
- Profit-minded
- Organization wins while people lose
Democratic
- "Nice"
- Interested in people
- People win while organization loses

People who feel good about themselves produce good results.

One minute goal setting
1. Agree on your goals.
2. S ...more

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Mar 09, 2016 Jan-Maat added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 20th-century, business-management-pm, non-fiction

Is there a word for books that are over one hundred pages long but which summarise themselves in less than one page?

In this case everything you need to know is on page, luckily not room, 101 (view spoiler). The rest of the book is some kind of modern fable, presumably because the authors felt embarrassed by the idea of selling their idea on a postcard, that repetitiously repeats that the man ...more

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Sep 12, 2010 Trey Piepmeier rated it it was ok

The writing is absolutely wretched. It's as if it were written for school children. Poorly.

That being said, I think this is probably a really solid management style. I just wish they showed a little more respect for the reader. The dialog attribution alone is nausea-inducing.

This is from the same school of thought as Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends & Influence People. Which is, basically, if you manipulate people into thinking you care about them, they'll do what you want. Of course, it's fra ...more

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Jul 08, 2013 Alex Duncan rated it it was amazing

A must read for new managers.

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Jun 25, 2018 Leah rated it it was ok

Well that was a very basic and short book!
description

I liked it but I personally didn't find much value in it. Though, if only my shittiest manager were to have read this book - I would be freed from so much sucky-ass-manager grief!

The structure of this book is so strange... usually personal development books are instructional and insightful which this book kinda is but it's told as a story. It's a story about interviewing several people lol I feel like Blanchard did this to thicken the book, else he cou ...more

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Jul 24, 2011 Mike Steven rated it did not like it

This was on the shelf on the house I stayed at on my holidays and as I'm supposed to lead a team these days I thought it would be useful.

David Brent could have written this book. It's so cheesey and american it's unreal. Basically it has three ideas. One minute target setting - all goals mapped out in less than 250 words with each team member getting fourteen or fifteen or twenty odd or something targets. There's also one minute praise. It advises you to 'touch people in a reassuring way' during This was on the shelf on the house I stayed at on my holidays and as I'm supposed to lead a team these days I thought it would be useful.

David Brent could have written this book. It's so cheesey and american it's unreal. Basically it has three ideas. One minute target setting - all goals mapped out in less than 250 words with each team member getting fourteen or fifteen or twenty odd or something targets. There's also one minute praise. It advises you to 'touch people in a reassuring way' during these sessions. That idea scares me and I don't intend to touch my staff in any manner at any time. Finally, if someone has the ability to achieve a goal but fails to do so, there's the one minute bollocking. The first half of this - or 30 seconds I would assume - is a standard bollocking but you must remember to tell the person 'how you feel' about the failure. Then you spend the next half telling the person how you are only bollocking them because you usually have such faith in them and know how good they are. Again, touching is encouraged during this process.

It's weird and rubbish. Don't follow a formula as professional people deserve an individual approach. Don't pre-plan to touch people - we're British and touching isn't appropriate in a professional environment. Stroking someone's arm to show them that 'you care about their success' is inappropriate.

Finally, the main thing I hated was how the book was written. It's written as a narrative about an imagined 'young man' who visits a company to talk to a manager. The manager he meets is a 'One Minute Manager' and then, as the book progresses, he meets a number of the manager's staff who tell him about the three pillars of the method. The writing is unconvincing and poor and, as a work of literature it is almost offensively bad.

It's a book that succeeds on no levels whatsoever and I pity anyone who thinks that it is a useful tool in which to learn about how to deal with people. Prospective managers should move away from a formula and look to try to learn about their staff as individuals and as people. The book does hint at this and this is the only lesson that anyone should possibly derive from it. ...more

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Jan 17, 2013 Sfran rated it it was amazing

Simple, quick and entertaining story about how to manage yourself and be a manager.

You'd think there'd be a secret sauce to it, some way to conduct yourself or boss people around in an effective way. Turns out, the three steps of managing (goal setting, praising and reprimanding) are not only a '"minute" each, but couldn't be more jaw-dropping obvious and right.

Be precise about what you want to get done and the quality it has to be done by, but give autonomy in how it's done. This gives space ...more

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Mar 09, 2011 Shanna Gonzales rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2011

Had to read for work. Treat people like people and not just worker bees. Common sense. Managers do NOT use this book that's for sure. ...more

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Aug 21, 2012 Yousif Al Zeera rated it liked it

Nice read and very light. Read it while on a bus-drive from Manama, Bahrain to Al Medina, KSA.

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Feb 18, 2018 Dhruv Sharma rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: insight

I Liked this book and let me try to summarize the takeaway using a small example of a game called “Bowling”:

Let’s say a person X (who is supervisor level of employee) is playing bowling and the pins are being place by another person Y (who is happens to be a senior management level employee). The idea is that the Y will set the pins and X will strike the pins using the ball.

