We Live in a Fallen World

Everybody gets overwhelmed.  No matter how high the caliber of your staff, regardless of how much time and energy you spend on their training, and in spite of the incentive program you have in place for them, never forget this truth: people prefer to focus on the tasks that give them a sense of accomplishment.

You can never assume that your job as a manager ends when the recruiting and training is done.  If recruiting and training got the job done, there wouldn’t be any managers in this world.  Yet, there are managers, and for precisely the reason stated above.  In too many cases, the personal preferences and strengths of your staff members will trump the priorities you have set out for them.  When things get busy and overwhelming, we usually play to our long suit.  If someone is strong in customer service, she will avoid processing new business.  If someone is good at problem solving, his phone calls won’t get returned.  In short, we all prefer to stay inside our comfy zone.  Everyone wants to go home at the end of the day feeling like they got some things done.  We avoid the difficult, complicated and time-consuming for the easy, simple and quick. Got this done.  Check.  Got that out the door.  Check.  Made this call.  Check.  Solved that problem.  Check.  It’s just human nature.  But, when priorities are displaced by preferences, everything breaks down.

Inspect What You Expect

As the head of your firm, you are the executive manager.  You can’t spend all day, every day, holed up in your conference room.  Once in a while (and, I mean daily), you have to pop your head up out of your prairie dog hole and survey the landscape.  I call this prairie dogging.  You have to venture out of your lair and check in with each member of your team.  Never assume that everything is running smoothly and according to plan.  It isn’t.  Remember, humans are involved.  I walk up to a desk or workstation, smile warmly, and usually begin with, “Whatcha workin’ on?”  If the answer is anything other than the person’s top-tier priority, I ask if there are any top-tier priorities that are being set aside in order to attend to the current task.  If the answer is “Yes,” I say something like, “Set that aside, and focus on your top tier priorities until they are completed.  Then move on to less important matters.”  This is sometimes met with whining and harrumphing.  Be firm.  Remind the staffer that priorities have been established for just such occasions when things get busy and overwhelming.  Priorities are the tracks the train runs on.  No one wants to derail the train.

First Things First

We have six capable and dedicated people in our operations group, for which we have established the following priorities:

1. Trading: receiving/buying/selling marketable securities and annuities.
2. Cashiering: ACHs, withdrawals, ACATs, rollovers, transfers, RMDs.
3. New Business: opening new accounts, buying non-traded products.
4. Service: address and beneficiary changes, re-registrations, online access.

The rule is that no one can work on a task with a priority lower than the highest priority incomplete task currently assigned to them.  While we use a comprehensive practice management system (Junxure),  we recognize that people are people.  Their best will be delivered when clear priorities are set and where proactive, diligent, daily monitoring and management is the norm.

Results Cannot be Managed

Results are what happen after you have planned and managed.  If you have planned and managed poorly, your results will stink.  If you have planned and managed well, your results will be a pleasing aroma.  So, first things first.  Before results comes management, but before management comes planning.  If you want to achieve a particular result (an administrative task, a college degree, a production goal), then you must first determine specifically, step-by-step what needs to happen in order to bring about the desired result.  Then, you simply manage the activities necessary to achieve the desired results.  It’s really that simple:

Planning + Managing = Results
or
Identifying Necessary Activities + Managing Those Activities = Desired Result

Once you get this concept down, nothing can stop you.  I have seen too many managers throw a fit when they didn’t get a desired result from a staffer or themselves.  The problem is that they are too often focused on the wrong end of the equation.  They need to ask themselves, “Did I clearly lay out a successful, step-by-step plan to achieve the desired result?  Did I take care to ensure that each step of the plan was executed well?”  In nearly any situation, if you do not achieve your desired result, the answer to one or both of these questions is probably, “No.”

Don’t be Results Oriented

Focus on the process.  Before we were married, I invited my wife, Stephanie, to my apartment for a classy supper.  I had called my aunt Drucilla for the family spaghetti sauce recipe, and she was delighted to share it with me.  I even picked up a nice Betty Crocker Fudge Chocolate cake mix.  When Stephanie arrived for dinner, the apartment was filled with the scrumptious smells of what promised to be an exquisite Italian dining experience.  She was going to be impressed.  I popped the cake pan into the oven and set the timer, just as Steph knocked on my door.  I had the vague notion of something amiss, but ignored the thought.  After all, I didn’t have any eggs, and when I read the instructions on the cake box at the store, I hadn’t noticed the mix required an egg.  Who needed an egg in their cake anyway?

