The One Minute Manager

Rating:
Summary: Who taught you to be a manager......
Review: I've been a manager for years but I never learned to manage. This book is a must for anyone wishing to improve their management skills. It is easy to read, funny, and very insightful. I started putting the recommendations to work immediately and the results are startling. BUY IT!

Rating:
Summary: Some Simple Food for Thought
Review: Reward or punishment! Is this politically correct now-a-days. You bet not, but the idea is worth looking at and thinking about.

There are some interesting ideas contained in the very short read. It will provide the beginning manager with a good base to develop their own style, but shouldn't be copied outright. The words "reward" and "punishment" should be re-worked so as not to offend those PC fanatics who cannot deal with older thinking. Also, comparing the trreatment of personnel to that of training a dog, well, it doesn't play well anywhere.

I say give this book a read. Find some concepts that you can think about, and see if they can be applied to your present situation. If you spend more than 2 hours reading it, I'd be surprised. Use it as a brainstorming tool, not a How To book.

Rating:
Summary: Warning: Your Boss May Be Using This Book!
Review: This is a must-read for anyone who is managed by someone else. I can't believe this is still popular and recommended as a guide for managing people. Its top-down philosophy (sort of a "manager knows best" approach) assumes that subordinates must be praised and punished based upon the manager's notion of what's right and wrong.

In an environment where professionals with different skill-sets work in teams to accomplish common goals, this book is more dangerous than helpful. So read this to protect yourself from anyone who manages you this way. A much better alternative is "The 59-Second Employee" by Andre and Ward, if you need to know "how to stay one second ahead of your One-Minute manager".

Rating:
Summary: A must read
Review: This was a very interesting book. I recently became a manager at my place of work and now have an idea of what my company is looking for me to do without even asking how I should manage. This book will stay with me for the rest of my life.

Rating:
Summary: This is a must have for anyone in management....
Review: A must have for you...
- If you are in the military (as I am)
- Are a young or aspiring politician
- Have to do any type of management or delegation or are a supervisor
- Run a business (as I do)
- Are looking for professional literature about business management

Rating:
Summary: The One Minute reader
Review: The one minute manager is a bit of an anachronism now...when it was first published this book seemed simplistic - with recent research being published you're going to find the notion of 'a minute here' and 'a minute there' is simply not enough for the needs and motivations of different staff. While the advice in this book is fine and you can only benefit by reading it don't assume that this book has any real answers for real mangement issues. Any movement beyond docile staff who are satisfied with a one minute word of encouragement or 'feedback' is beyond the depth of this book.

Rating:
Summary: Leadership and One Minute Manger is better
Review: There are three simple precepts, which the One Minute Manager establishes with his employees: One Minute Goal Setting, One Minute Praisings, and One Minute Reprimands. This makes the basics of the book very simple to understand. I was quite stunned to find the content extremely useful. Strangely the simplicity of the book is deceiving. This book is good for those that are looking for a quick read and who are either currently managing people or wanting to manage people.

Goal setting is all about making sure employees understand perfectly what their duties are, what is expected of them and that there are no surprises. The Praisings and Reprimands are simply managers acknowledging that the employees are doing there jobs or not and how to deal with the situation and how to convey it to the employee.

In my opinion the book is pretty good but I think everyone should read Leadership and the One Minute Manager rather than this book as Leadership is essential and it is what differentiates great companies from good ones. The key, like most books that are self-help, is to apply these principles each and every day. Catch yourself when you slip and find ways to incorporate them into your value system.

Rating:
Summary: Good
Review: I thought the one minute manager was a good book and always will be. It tells you everything you need to know aobut managing your employees.

