One Minute Manager

Rating:
Summary: GREAT BOOK FOR ALL MANAGERS!
Review: IT'S A WONDERFUL BOOK FOR MANAGERS AT ALL LEVELS. THE BOOK SHOWS YOU THE MOST FUNDAMENTAL RULES WHAT YOU SHOULD BE AWARE OF WHEN MANAGING PEOPLE--THE MOST VALUABLE ASSET IN ANY COMPANY. FOR SOMEONE WHO COULDN'T UNDERSTAND THIS, HE OR SHE SHOULD READ IT AGAIN, SLOWLY AND CAREFULLY. I WOULD BE VERY SURPRISED IF ANYONE TOLD ME THAT HE OR SHE COULDN'T GET ANYTHING OUT OF THIS BOOK!

Rating:
Summary: Pushing below the surface...
Review: My first text into management, read eight years ago, and I still find that I'm going back to it. A great relational management tool to build upon. I highly recommend it! Reinforcing the understanding that you can never lead anybody until you care about them first. That what you do validates or condemns what you say. That follow through must be demonstrated first by the manager, whether the follower possesses it or not is irrelevant. Someone referred to this text as preachy. If that's the case, after reading this book, you will become aware that it is better to "see" a sermon than to "hear" one anyday! It doesn't boil down to what you read, but rather, what you do with what you read - the One Minute Manager preaches a good foundational message - read it...

Rating:
Summary: ...Written (how appropriate) in kid-book style
Review: ...I was given this as a gift and did take the time to wade through its moralizing, preachy text. "People are Your Most Valuable Assets," the authors breathlessly remind us, as if those of us in business are somehow blind to this obvious truth. Its fundamental promise of transforming ones' organization, like that of so many management gurus, rests on the notion that the authors' sheer intelligence and brilliant insights into human nature will transform any organization into a productivity machine. This, as anyone with a real job can tell you, is long, hard work deeply idiosyncratic to the specifics of one industry -- nothing that can be collapsed into a book; certainly not one as thin as this one. Which is not to say that the One Minute Managers is all bad. It paints a wonderful theoretical world where all interpersonal problems can be solved in 59 seconds flat thanks to the fact that the characters are all fictional. It is a terrific daydream. Because that is really what the One Minute Manager, like most fad management books, are about...

Rating:
Summary: GREAT LITTLE BOOK, BUY ONE FOR YOUR BOSS
Review: THIS IS THE BOOK I WISH MY PAST LEADERS HAD READ. ITS A QUICK READ THAT GIVES YOU 3 RULES FOR PEACE, HAPPINESS AND SUCCESS. T.J. ENGELBACH

Rating:
Summary: A classic! a few minutes summary of One Minute Manager.
Review: I have not read the book, but the cassette does what it preaches and provides valuable material in a shor time. It focuses on giving feedback and interactions with the employees, and to me, when employed effectively it can do more than just save time. I recommend it.

Rating:
Summary: Stilted, simplistic, annoying.
Review: Okay, so when one of your employees is doing something right, you praise him or her. When there is a "problem" (where expected behavior does not equal actual behavior), you quickly reprimand him or her, then wait a second to let it sink in, and then offer a little praise.

This worked very well with my dog.

I learned more about managing people from "Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic" (for XBOX, Amazon item #B000067DPM).

Rating:
Summary: Here's what I think...
Review: A simple, straightforward story that provides handy advice for anyone who has to manage people. To boot, most should be able to finish it in a few hours time. Truly a classic, I give it 5 stars easy. Other self-help books I liked include "The No- Beach, No-Zone, No-Nonsense Weight Loss Plan, A Pocket Guide To What Works. Happy reading!

Rating:
Summary: good ideas, but pitched to a male audience
Review: I was referred to the One Minute Manager series when I asked someone I considered an excellent manager if he could recommend some management resources. The One Minute Manager introduces readers to the three techniques of one-minute management - clear goal setting, one-minute praisings and one-minute reprimands.

The points are laid out clearly and the recommendations simple and easy to implement. The book can be read quickly in a single sitting or several short pages at a time. Those with very little time can read the four pages that summarize all the points made in the book.

What bothered me about the book was the portrayal of the business world as a very male environment. A young man looks for the perfect manager and finds the amazing One Minute Manager, referred to throughout the book as, "quite a guy!" The male employees, described by age, explain goal setting and praisings. The female employees, described with adjectives indicating their dress or competence, are secretaries, those providing general info, or those being reprimanded. All but one of the acknowledgements are to men as are all but one endorsement. The authors use sports - golf, football and bowling, as analogies, making for a tone off-putting to female readers. Only on the last page does a young woman come to the formerly young man, now a successful One Minute Manager, seeking advice.

It's not a bad book, if you can ignore the gender stereotypes, but it's also quite basic. I learned more from the One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams.


Rating:
Summary: A Small Book with a Big Impact
Review: I was amazed in how small the book is when I received it in my mail. And it took me only forty minutes to fall in love with it. A focused book that should be obtained by all managers. By all, I mean manager of life too, which is everybody!

Rating:
Summary: Brief but powerful...
Review: ...just started a new part time job and I read this because the owner found it to be extremely influential in her management style. This book is lickety-split-quick. I read it in about two hours. The story is a fable about a young man who wants to meet the ideal manager, who turns about to be a "one-minute-manager", a composite taken from the authors' research. This book illustrates simple principles in an accessible way with focus on goal setting, affirmation, and effective, though caring, criticism when goals are not met.

For me, this is an effective book as this is a new area of research focus for me. If you're starting out with management techniques or understanding management techniques, then books like this provide accessible points of entry into the field. Ultimately, the book struggles with two flaws that reduce my rating. First, I would like to have more access to the research that generated the one-minute-manager. Without that research this book can be viewed as a fictional fable rather than a practical one. Second, I feel that while effective, several of the techniques are not practical for American business. I asked my dad, a Wharton grad, about this book, and he said that it was in vogue for a while in the 1980s and then lost its influence in ways that books like "The Seven Habits of Effective People" did not. I feel that the reason the book fails is that it treats American employees and employers like rational, grounded individuals. If you read the Wall Street Journal and the newspapers, you realize that Americans are irrational beings and that this ideal is not always practical. Setting goals with a person that has been marginalized culturally, spiritually, economically, and socially is too reductionist an approach. I'm very interested in programs and management styles that will work with difficult employees, the one's that currently sap the strength of most of the large businesses in corporate America and the large institutions such as our public schools. I think that books like "The One Minute Manager" are best for start ups and new blood who want to impose a new corporate culture on a blank slate. For the majority of businesses that are established and trying to dramatically change course, the ideas in this book will be helpful, but not immediately applicable.

--4 stars
--SD