The New One Minute Manager by Kenneth H. Blanchard

The New One Minute Manager Reviews

• 
  Spencer Richard

  This was a parable that probably works for a lot of people. The original version has like 50,000 ratings on goodreads. It's clear that it has value. I recognize that it has value, there are some great tools in here. Three to be exact. The thing is, it's incredibly cult-like and as far as literature goes--it was beyond awful. I earmarked three pages, each had maybe four sentences. They have the summaries of each holy Secret. They are my takeaways.
  
  I guess you could say that I very much disliked it. However, my manager employs these methods and I think she's fantastic. She swears by it. She is a mentor to me which I adore and I've learned every lesson in this book already from her. So in that sense, I am very thankful to the book. Good show, Authors. Thank you for writing it.
  
  I just... *Sigh*. I just can't give it more than two stars. When someone asks me, "Hey, what's that book about?", In saying what it's about I will no doubt give the entire thesis and its supporting examples, nullifying the need to even read it.
• 
  Bobbie B.

  If you enjoy capitalistic garbage written as a parable for businessmen who read at a second grade level, this is the book for you.
• 
  Geoff

  God save me from business parables. The core tips were good, but at 112 pages this was about ten times longer than it needed to be, and the padding was vague, vacuous, and simplistic.
• 
  John E. Smith

  I read the first version of this book in 1984, as I transitioned from one job and state to another. I remember thinking that this is how I want to work with people - using short interactions to clarify and motivate. My work has always included an emphasis on brief and direct discussions with those I hope to lead, using Blanchard and Johnson's model.
  
  When I heard that they were updating and releasing a new version, I expected to be re-inspired and I have not been disappointed.
  
  The 21st Century version of the The One-Minute Manager seems more humble and open, and I think this resonates nicely with how the most effective leaders are approaching interactions these days. The style of the book is much the same, but the details have been subtly reworked to make this a modern leadership fable.
  
  Here's a thought ... grab a copy of the original, if you do not already have one, and read it first. Then dive into the new version. Both are relatively short, ready to read, and crammed with solid leadership coaching advice.
  
  I can't wait to see what Blanchard and Johnson do for the Fiftieth Anniversary of the original edition:).
  
• 
  Andrej Karpathy

  A very short book that employs clever writing to turn otherwise bland material into both fun and insightful reading.
• 
  Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship

  I’m not entirely sure how to rate this book. The text is incredibly short: about the length of a magazine article. The takeaways are even shorter; much of that short text is a parable about a young man learning the ways of the one-minute manager. That said, I got this book from the library so I’m inclined to be generous regarding the amount of actual content, and there is something to be said for expanding on a simple idea at a little more length in order to fix it in readers’ minds.
  
  The takeaways are basically this:
  
  Goals: Employees need to know what their goals in their positions are, so that they can figure out for themselves whether or not they’re succeeding without having to wait for infrequent performance reviews. The manager and employee should figure out together the employee’s goals, which should be written down with timelines in a short form that’s easy for the employee to review regularly. (I’m having trouble figuring out how to implement this one in my workplace due to the nature of our work.)
  
  Praising: Managers should try to “catch people doing something right” and offer specific praise when they see it to make employees feel good about themselves. People with confidence and who like their jobs do better work, so focusing on people and focusing on results shouldn’t be a choice between two different goals. Also, you shouldn’t wait until people are doing something perfectly before praising them any more than you’d wait until a kid has learned to talk before praising their attempts. (I need to work on this but at least the how-to is obvious.)
  
  Redirects: When people do something wrong, the authors suggest that you discuss it with the person as soon as possible; confirm the facts and review the mistake together; tell the employee how you feel about the mistake and pause for a moment for them to be concerned; and then express that you know their work is better than this, have confidence in them and think well of them as a person. Then, let it go. (All this seems challenging to do, but probably a good idea. I haven’t tried it yet.)
  