Stephanie walked in and made a big deal about the candles and the smells in the apartment, and we sat down to dig in.  When the cake buzzer went off, I grinned slyly, and told her there was something special in the oven that I had baked just for her.  I sauntered into the tiny kitchen, drew open the oven and victoriously produced the cake pan.  Without looking at it, I presented it to Stephanie who said, “What is it?”  Crestfallen, I thought, “What does she mean, ‘What is it?’  Isn’t it obvious, its a cake!”  I looked down at the pan, and what I saw looked like a thin, miniature blacktop road covering the surface of the bottom of the pan.  The cake had not risen.  In fact, it just sort of laid there like sludge.  I was embarrassed.  Stephanie asked, “Did you follow the instructions?”  I said, “Well, it called for an egg and…”  Stephanie burst out laughing, then, reluctantly, I joined in.  We had a good laugh over my failed attempt at cake-baking.  Results are what the cake looks like when it comes out of the oven.  If it didn’t turn out, there was a problem with the recipe or there was a problem with the preparation.  There is nothing wrong with the ingredients, or the oven, or the pan.

Give Your Staff a Break

Don’t blame them when you give them a task or a goal but don’t first work out the steps to success.  Lay out a good plan (for everything you want completed or achieved), stay involved to ensure they are following the plan, and you will get the results you want.  In my office, the number one reason someone doesn’t complete a task or achieve a goal is that the person’s manager was not on top of the activities necessary to reach success.  People get distracted, they get pulled in a million directions, they have competing priorities, and it can get overwhelming at times.  Make sure you have developed good processes and steps, communicate them well and often, keep checking in to ensure the steps are being followed closely, and everyone will win.

Lessons in Bird Hunting

I have two beautiful bird dogs, Sage and Cash. Sage is a white Setter, and Cash is a tri-color Brittany with big liver-colored spots. During the off season they lay around the house, lazily propping their chins on each other’s hind quarters, occasionally yawning or grunting in domestic bliss. You’d never know these dogs love to hunt. Each October at the beginning of bird season, we do a little hunting near Columbus, Texas, about 90 minutes west of Houston. Needless to say, the weather is still warm in southeast Texas at that time of year. After an hour or so of running full out in the field, the dogs begin to melt under the hot sun. They get thirsty and fatigued and need frequent breaks for water and rest. By the end of the second hour, their noses stop working, and they lose interest altogether. During the first hour, they range 20 yards in front of me, criss-crossing back and forth in a graceful ballet, greedily covering the terrain before them. By the second hour, they no longer work as a synchronized team and slow to a labored saunter, just under my feet. “Hunt ’em up! Bird in here!” I call. No response. All I can do is watch them with their sorry heads hung low, paunches swaying back and forth as they shuffle along, eyes bloodshot, tongues drooping. I nudge Cash with one of my boots and he just collapses on the ground. Sage follows suit. It’s pretty sad. The hunt is over. They have nothing left, and it is only mid morning.

What happened to those maniacal ornithophiles from the end of last season, when the temperature in north central Kansas was a cool 20 degrees, and they were hunting birds like heat-sinking missiles? They were so into their work that I had to constantly give the “Whoa” command to keep them from breaking their points and flushing birds, or even catching birds outright. Now, under the hot Texas sun, I can’t get them to respond.  As we say in Texas, “That dog won’t hunt.” Trying to get them to do anything at this point would be like pushing a wet noodle up hill. It can be pretty frustrating trying to get someone to do something that just isn’t in them. The problem is that, for early season bird hunting in southeast Texas, I should not be using a Setter and a Brittany. Instead, I should be using a couple of Pointers. Pointers are built for the hot weather with their lean, short-haired bodies and all-day stamina. I am simply working with the wrong staff. I prefer to work with a team that I have to reign in rather than push. In other words, I’d rather say “Whoa” than “Go.”

Admiring Your Staff

If you don’t admire them, you have the wrong staff. If you can’t honestly boast about their abilities, temperament, and accomplishments, you need to make some changes, right now. Staff fall into several categories. You have the hapless and inept, who don’t know how bad they are. You have the brown-noser do-nothings, who do know how bad they are, but think you don’t. You have the mumbling martyrs, who aren’t as good as they think they are, and who  constantly break the rules, but are sure they’re always doing you a favor in the process. You have the competent plodders, who don’t know how good they could be if they just had a little drive and ambition. And then, you have the smooth operators. These are the people who know how good they are. They’ve got moxie. They understand the system and make it work for them and your practice. Think “Radar,” from M*A*S*H. They anticipate all your moves, solve problems before you know they exist, keep you informed and on task, never make excuses, own their mistakes, and have your back. You need an office full of these people. Sit down right now and draw up a list of your staff members. Assign each of them one of the above categories.  Any staffer that doesn’t rate smooth operator, or can’t become one in a couple of months, has to go.