Rating:
Summary: CONFUCIUS SAID "THE ESSENCE OF KNOWLEDGE IS, HAVE IT, USE IT
Review: The One Minute Manager is one of those books that stands even on grocery store shelves, which indicates to me not only that it is a best-seller but also that it is for people with short attention spans who crave repetition. In fact, the One Minute Manager is one of those books that is easy about which to generalize without even reading it first. You, like me, might be wrong about your pre-conceived notions about it. But it is nearly inevitable to make judgments about the book before reading it. While the content turns out to be more useful and less dismissive than I first feared it might, a book of this style and (considerable lack of) length really lends validation and credibility to a managerial style suited for those without real leadership skills-the brush off, the rude and direct kiss off or needless and personal criticism. Sure, when time is limited we may not have the time to be sensitive and to speak deliberately in soft metaphors that cushion the real and blunt intent of our words. However, tact is always appropriate, but this book somehow excuses those who choose to communicate in a non-productive but always critical fashion, even though the book's content by no means condones such tactics. The book's style might lead you to dismiss it as I originally did. It offers quick, keen, simplistic distillations, a McDonaldization fast food approach, if you will, to dealing with people. Never having managed people, I always had the impression that I have been managed by people who absorb the brief and oversimplified "methods" espoused here. Read the eminent qualifications of the writers (developers of the "one minute system") and you will be convinced that they definitely discovered the essence of this fast food managerial style. Maybe Blanchard and Johnson have perfected it, but in true self-help "hackery" those who read the book will selectively choose bits and pieces of the philosophy to apply to their own stylistics or, worse yet, will adopt the book's tenets with almost Biblical reverence and live all facets of life according to the One Minute Gospel. This sort of book is theoretically dangerous if misapplied because it very easily and summarily reduces people, problems and communication to ONE MINUTE. It reeks of shallowness and erases the human face of management (much like Boeing executives who recently announced that they will leave Seattle. Most likely so they will not have to face the employees when the time comes to fire them). Strangely the simplicity of the book is deceiving. Some people who employ these theories fail to remember the very first and overriding principle the book names, "The One Minute Manager's symbol-a one minute readout from the face of a modern digital watch-is intended to remind each of us to take a minute out of our day to look into the faces of the people we manage. And to realize that they are our most important resources." This book encourages managers to discover "how people produce valuable results and feel good about themselves", but the "knowledge" most people gain from this book in reading it is seldom applied this way. For example, the book emphasizes giving constructive criticism... letting an employee know immediately when s/he has done something good or when s/he has done something wrong and why. A close friend's manager, as an example of a horror story of misapplied principles, read an employee's write-up of something and wrote an expletive in LARGE, red letters across the text of the write-up but failed to provide any insight as to why he wrote that or why he felt it necessary to belittle the work of his employee. He might ask himself the question that the book asks, "How on earth can I get results if it's not through people? I care about people AND results. They go hand in hand." It is only natural and logical that if you belittle, ridicule, or mistreat your employees, they will not respect you as their manager, will not be as willing to give their best and will certainly be less productive as a result. "Productivity is both quantity and quality." In the One Minute Management philosophy there are three simple precepts which the One Minute Manager establishes with his employees: One Minute Goal Setting, One Minute Praisings, and One Minute Reprimands. These are all very logical steps-goal setting makes sure that employees understand perfectly what their duties are, what is expected of them and that there are no surprises. Many times in real life managers assume employees know exactly what to do without sitting down with them and concisely defining the goals. (A problem exists if there is a difference between what is actually happening and what you desire to be happening). Sadly, a common description of a misguided manager sounds a lot like managers I have encountered, including those who have read this book. They focus on the negative and do not make their expectations clear. Then they "zap" the employee at a performance review to make themselves look good or like they are administering discipline, an approach completely full of vanity and professional insecurity. It also leads to unhappy and fearful employees and benefits no one. One Minute Praising is all about the manager catching the employee doing something right and giving her/him immediate feedback. This is seen as a motivator, with constructive progress reports, focused on the positive. Lastly, the one minute reprimands are honest, direct, specific "what's wrong with what you did and why" moments. These moments are handled with sensitivity and define only wrong behavior not personal attacks on an individual. The book, my friends, is basically common sense. Plain and simple. "People are not pigeons. People are more complicated. They are aware, they think for themselves, and they certainly don't want to be manipulated by another person. Remember that and respect that. It is a key to good management." This is one statement I can take away from this book, feeling like the 80 or so pages were worthwhile. Now if only I could plaster that statement across the foreheads of the bad managers throughout the world.

Rating:
Summary: One-Minute Review
Review: Highly effective. Straight-forward. Well-written.
At first I expected a cheesy business-version of behavioral modification, but the authors emphasize that sincerity is essential for this technique to work.
Using it as a manipulative tool will only backfire.
I enjoyed the audio version very much - it includes a radio interview with one of the authors that gives a lot of insight into the development of the idea for the book.