Ken Blanchard, Spencer Johnson

the-new-one-minute-manager

Best Thing: Reviewers often praise "The New One Minute Manager" for its concise and actionable advice. The book's straightforward approach to management principles, such as setting clear goals and providing specific praise, is highlighted as particularly effective and easy to implement. Worst Thing: Some reviewers criticize the book for being overly simplistic and lacking depth. They feel that the concepts, while useful, may not address the complexities of real-world management situations and could be seen as too basic for experienced managers.

Key Insights

  • Three tools, repeated daily: goals, praises, redirects. The entire book compresses into three practices — One Minute Goals (clear, short, agreed upon), One Minute Praisings (specific, immediate, sincere), and One Minute Redirects (fact-specific, impact-focused, reaffirming). The simplicity is the point: most managers fail not for lack of theory but for lack of consistent execution on basics.
  • Goals need a written description short enough to reread in a minute. Every goal should have a 1–2 paragraph description clear enough that anyone can quickly understand what success looks like. The test: if the goal can’t be stated in 250 words, it isn’t clear enough to manage against. “First step to problem solving is to define what you want to be happening that is not.”
  • Praise approximately right behavior — don’t wait for perfection. “When people are doing something imperfect but approximately right, call it out.” Like teaching a child to talk, you don’t withhold praise until they speak in complete sentences — you reinforce progress. Managers who only acknowledge fully correct performance miss most of the developmental leverage they have.
  • Redirects address the behavior, not the person. The redirect sequence: confirm facts specifically → share how you feel about the impact → pause and let it sink in → reaffirm the person’s value. The principle: “their performance is bad but they are good.” Separating the act from the actor makes the correction land without triggering defensive shutdown.
  • People who feel good about themselves produce good results. The book’s core assertion, stated plainly: results-orientation and people-orientation are not in tension — they’re the same thing over the right time horizon. Managers who treat people well build the discretionary effort and psychological safety that sustain performance.

— Drafted from external sources; review and edit to make your own.

From earlier notes:

  • Every goal should have 1-2 paragraph description so anyone can quickly understand it

    • First step to problem solving is to define what you want to be happening that is not
      • Then identify who is doing (or not doing) something that causes the gap
    • Then test solutions against “if we did that, would what we want to happen actually happen?”
      • If not it’s not a real solution

  • Share specific praise often and clearly

    • When ppl are doing something imperfect but approximately right, call it out. Like teaching an infant to talk, you don’t expect them to jump straight to full sentences, you praise progress along the way

  • Redirects on mistakes - First, confirm the facts and review very speciically - Share how you *feel *about the mistake and it’s impact on results - Pause - let it sink in - Reaffirm importance and positive next step “their performance is bad but they are good”

    - Sec

Kindle Highlights: The New One Minute Manager

Highlights

“I meet with our team once a week on Wednesday mornings—that’s why I couldn’t meet with you then. At those meetings I listen as our group reviews and analyzes what they achieved the previous week, the problems they had, what remains to be accomplished, and their plans and strategies to get those things done.” — location: 188 ^ref-54829

managers must be both results-oriented and people-oriented. — location: 200 ^ref-28263

People Who Feel Good About Themselves Produce Good Results. — location: 205 ^ref-22372