As I learned a long time ago, it’s hard to soar with eagles when you work with turkeys. Solution: work with eagles. They are out there in every compensation, experience, and education strata. You just have to be willing to take a stand against mediocrity. I can hear you whining right now. “I can’t afford better staff.” Yes you can. Better staff will make you more profitable and able to pay them. “I don’t have time to train a new person.” Baloney. You trained the ones you have now, and if you had better people, they’d be training the new staffers. “I can’t let anyone go or the office will collapse.” Nonsense. If you don’t bite the bullet and make changes right away, you won’t get any better. Hire and train an eagle, then decide who to let go. Then, keep on hiring and training eagles and replacing your turkeys until all the turkeys are extinct.

Staff Get Overwhelmed

No matter what the size of your practice, things can get hectic for your staff members.  They are human.  In the hustle and bustle of everyday office life, it is easy to start feeling overwhelmed and set something important aside with every intention of returning to attend to it later. We’ve all been there. One thing leads to another, and the matter is forgotten. In too many cases, the higher priority item gets neglected in favor of a lower priority one. Higher priority items are often quite involved and require more time and concentration. Thus, they can quickly get moved to a back burner where they languish until they become urgent because someone has gotten upset. Staff, like everybody else, enjoy a sense of accomplishment.  Quickly tending to the smaller insignificant items gives that sense of accomplishment, and the undisciplined staff member will fall into this trap every time. Sometimes, there is just too much work, no matter how a person prioritizes, and yet the work must get done. The point is that you can’t NOT do something. Everything must get done; no exceptions!

Only Two Options

We train our staff to operate under the principle that they only have two options when it comes to handling their responsibilities: either get the job done or ask for help.  Not getting something done is not an option. Getting them to ask for help when they truly need it is a tough one. We all have our pride. We want to be able to handle our own work. But, being overwhelmed and neglecting top priorities doesn’t help anyone. As the leader of the team, you must create and cultivate an atmosphere where staff are comfortable asking for help. There are a couple of things you should regularly do. First, ask. And, keep asking. Are you getting things done? How much work are you leaving each afternoon for the following morning? Is business coming in and going out the same day? If you had another pair of hands, what would you have them do? Second, encourage your staff to be honest. Explain how much you value them and how you don’t want them overworked or overstressed. Make sure they understand that you are not asking them to be super heroes. Help them realize that if they over do it, their work product will suffer.

We are Anti-Overtime

Dedicated staff will always want to work overtime.  Overtime is a patch; it is not a solution. When staff work late, it masks another problem, namely, that of being understaffed. If your people are simply working longer hours each day to get the day’s work done, how are you ever to know that you need more staff? Moreover, when staff are overworked, they can feel unappreciated, become exhausted, and develop resentment and bitterness. Head this off with a fanatical anti-overtime policy. Nights and weekends are strictly prohibited. If we can’t get the work done during normal hours, then we need to add staff.  Your business is going to grow. Your client base is going to expand. Your production is going to increase. Keep close tabs on the needs of your staff, and plan ahead to ensure that your support staff grows along with your business.

Eeny, Meeny, Miny, Moe

Got more than one super candidate for a position?  Don’t be fooled by appearances.  Some people just don’t have a sense of style. You can change appearances by establishing a dress code and watching it closely.  Look for desire instead.  If I have two people vying for a position, and I can’t decide, the one who wants it most is the one who gets it, every time. Sheer desire can carry a person a long way in life.  Candidates with desire will work harder and achieve more.  They have purpose that you can neither enhance nor diminish.  Capture it and give them an opportunity to make something of themselves, and your practice, along the way.

Finding the Best Candidates

By far, my two preferred methods of finding good people are referrals and the local jobs ministry.  Every single advisor, staff member, and professional on our team came from one of these two sources, from the operations manager and the controller to the attorney and the receptionist.  Looking for that next new team member? Put the word out. Tell everyone you are in the market.  Tell your staff, your clients, your neighbors and friends.  Tell your colleagues, tell strangers, and especially tell your family.  When you have occasion to discuss your standards and requirements with those who could potentially send you a referral, remind them that your recruiting decisions will be business decisions and nothing more. No nepotism and no favors.

