Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
have written the best seller, The One Minute manager. This book has sold over a
million copies. It deals with the search for the best management techniques by
a young man, who finally discovers a One Minute manager. The One Minute Manager
tells him about the three secrets and more. You can read my summary of the book
here.
The three secrets revealed in the
One Minute Manager can be used in our professional life. Here is my
interpretation of the same.
One Minute Goal Setting
This is the first secret revealed in the book, The One
Minute Manager. This deals with setting clear expectations between the manager
and his team member. Often the team member is clueless of what is expected from
him. The manager does not specify what exactly a win is. The team member does
not know what good behavior in his specific context is. He does not have a
goal. So, the One minute manager recommends the following steps:
- ·
Agree on your goals.
- ·
See what good behavior looks like.
- ·
Write each of your goals on a paper using less
than 250 words.
- ·
Read and re-read each goal, which takes only a
minute to read.
- ·
Take a minute every once in a while to look at
your performance, and
- ·
See whether or not your behavior matches your
goal
The Goal setting helps establish a
contract. From what I have read, a written goal, as opposed to just having it
in mind, is one of the most effective ways to imprint the goal in our mind. It
enhances certain neural pathways that help us in the longer term to achieve the
goal. Then reading and re-reading the goal helps one remain focused. Often, due
to various distractions in our daily life, we loose track of our goals. This is
where reading and re-reading helps us. Now, it has to be within 250 words so
that you can read it faster. Had it been a 2500 words goal, one will not be
willing to read it at all! Then it helps to check if our actions and behavior
are leading us towards the written goals or not.
This is all about 1 minute goal.
The idea is not to set goals in 1 minute. But that the goals can be reviewed in
1 minute. Also, one can use the Pareto principle for goal setting. Since 20% of
our actions produce 80% of results, the goals should be focused on those 20% of
actions only.
One Minute Praises
The second secret of the One Minute
manager is the One Minute Praise. This is based on the belief that everyone is
a potential winner. The manager should help them reach their full potential.
This can be done by catching the team members early doing something right.
Below are the steps that can be taken for the same.
- ·
Tell people from the beginning that you are
going to give feedback to them.
- ·
Praise them as soon as they do something right.
- ·
Tell them exactly what they did right.
- ·
Tell them how good you feel about what they did
right and how it helps everyone
- ·
Stop for a moment of silence to let the good
feeling sink in.
- ·
Encourage them to do more of the same behavior.
- ·
Shake hands or touch people in a way that makes
it clear that you support their success
Please note that one of the step is to have a moment of
silence, after you praise. This lets the feeling sink in. This is a
psychological technique to win people over. The other one is a light touch on
the hand or shoulder. It is incredibly effective and I have seen one of my
supervisor use this technique to win over the team members. But if you are
going to use it, be sure that you are authentic and it should not be construed
as acting.
Praising someone reinforces the right behavior. This is the
method that Pavlov used on his dog in his famous experiment. This is the
technique used by parents to encourage their child to walk or learn new words.
We do it instinctively in social and family setup. But how this technique is to
be used in a professional setup is something many are not aware of. If used
correctly, this technique will reap rich dividends in terms of developing your
team.
One Minute Reprimand
The third secret is One Minute
Reprimand. This is needed in order to rectify incorrect or improper behavior.
There are 2 parts to it. As soon as you catch someone doing something wrong,
you have to give the feedback on the behavior. That is the first part. After
that, you should also support the person so that he understands that the
behavior is undesired, but not the
person. The basic steps are listed below.
·
Set the expectation with your people that you
are going to give them direct feedback
The first part –
Reprimand:
- ·
Reprimand people immediately when they do a
mistake.
- ·
Tell them specifically what they did wrong.
- ·
Tell them how you feel about what they did
wrong.
- ·
Stop for a moment of uncomfortable silence to
let the feeling sink in
- The second part
– The support:
- ·
Shake hands, or touch them in a way that lets
them know you are with them.
- ·
Remind them how much you value them as a person.
- ·
Reaffirm that you think well of them but not of
their performance in this situation.
- ·
Realize that when the reprimand is over, it’s
over
Most of the time, the feedback is
not given immediately. It is given at the time of appraisal. At that time, it
is too late for the team member to change. Also, we forget that we should hate
the sin, not the sinner. Too often, it is the sinner who is punished!
These are the 3 secrets of the
One minute manager. Easy to say, easy to remember but difficult to practice!
