The One Minute Manager

September 28th, 2006 • Related • Filed Under

by Kenneth Blanchard Ph.D and Spencer Johnson. M.D. adapted by yetmee

The One Minute Manager is a book written by two experts in the field of psychology and organizational behavior. It tells the story of a young man seeking answers to be an effective manager. And in the course of this search he went far and wide and many corners of the earth and met many types of people and many types of managers. There were the ones which their organization seem to revel in are those that are “tough”, “profit orientated”, “hard-nosed”, “result driven”, “bottom lined managers”. The managers speak of these characteristics with pride but the subordinates think otherwise. Then there were the ones who were “nice” where the people win but the organization doesn’t. They were “considerate”, “supportive”, “participative” and “humanistic”. But the young man found these two types of managers to be only partially effective on their own, like half a manager.


How many times have we found ourselves in a similar dilemma? Not knowing why some subordinates hates us and others love us? How many times do we employ a new employee and pray that he or she will fit in or let time tell us if they are good. How much wasted time and energy

and opportunities have been lost by the time we fire and re-hire someone we deemed effective in the beginning?This smart young man then heard of and met up with a special manager who is reputed to produce excellent results and people like to work with him. His name the One Minute Manager.

The One Minute Manager’s philosophy:

  1. People who feel good about themselves produce Good results, they are productive. However in productivity, quantity is not to be compromised for quality. It must be the combination of both quantity and quality. And quality is simply giving people the product or service they want and need.
  2. Help people reach their full POTENTIAL, always catch people doing something RIGHT!
  3. The best ONE minute is the one where it is invested in people.
  4. Everyone is a Potential winner, some are disguised as Losers, DON’T let their appearances fool you!
  5. Take a minute, look at your goals, look at performance, see if your behavior matches your goals!
  6. We are not just our behavior, we are the person managing our behavior!
  7. Goals begin behaviors and Consequences maintain behaviors!
  8. Share with others!

How does The One Minute Manager work?

a) One Minute Goal Setting
To agree on what needs to be done or achieved by both parties in less than 250 words , keep it to one page.
Keep the 80-20 rule, which is 80 percent of results comes from 20 percent of goals. The one Minute goal setting is based on this more important 20 percent. If a special project comes up set up a Special One Minute Goals.

Identify problems in behavioral terms as in observable, measurable terms. A problem exists if there is a difference between what is actually happening and what you desire to happen otherwise it is just a complaint. Acknowledge what you want to happen, learn about what may have caused the discrepancy between actual and desired. Then decide what to do about it next.
Managers should let the people know and understand what their goals are!

b) One Minute Praisings:
To let someone know in no uncertain terms when someone is doing well and when they are not. Such feedbacks are invaluable especially in the beginning. Keep in close contact, catch them doing something right and give them the One Minute Praising! Let them know you are proud of them! FEEDBACK IS THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS!

After they know the ropes and they know that their jobs are “praiseworthy” and these can be reviewed by both parties from sales data and figures together. They will start working right on their own and know that they are “praiseworthy”.

When people are proud of their work, they do their own one minute praisings, it is called self motivation I think.

c) One minute Reprimands:
This is a three step thing:

  1. Tell people beforehand what they are to expect and be straight forward about it.
  2. First half of reprimand:
    Do it immediately, be specific about what they did wrong, stop for a few second s and let the silence sink in so that they feel uncomfortable.
  3. Second half of reprimand:
    Shake hands, tap their shoulders let them know you are on their side, remind them how much you value them. Reaffirm your faith in them but not that particular performance. When a reprimand is over, it is over.

Be honest and clear about your expectations and what and why you are doing something and let the people know that you care! Be tough on the performance but not on the person!

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