  Overall this seems to me to pack some good advice that goes beyond what you’d expect from the brief page count, though yeah, it is really short. Hopefully I’ll be able to figure out how to use it.
• 
  Ebony

  [SPOILER ALERT]
  The New One Minute Manager came highly recommended to me. I added it to this list and a student graciously gifted it. (Note to self: invite all students to my Goodreads). I read it quickly and thought, I’m one of those results managers. How do I shift the balance to results and people mid-stream? Then my programmer messaged about a show-stopping bug that he found after an upgrade. He said he stopped his current milestone to fix it, and we were back on track. I tried the one-minute praise. I told him how panicked I felt about the show stopping bug and praised him for finding and fixing it expeditiously. Then he responded with a list of his goals for the week. And I decided this book is magic.
  It starts by outlining the importance of one minute goals with deadlines that team members should ultimately be able to make themselves once their responsibilities are clear. The fact that my programmer did this without my having to ask after (I confess) a rare bit of praise from me is the buy-in the book suggests that team members need. And by team, I mean managers and employees without the hierarchy. The book also talks about team members solving problems independently which makes me feel like I’m not such a bad manager after all. The final third of the book—post the one minute goals and praise is the redirect where you describe mistakes, express your feelings about them, and praise the person as separate from the problem they contributed to. The feeling part is hard for me. I’m a business is business type, but I learned today that expressing my feelings about our work humanizes me and humanizes the work. We’re not machines after all. We’re humans pursuing goals via problem-solving which means concern and praise are always legitimate parts of our people and results driven conversations.
  
• 
  Rachel Piper

  This actually had some really helpful information, but OH MY GOD the writing is so corny.
• 
  Maddi Crezee

  This book is very obnoxious. It has good points which could (and are) summarized on three pages. This leads me to my first problem. The only important information is found on 3 pages, yet it has been dragged into a 92 page book. Reading this book reminded me of a student trying to hit a word count quota set by their teacher.
  
  My second problem is that the authors decided to write it in the form of a story, in which a young man searches the world far and wide for a good manager only to find that the best manager was in a small town next to his home. (That took 6 pages to explain) Then instead of the manager telling him his "three secrets" the young man meets with three employees to learn the secrets (This took 40 pages) Then the young man meets with the manger again to 'summarize' everything for FORTY-SIX more pages....The story is very cringe worthy, and reminds me of something Michael Scott could have wrote.
  
  These are the two reasons I cannot give this book, which should have been a one page paper, more than one star.
• 
  Joaquin Garza

  Aunque quisiera haber leído este libro desde que me
  empezaron a reportar (y pese a que tomé muchas y muy útiles notas), el libro peca de lo que pecan la
  mayoría de los libros que son fads del management: hacer muuucho dinero con poco contenido y/o por decir obviedades.
  Al final el anuncio es valioso, pero dénmelo en un abstract y no me vendan un libro para saberlo.
• 
  Shahrazad

  Someone recommended the original ‘one minute manager’ in a training and I thought I’d try this version. I found it too simplistic , the parable used was irritating. It can probably be summarized in a paragraph. Other than the ‘3 secrets’ I came out of it with a couple of new things . Namely , it names a type of leadership I’ve seen in the Middle East ‘leave alone and zap’ now I have a nickname for it :) and it articulates a learning concept applicable for students, employees and even kids ‘ punishing someone who is learning is not effective’ .
• 
  Greg Swierad

  5 Stars, because book is very short and has very interesting management theory. I did not try it yet, but looks very interesting and knowing psychology of humans it has solution for many problems while management of group of people.
  
  I do recommend this book, but only for team leaders. Only then you will make a use of it, and understand philosophy of it.
• 
  Cairn

  Poor writing. This could easily have been a one page blog post. Most of the writing was:
  “We have 3 tips to help you”
  “three tips?”
  “YES three tips!”
  “Wow, three tips, that’s great.”
  Filler content to get you to pay $10 for a book.
  Unrealistic situations where everything is perfect and everyone happy. Maybe 5% of this book was helpful.
• 
  Steff Fox

  $20 for the 98 pages it takes the book to say something that could’ve been said in 5. The majority of this book is just painful filler whose only purpose is to make it so they can sell it as a book instead of passing it out as a brochure.
  
