The One Minute Manager Anniversary Ed: The World's Most Popular Management Method

The One Minute Manager Anniversary Ed The World's Most Popular Management Method by Kenneth H. Blanchard (based on 166 customer reviews)

(Hardcover)
Author: Kenneth H. Blanchard
Publisher: William Morrow

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Most useful review as voted by customers:
252 out of 252 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 2/18/08

Short to Read, Big on Wisdom

I really liked this book, but for the same reasons I liked it, some may hate it.

First of all, it's an easy read, and it gets its points across by telling a story. Other books, such as The Sixty-Second Motivator, have also used this format succesfully, but this style may not appeal to everyone. To me, it makes the book a lot less boring to read.

Secondly, the book is short. The vast majority of readers will easily be able to read this book in a day. It has bigger font, which I personally liked and thought it made it a joy to read. However here again, some may be turned off by that and consider it to be too "child-like."

Thirdly, the book takes solid mangagerial info and gives it to the reader handily in the form of three "secrets." I found 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.

In conclusion, I recommend this short business classic to anyone looking for better ways to improve their managerial skills. I doubt most will be disappointed. Also liked Who Moved My Cheese? An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life by the same author.

52 out of 55 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 12/15/99

Great Role Modeling of Communications and Motivation

When most people become a manager for the first time, they are more than a little unsure of themselves. Naturally, they often use speech and ways of doing things that they have seen others use. That's great if their role models are good, but can be terrible otherwise.

The One Minute Manager provides a positive role model for those who have not yet seen one, and good reinforcement for those who have not seen one lately.

If organizations try to operate on the assumption that only the manager has ideas worth acting on, then very little will be accomplished. The One Minute Manager provides a useful model for opening up and stimulating the minds of everyone in the organization to accomplish more.

Not only is this advice worth following from an effectiveness point of view, it will also make you feel better about yourself as a manager and as a person when you follow it. And you will certainly make those who report to you feel a lot better, as well.

I like the use of a parable to help each of us reexamine ourselves, because it makes the reader feel less defensive. But be sure to remember what you gut instincts would have been in the same situations the One Minute Manager describes. Otherwise, you may miss the point of how much your behavior needs to change.

This is one of a handful of books well worth rereading annually.

Unlike most business books, this one is short and easy to read. The academic language has been banished, and it is well written.

If you want to go beyond The One Minute Manager to get even better results, you will have to learn and use other beneficial habits as well. But you can have all the great ideas in the world, and if you annoy and stifle everyone around you, not much will happen. So think of this book as necessary for more success, but not sufficient in and of itself for getting the utmost benefits in working with others.

46 out of 50 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 3/6/00

The One minute Manager

A measurement of a good leader is ability to develop other leaders, not followers. In today's world, many new supervisors are thrust into a "baptism by fire" management environment. I found this book to be an easy to read guide that arms newcomers to management with the basic tools for building worker relationships and getting the best out of their staffs. As a result, their efforts are guided into decisions that generate increasingly positive outcomes in uncomfortable situations. Self confidence builds and leadership/management styles improve.

I have made it a habit during my welcome interviews to provide each new management employee with a copy of "The One Minute Manager". We all enjoy the benefits!

34 out of 46 people found the following review helpful.
Review Date: 8/5/07

Practical, cute, and easy to read

This is a great little introduction to personnel management. Though slightly misnamed, the book introduces three skills of management which can be done in a concise way (but probably not quite 60 seconds). Managers should cast clear vision and expectations, commend good work, and correct mistakes. That's it.

The reason the book is so good is that so many managers can't or won't do those three simple things. The ability to confront employees in a non-combative way is too abrasive for sensitive people-people, and too limited for true autocrats. Praise is simple and obvious enough, but many managers think they've done it when they haven't. And precise goal-setting is sometimes beyond business leaders who do not have sharp mental editing skills. When you're finished with the book, you haven't heard anything you didn't already know, you've only been reminded of how important it is to do these things. Like diet and exercise, most of us know what's best for us regardless of whether or not we do it. Additionally, and this is a subtle point, the manager has to express how he or she feels about an employee's performance, and accurate expression of feeling is sometimes beyond the emotional range of some really driven leaders.

It's a top notch, brief read. Everyone in leadership ought to read it, even if they walk away with nothing new. The only thing I'd correct is some mediocre narrative, as the whole book is written as a fictional set of interviews by a young manager-to-be of his idiolized One Minute Manager, running a company. But no one's reading this book because they meant to pick up a good novel, so writing style is a minor issue. That aside, it's worth the content.

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