Our local jobs ministry is run by a church in our area. Each Wednesday morning, around 500 out of work job seekers gather for an uplifting talk, testimonies of people who have found jobs through the ministry, individual career counseling, and training in résumé writing and interviewing skills.  Toward the end of the program, local employers take the stage and give brief descriptions of positions they are looking to fill.  Interested candidates form a line to the side of the meeting hall and do a recruiting form of speed dating with the employers.  Employers can have short talks with candidates, collect résumés, exchange business cards, and schedule formal interviews.  We have hired no less than 7 of our current staff members through this ministry.  It delivers.  Find one in your neck of the woods and check it out.

Working with Family

I once fired my mother-in-law.  We are great friends to this day, but she wasn’t right for the position.  If you hire people close to you (like family and friends), make sure they understand that you are running a business, not a social network where they will have special privileges. You are prepared to “un-friend” them at the first clear indication that you’ve made a mistake in hiring them.  It doesn’t mean you want to end the personal relationship.  In fact, make sure before you hire someone close to you that the person understands that your personal relationship is more important to you than the business relationship.  If the person won’t be able to handle being fired, and the personal relationship will likely suffer casualty, don’t make the hire in the first place.  Pass.

People say ‘never work with family.’  Nonsense. Family can be some of the best hires you will ever make.  They know they can trust you, and their interests are aligned with yours.  My brother worked for me for 5 years and did a terrific job.  My father in law joined one of our businesses when he retired from a 30+ year career with a single employer.  He was amazing. My cousin has been here for 6 years, and is still going strong.  He’s been promoted 3 times and now runs our business.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do

The first time it glances across the edge of your consciousness that you should fire someone, that is when you should.  When you keep someone on too long, you destroy the morale in your office.  Your staff know who the slackers are.  They know who the incompetents are.  They know who’s looking out for their own interests and ignoring yours.  And, they will resent it if you don’t take swift action. Trying to rehabilitate staff members rarely works. Once the attitude has left the building, the concert is over.

Lastly, don’t feel guilty for firing someone. When you let someone go, you open the door for someone else.  Someone loses a job, but someone else gains a job.  Income stops flowing to one household, but starts flowing to another household. It is a zero sum game.  The person who lost the job is now freed up to find the perfect position.  You’ve done the person a favor, your staff will love you, and you will finally get the person you really need.  Everybody wins.

Not sure where I heard this, or if I made it up myself.  But, it’s a winner. Everybody deals with staffing issues.  In most cases, the problem lies not in the skills, but in the attitude of the person hired.  You can change someone’s skill set, but you cannot change someone’s attitude.  The attitude comes with the recruit.  Start there. You can build a good set of skills on the solid foundation of a great attitude and end up with a terrific staffer over time.  That’s how you build a winning team.  Be patient. If you can pick up just one or two good people a year, you are doing well.

Idiots and Savants

97% of the world’s population is of average intelligence.  3% are roughly divided between idiots and savants.  I know, I know, you’re saying, “We don’t say ‘idiot,’ because it’s insensitive and crude.”  Lighten up.  Would you prefer I had said “mentally challenged?” Don’t get caught up in nomenclature. There isn’t time for it.  We loathe political correctness here.  Idiot is a perfectly good word and aptly makes my point.  Most people are not idiots.  And, most people are not savants.  Most of us fall in the 97%.  You will recognize the idiots right away when they come in for an interview, and the savants will not be applying for a position in your firm, so don’t worry about them.  Bottom line: pretty much everyone you meet that has a great attitude is a potential great recruit.  Look for that extra special something in the attitude department, and when you find it, snatch the candidate up fast before someone else does.

Phone Voices are In

The first thing I want to know about a potential new recruit is, “How’s the phone voice?”  If the caller is demur, speaks in a low voice, is hard to understand, uses slang, or seems to be put out with the idea of looking for a job, I keep searching.  If the caller is bubbly, professional, and speaks with good diction and grammar, that candidate has cleared the first hurdle. When someone else in the office is screening candidates for me, I give the same instruction: “Only send me candidates who sound like they’re having a great day.”  Callers responding to an advertisement or a networking lead are putting their best foot forward on that initial call to your office.  If they can’t cut it on the call, they won’t cut it on the team.