The catch here in the game is that there is a curtain in between the player who is bowling and the pins he need to strike ( I Liked this book and let me try to summarize the takeaway using a small example of a game called “Bowling”:

Let’s say a person X (who is supervisor level of employee) is playing bowling and the pins are being place by another person Y (who is happens to be a senior management level employee). The idea is that the Y will set the pins and X will strike the pins using the ball.

The catch here in the game is that there is a curtain in between the player who is bowling and the pins he need to strike (this is basically a communication GAP or vision GAP between two levels in an organization).

Due to this curtain (communication gap) X doesn’t know how many balls he need to hit as target and how many he did as actual. Another problem is every time when he misses the pins he is been scolded and punished (so firstly he in unaware about no & positions of the pins due to communication gap and now instead of getting help he is being demotivated every time when he misses the pins by his manager).

The book has offered 3 management tips which will help you fix the above explained problem.

First TIP: MBO (management by objective) where you set the broad level goal and detailed targets and way to achieve these targets are defined by employee himself. So, now X know how many pins will be there to hit. Because he was involved in their setup.

Second TIP: Now when X throws the ball and hits few pins, in normal scenario Y shouts you missed 3 pins however management should say that you hit 4 pins (so instead of telling what he did wrong tell him what he did correct. “Caught an employee doing something correct and appreciate him”). He already knows what target was, so anyway he can find out what he missed.

Third TIP: Course correction where you periodically review and guide the team on what corrective actions are suggested. i.e. ask him to shoot the ball little to left always as he gets more pins every time he does that.

4 out of 5. It’s always lovely to end up reading good things to implement.

2018: 8 completed, 42 to Go! ...more

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Jul 14, 2012 Gabriela rated it it was amazing

I would recommend this book to anyone who is overseeing others in a managerial capacity

The One Minute Manager is a narrative about a young man looking for the most effective management skills. Through this parable, Kenneth Blanchard and Spenser Johnson seek to show what makes the most effective management approach, an approach that allows for employee innovation and creativity. The book includes topics on motivating, appraisals and sanctions as well as goal setting.

I believe that the advice offe ...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Tom rated it it was amazing

Shelves: self-help, business-management

Ken Blanchard is a deceptive genius, and his brief books belie brilliance of how he presents his powerful points and themes. He is able to share some solutions and questions of life's great mysteries and secrets in simple, consumable, and ultimately useable form. In his advisory epistles, he notes rightly, that to the degree that we languish in implementing changes to change and improve our lives, well, the less they impact. Specifically he often talks about a 48 hour grace period.

I've always a ...more

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Apr 30, 2010 Vamshi C rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

One minute Manager... Can a manager finish all his job in just one minute? That's what this book claims. Blanchard takes us through a pursuit of a young manager to find the best practices of a Manager. He meets a very efficient manager with whom he learns three basic principles of One minute manager. The book though is a management oriented, the author makes us feel as if we are reading a story. The examples shared by the managers could have been better. All in all i gave this 4 out of 5 only be ...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Christopher rated it it was ok

Shelves: philosophy-social

Laughably oversimplified advice, for the most part very truthful and common sensical, that I'm sure works spectacularly in a healthy, homogeneous, and fully functional society that I'm having a hard time envisioning in today's world. Written in 1981, the type of managerial relationship portrayed here was already gone, it just hadn't evidenced itself yet. The advice contained within actually works better for dealing with children, specifically your own, when it comes to the much-stressed aspect o ...more

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Oct 20, 2016 Karthick rated it liked it

Shelves: time-pass-not-bad, leadership-management

One Minute Goals,
One Minute Praisings,
One Minute Reprimands

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Sep 26, 2017 David Lucero rated it liked it

A helpful book with good times on time management.

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Jul 13, 2020 Hirdesh rated it it was amazing

Wonderful ! !

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Oct 01, 2020 Mark Villareal rated it it was amazing

A simple read yet very impactful. The One Minute Manager lays out how being an effective manager is important and the impact one has on their team. It also demonstrates to me how a manager grows and develops into a leader by exercising and growing their own emotional intelligence by workers with the emotional intelligence of others.

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Sep 19, 2012 Tyler Suzuki Nelson rated it liked it · review of another edition

The One Minute Manager is a short book written by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. Written in a style of fiction, The One Minute Manager presents through example and explanation a method of managing people in a short period of time using only 3 steps.

The main idea behind the book is that to manage people quickly and effectively, there are 3 important steps: 1) Goal Setting, in which an agreement is reached on the person's responsibilities and then these responsibilities are broken down and The One Minute Manager is a short book written by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. Written in a style of fiction, The One Minute Manager presents through example and explanation a method of managing people in a short period of time using only 3 steps.

The main idea behind the book is that to manage people quickly and effectively, there are 3 important steps: 1) Goal Setting, in which an agreement is reached on the person's responsibilities and then these responsibilities are broken down and recorded as goals. These goals should be short so that they can be revisited often. 2) Praise, in which praise is given for the person's accomplishments immediately upon completing something that deserves praise. This is typically most important at the beginning of a project when it needs to be enforced that the person is capable of doing their job. 3) Reprimands, in which reprimands are given for the person's errors immediately upon them being noticed. This typically takes place after it has been enforced that the person is fully capable of doing their job well, and thus the error is out of character for them.

