The Saxton Group

I love this book because it does away with the notion that being a good manager requires ridiculous amounts of time, effort, diplomacy, and people-motivating abilities, that, let’s face it, most managers simply do not have. Instead, the techniques presented can be put into practice quickly and easily with exponential results.

Most people are familiar with what bad management looks like, yet, it’s easily overlooked in workplaces where poor management is the norm. The author provides an insightful and somewhat comical examination of poor management styles and their implications. Not surprisingly, the impact is far-reaching, causing declines in productivity and satisfaction that adversely affect entire organizations.

My favorite analogy in the book, by author Kenneth Blanchard, is his account of working as a college professor. He describes being in trouble with a faculty committee for handing out the final exam on the first day of class. He reasoned that by distributing the final on the first day students would understand exactly what they are being asked to learn. Blanchard asserts that it’s really a choice between providing or withholding the knowledge one needs to succeed. A good manager provides this knowledge with the goal of making everyone on his team a “winner.”

This analogy provides a good introduction into the first “one minute” technique: One Minute Goal Setting. One Minute Goal Setting occurs when an employee is new or is starting a new assignment. Very simply, this is when employee goals are set. Upon completion the employee has a clear understanding of their areas of responsibility.

Why is this so important? Many employees interviewed by the authors were oblivious to the desires of their managers. They were often working diligently on tasks that had little or nothing to do with what their managers wanted. The employees were not willfully disobedient; instead the culprit was a lack of shared knowledge regarding accountabilities.

The next two techniques, One Minute Praising and One Minute Reprimands, allow the employee to gauge their performance. The authors dub the prevalent management style in America “leave alone, zap” implying that most employees will hear nothing from management until they do something below expectation resulting in punishment. Despite its prevalence, this technique is contrary to the simplest way to encourage employee productivity and success: catching people doing something right.

The authors point out the key fact that people who feel good about themselves produce good results. Catching people doing something right, and praising them for it, not only improves their feelings about themselves; it encourages the behavior that produced the result.

Finally, One Minute Reprimands are a far cry from the aforementioned “zap.” This simple reprimand technique allows the manager to immediately bring an incident to attention so that behavior can be modified. The best part is that the delivery of the reprimand leaves the individual focused on what they did incorrectly, not on how they were treated, thus negating the typical residual feelings of contempt.

At just over 100 pages this book is too good to pass up. If you are a manager, and you have 45 minutes to read the book and 3 minutes to apply the techniques with an employee I guarantee you’ll be blown away by the results. If you’re not in a management role, read it anyway. The three management techniques have far-reaching applications that can benefit just about anyone in any walk of life.