Résumés are Out

Résumés are only useful to a point.  We’ve all hired people with impressive résumés, only to be disappointed later when their true attitudes were revealed. Most of the skills you need your staff to be proficient in can be learned on the job.  Look at résumés at the end of the interview, not the beginning. And, beware of screening initial interview candidates by their résumés. If they made it over the phone voice hurdle, let them attempt the interview hurdle.  If someone rubs me the wrong way in an interview, it’s over.  If they have a great attitude, I am thinking, “I could train this person, I could work with this person.”

I once hired a Fuddruckers counter clerk.  She impressed me with her can-do attitude when serving my family one afternoon.  After our meal, I went back up to the counter and asked her how much she earned.  I interviewed her the following week and hired her on the spot.  In terms of sheer productive output, she was the best staffer we ever had.  She didn’t even have a résumé.  If she had, it would have listed hamburger flipper, dental hygienist trainee, and stripper.  Who knew?

Quarterbackus

Okay, so you have an illness.  Almanacus-Quarterbackus Syndrome. It’s bad, but you can fully recover.  We’ve already addressed your Almanacus (being a walking desk reference set for your staff) problem.  Now we will address your Quarterbackus (making all the important decisions for your staff) problem. This is going to be fun.  I feel like a spiritual chiropractor.  I am cracking my knuckles as I type.

I know how tough it is to think you are the smartest person in the room and that you should make all the decisions in the office.  This is pride in one of its ugliest forms – vanity.  It’s nice to show off how smart we are, but it kills the drive of those around us, and it severely limits our success to the boundaries of our own capacities.  We need to be about empowering everyone around us so that we all become superstars.  Don’t hog all the glory.

I am a detail-oriented (obsessive-compulsive) control artist (freak) with ADD/HD (Attention Deficit Disorder compounded by Hyperactivity Disorder).  I am self diagnosed and not on meds.  Pray for me.  My mind runs at 100 miles an hour, and I hear lots of voices (all of which are my own, of course).  One day, my cousin and Operations Manager, Dustin Martin, gave me one of his ADD pills (ADD apparently runs in the family).  Within minutes, all the voices in my head stopped.  There was nothing but silence in the background of my brain for most of the day.  I could not believe how focused I was.  I have never sought a prescription for whatever that med was, but there are those around me who would probably pay for them if I’d take them. Sorry, I digress.

What I’m saying is, I know what you’re dealing with.  You don’t trust other people to make key decisions because they don’t know what you know.  They don’t have your experience.  They don’t think through issues and problems the same way you do.  It isn’t their business that’s on the line.  There’s your trouble.  You are thinking little, instead of thinking big.  Your people are not empowered. In 30 years of managing people and building businesses, I have learned that the most effective decision-making tool I can give my team is a thorough understanding of the principles by which I run the business.  When I teach them my principles, and require that they adopt them and employ them in every aspect of their work, I am giving them a perfect framework for successful decision making.  That’s empowerment.

Now, this does not mean that they will always arrive at the same conclusion or decision that I would have, given the same information.  But, that is not what matters.  Give ten talented and experienced executives the same set of data and circumstances, and they will not all come up with the same decision, even if the decision is a simple yes or no.  But, they will usually still find success through the decision they made.  That is because they will, more often than not, make their decision work for them.  Everyone brings different training and experience to a decision.  But, if you give your team the principles to make their own decisions, they will make their decisions work in their paradigm of experience, training, and control. I have seen this countless times.  I am not the only one who can make a good decision and make it work.

Of course, some will err along the way.  But, that is an investment in their training.  You have to be willing to take risks with your staff by giving them the parameters (your principles) for making decisions and then giving them the room to make mistakes.  Risk takers are profit makers, as the saying goes. If you don’t give your people the tools and the freedom to make decisions, you will never grow your business beyond the limits of your own capacities.  When you delegate decision making to others, it is not with reckless abandon.  It is in the controlled and predictable environment of your careful tutelage of their business skills. Teach them how to make decisions, and watch them soar.  Everybody wins.

You Have an Illness

Okay, so you’re the one with most of the knowledge and experience in your office, and it’s all too tempting to answer every question and make every decision for your advisors and staff. I call this Almanacus-Quarterbackus Syndrome. You have allowed yourself to become everyone’s almanac or quarterback. Your first thought is, well, since I know the answer or can cut through the data and make the decision, it will save everyone time if I just give it to them. The problem is, it is not your role to save the staff time; it is theirs to save yours. You are the million-dollar thoroughbred. Your staff must learn to research their own answers, and you must empower them to make their own decisions. Every new team member goes through a learning curve with me.  A usual exchange goes something like this.