Although I like the main idea of the book, and I see theoretically how it could be an effective management strategy, I didn't like how the book presented it. First, the story was written as if it was both written by and written for an elementary school student. Sentences are simple, and the conversation sounded like a badly scripted drama. Second, the amount of white space in the book is ridiculous. The text-size is quite large in itself, but to make matters worse, the left-right margins already seem a little bigger than normal, and the top-bottom margins are often huge: it's like they write out a couple of paragraphs, and then center those few paragraphs in the middle of the page, even if this means a vertical border exceeding 5 inches in length...

Overall, I thought the book presented an interesting idea. I liked the people-focus of the book ("Everyone is a potential winner. Some people are disguised as losers. Don't let their appearances fool you."), although the way it presented its content I thought to be a work in progress. For anyone interested in this topic, I would suggest picking this book up. It's a super-short read, and hopefully presents something new for you. ...more

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Jan 26, 2012 Prashant rated it liked it · review of another edition

I heard about the book a long time back and it has been waiting in my bookshelf for some 1 year now. The only reason that the thinness of the book was not able to entice me in reading it was the fact that most of the famous management books that you come across in your life become clichéd with time. If you have not read them in any chronological order then time and again you are bound to get that feeling of déjà vu.

This book is about a man who is on a lookout for some gyaan(learning) about mana ...more

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May 13, 2013 Sunny rated it liked it · review of another edition

*giggle*

*giggle-snort*

OK. I totally get why this book would have been so dog-gone popular... THIRTY-TWO YEARS AGO!

It's a cute story - this up-and-coming yuppie-type interviews a successful business manager to find out his secrets for success. Then he is sent to interview three of this manager's subordinates, who each give him one of the three secrets to being a One Minute Manager. (I kept thinking of Dickens' Christmas ghosts! LOL!)

It's all boiled down to three simple rules: Set Goals, Give Imme ...more

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Oct 23, 2014 Steffen Nielsen rated it did not like it

This is probably the worst management book I have ever read. It is filled with so many trivial things that most people have already learned in their upbringing which makes the book completely unbearable.

On the front cover it states that this is the World's Most Popular Management Method. I don't believe that is a fact. It also says More Success With Less Stress. As an old stress "victim" I take statements like that very serious however it is hardly mentioned in the book how this is achieved. Th ...more

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Mar 16, 2008 Janet rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: management

The book is short and humorous, a good read for non-readers.

The book takes solid mangagerial info and gives it to the reader handily in the form of three "secrets." Managers should cast clear vision and expectations, commend good work, and correct mistakes.

The advice to be very practical and while some may consider it far too simple, it can help you a lot IF you actually apply the info- which I suspect most managers do not.

Leadership and management are both critically important skills. The one ...more

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Jan 31, 2015 Ritwik rated it liked it

Short,to-the-point and devoid of any technical jargons. At times the narrative turns dull and it seems oversimplified but the intention of the author is quite clear. The book is targeted towards the impatient generation of today and wants to dispense the author's wisdom and tips frugally and not the other way round with an extensive plot. ...more

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Nov 07, 2015 LeikHong Leow rated it it was amazing

I recently find time to re-read this book; and found many inspiring ideas from it.

One minute goal setting - how to create short and precise goals for your team
One minute praise - catch you people doing the right things and give them an immediate praise
One minute reprimand - if you find someone doing wrong, give them immediate feedback and correction action.

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Oct 29, 2016 Greg rated it did not like it

Shelves: 20th-century, nf-folktales, reviewed

As believable as "The One Minute Practice to Win the Super Bowl", or "The One Minute Best Actress Oscar". This was forced upon me at work and the company paid something like $19.95 each for 100s of copies. So, "The One Minute Method to Make Tons of Money" would be a better title. Better than "Who Moved My Cheese", though. ...more

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Mar 28, 2014 Bilal Rajab rated it really liked it

This book provides a core principal that will change your behavior in managing people more efficiently.
I like the way this book delivered it's message through conversations during the chapters, It was interesting ...more

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Dec 18, 2014 Kirtida Gautam rated it it was ok

Shelves: chakra-3

It is an okay book. A very quick read.

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Jan 04, 2015 Pooja Bhoi rated it really liked it

Shelves: 100-pages

A very well written book about self-help. It guides the reader to properly manage work and relations.

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About Kenneth H. Blanchard

Kenneth H. Blanchard

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Ken Blanchard, one of the most influential leadership experts in the world, is the coauthor of the iconic bestseller, The One Minute Manager, and 60 other books whose combined sales total more than 21 million copies. His groundbreaking works have been translated into more than 27 languages and in 2005 he was inducted into Amazon’s Hall of Fame as one of the top 25 bestselling authors of all time.
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