  Don’t get me wrong, there are some great takeaways from this. But no one needs 98 pages to impart those messages.
• 
  Chinmayee B

  I'd planned to give it only as many stars as the secrets they shared. Eventually, even though the book speaks nothing new; you feel you have discovered something worth a lifelong practice. If you're very lazy just read the capitalised mantras throughout the book!
• 
  Andrius Zygmanta

  Simple but powerful book about overlooked basics of people management.
  
  “I believe in facilitating, but not in participating in making other people’s decisions. We’re here to get results. By drawing on the talents of everyone, we’re a lot more productive”
• 
  Chandler Alexander

  Great book
  
  This book was amazing! It has served as a blessing for me in both my personal and profession life! A must read.
• 
  Bardha

  It’s nice but repetitive
• 
  Stephanie

  A simple and concise guide to help you learn how to manage yourself and others. Anyone could implement these basic steps into their professional and/or personal lives and experience a significant improvement. EXCELLENT!!!
• 
  Stella Hu

  TLDR.
  
  Focus on
  • 1 min goals: make it clear what the goals are and show what good behavior looks like. Redirect people to come up with solutions to problems otherwise you’re just complaining.
  • 1 min praisings: praise the behavior; be specific and do it soon.
  • 1 min re-directs: confirm what happened, describe the mistake but let them know you value them.
  
  Overall, concise book but somewhat overly simplistic about being a manager.
• 
  Bianca Escada (planningwithlove)

  I have to say, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I see it is a foundation piece for most organizations. Also, I see it’s effectiveness in the work place.
  
  Haha I know my manager has used it on me. Really enjoyed this and will be sharing with my team.
  
  Recommend for anyone who Lead, Manages, and Supports. This is definitely a sharp tool to keep in your tool box.
• 
  Georgi Nenov

  I have heard a lot about Ken Blanchard's books but never actually got one until an event that my friend and fellow author Ivailo Kunev hosts - Book Talks, where inspiring people share insights from great books. The New One Minute Manager was the host's pick and I immediately added it to my "to read" list. Today, I have listened to the book once more because you can rarely find something as short and as spot-on as TNOMM. It is a must-read both for managers and employees. Highly recommended!
• 
  Antonella Ingolotti

  Simple, claro, conciso y ameno. Todos deberían leerlo
• 
  Maciej Nowicki

  The new one minute manager, written by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, is a revision of the co-authors’ The one minute manager, originally published in 1982. Ken Blanchard is considered one of the most influential leadership experts in the world. He has co-authored 60 books and in 2005 was inducted into Amazon’s Hall of Fame as one of the top two best-selling authors of all time. Spencer Johnson parallels Ken, and he also became a member of Amazon’s list.
  
  The book at the beginning explains how so many managers fall under one of two categories – tough managers and nice managers. With a nice manager employees feel fine, however, organisations suffer. With a tough manager, organisations seem to win but the employees lose. The book says the most effective managers manage themselves and the teams they work with so that both the people and the company profit from their presence. The one minute manager believes that people work best when they feel good about themselves. It’s more about the quality of the work not the quantity of work done. When it comes to decision-making managers should strive to encourage their teams to create solutions on their own.
  
  Anyway, the book is divided into three major parts – one-minute goals, one-minute praisings and one-minute reprimands. As a manager, you should learn and use these techniques in order to create more time to think and to plan more time for work-life balance and give the same to the people you manage showing them you care about them.
  
  When it comes to goals, there are five qualities of giving them.
  
  set three to five goals for each employee...(if you like to read my full review please visit my blog
  https://leadersarereaders.blog/the-ne...)
• 
  Michelle Sauvageau

  When I first started reading this I thought I wasn’t going to get a single thing out of it, but it was short, so I thought I’d keep reading. Turns out, I was completely wrong! There were several great nuggets in this one that I am excited to work on and share with my team:
  
  1. Catch people doing something right - giving positive feedback is something I really enjoy, but I especially love the concept of looking for someone succeeding and immediately pointing it out to them as it happens to reinforce the behavior and build trust.
  2. In a re-direct situation (giving negative feedback) end with the reminder that you have confidence and trust in their ability, and support their success. And after you give the re-directing feedback it’s in the past, everyone moves on.
  3. “The best minute I spend is the one I invest in people”
  4. Be tough and nice (in that order)