The New One Minute Manager

by Kenneth H. Blanchard

“At work, and in life, too, you don’t have to catch a winner doing things right very often, because good performers catch themselves doing things right. But people who are learning benefit from praise and encouragement from others.”

Most managers wait until 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 wrong—that is, anything that falls short of the final desired performance.”

“This has been a popular management style for a long time. I call it the leave-alone-zap style. You leave a person alone, expecting good performance from them, and when you don’t get it, you zap them.”

Punishment doesn’t work when you use it with someone who’s learning. “Rather than punish inexperienced people who are still learning, we need to re-direct them.

“What happens then is people usually end up disagreeing about the facts, or they simply keep quiet and become resentful. Often, the person receiving the feedback becomes defensive. They don’t own what they have done wrong. “This is another version of the leave-alone-zap way of communicating.

Because the manager deals fairly and clearly with one behavior at a time, so the person receiving the feedback can hear it?” “Yes. You want to get rid of the bad behavior but keep the good person, so you don’t attack the person just because they’ve made a mistake.”

“So you want to separate their behavior from their worth. Reaffirming them after you’ve addressed the mistake focuses on their behavior without attacking them personally.

But to be more accurate, I’m actually tough and nice.” “Tough and nice?” echoed the young man. “Yes. In that order. This is an old philosophy that has worked well for literally thousands of years. There’s a story from ancient China that illustrates this. “Once upon a time, an emperor appointed a second-in-command. He called him the prime minister and, in effect, said to him, ‘Why don’t we divide up the tasks? Why don’t you do all the punishing and I’ll do all the rewarding?’ The prime minister said, ‘Fine. I’ll do all the punishing and you do all the rewarding.’”

this: if you are first tough on the behavior, and then supportive of the person, it works better.”

people what they did wrong; tell them how you feel about it; and remind them they are better than that. “In other words, their performance is bad, but they are good.”

it is very important when you are leading people to remember that behavior and worth are not the same things. What is really worthwhile is the person who’s managing their own behavior. “It applies equally to us when we’re managing our own behavior. “In fact, if you realize this,” the Manager said as he brought up another screen on his computer, “you will know the key to providing a really successful Re-Direct.”

We Are Not Just Our Behavior. We Are The Person Managing Our Behavior.

“Your job is to show people how to manage themselves and enjoy it. You want them to succeed when you’re not around.

making mistakes is not the problem. It’s not learning from them that causes real problems.”

“A One Minute Re-Direct is intended to help people learn. However, when a person has learned something and has shown they can do it, but they have a won’t do attitude, you need to look at the cost to the organization, and whether you can afford to keep such a person on the team.”

Goals Begin Behaviors. Consequences Influence Future Behaviors.

“The people on our team work as partners and together we look for ways to improve. I do my best to help them work better, and in the process we all enjoy our work and lives more. And we’re a great benefit to our organization.”

He asked brief, important questions; spoke the simple truth; laughed, worked, and enjoyed. And perhaps most important of all, he not only managed, he also led people to be creative and do new things. He encouraged those around him to do the same for the people they worked with.

As he looked back, he was glad he hadn’t waited to start using One Minute Management until he thought he could do it just right. He’d admitted to his team, “I’m not used to telling people how good they are or how I feel. And I’m not sure I can always remember to tell you that I value and think well of you when I give a Re-Direct.” So, he had to smile when someone said, “Well, you could at least give it a try!” By simply asking people if they wanted to be managed by such a manager, and admitting that he might not always be able to do it right, he’d accomplished something important. People knew up front that he was honestly on their side from the start, and that made all the difference.