“Hey, Noel.  How do I [insert task]?”

“Don’t use my brain.”

“But, I don’t know how to [insert task]!”

“I’ll have to charge you, and you may have to sign a lease agreement.  I am not sure you can afford the rent on my brain.  It is very high.”

“Huh?  Why can’t you just tell me how to [insert task]?

“Because I’m teaching you two principles: 1. my time is best spent seeing clients, and 2. your job is to keep me in the conference room.”

“Gotcha! Where do I go for the answer?”

“Attagirl!  Now you’re catching on! Contact [insert person with answer].”

It takes a little time, but eventually the new staffer gets it and starts to assimilate into our culture.  When she does, it is then that she really starts to become useful.  If she doesn’t get it, she needs to be replaced by someone who will.  This may sound crass, but the best thing I can do for someone who can’t get it is release her so she can find the right position for herself; one where she will be able to get it and become a productive part of a team.  I owe it to her, and I owe it to my team.

Almanacus

Ever find yourself answering the same questions for the same people, over and over again? You have become a thumb-indexed, quick reference set. Why should anyone remember the information you so happily provide? They will continue to return to the well until the well runs dry. Look, you’ve hired some pretty smart folks.  They are very capable, or you would not have recruited them. Better that you stop answering questions about operations, new business processing, interest rates, dividends, home office policies, technical financial terms, etc., and send them scurrying off to find their own answers. This will cost them considerable time and effort that they will not be willing to spend a second time on the same information. When you say, “No,” you are investing in their education.  When they find their own answers, they will become their own almanac.

How did you learn to use a dictionary?  Your mom probably refused to answer the question, “Gee, Mom, how do you spell [insert any word here]?”  Instead of telling you how to spell the word, she told you to, “Look it up for yourself.”  While this seemed unusually cruel and lazy on her part at the time, the result was that you developed the skill of not only looking up the spelling of a word, but you also gained the knowledge of the definitions of those words.  You can thank your mom for your dictionary knowledge and skills.

Now, let’s be clear.  I am not suggesting that you should refuse to train your staff.  Of course, they will need to be trained.  But, your involvement in their training should be strictly limited to the basics of the position (duties, expectations, etc.) that simply can’t be handled by anyone else.  If there is someone else in the office, or at the home office, or at the vendor’s or carrier’s office, who can train them on the rest, let those other people handle it from there.  Your job is done. Once the initial training is complete, which includes learning where to go for information, turn them loose to get their own answers.  You’ll be doing them and yourself a favor in the long run.

Stay tuned for Part II…

INTRODUCTION

Kenneth Blanchard, PhD received his B.A. in Government and Philosophy from Cornell University, an M.A. in Sociology and Counseling from Colgate University and a PhD in Administration and Management from Cornell.  He has served as business consultant to many major U.S. corporations including Chevron, Lockheed, and AT&T, and as professor of Organizational Behavior at University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  He has written numerous books, including Management of Organization Behaviour: Utilizing Human Resources, a business standard now in its seventh edition.

Spencer Johnson, MD, received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Southern California and an M.D. from the Royal College of Surgeons, Ireland.  He has held medical clerkships at Harvard Medical School and the Mayo Clinic.  He served as Medical Director of Communications for Medtronic, a pioneering manufacturer of cardiac pacemakers, Research Physician for the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, and consultant to the Office of Continuing Education at the School of Medicine, University of California, La Jolla.  His other books include The Precious Present, and the Value Of series of books with Steve Pileggi.

SUMMARY

The material in the book is presented through a fictional account of a bright young man who is looking for an effective manager and wants to become one himself.  In his search, he meets a “One Minute Manager,” (p. 11) who describes in detail his personal management style which is then adopted by the bright young man.  Authors Blanchard and Johnson have developed an effective people management system based upon three simple techniques: One Minute Goal-Setting, One Minute Praisings and One Minute Reprimands.  One Minute Goal-Setting is organized into six steps:

1. Manager clearly communicates responsibilities and expectations.
2. Manager and subordinate define and agree on goals.
3. Manager establishes and communicates clear performance standards.
4. Subordinate writes out up to six goals on a single page using less than 250 words.
5. Subordinate reads and re-reads each goal regularly.
6. Subordinate regularly examines own performance and compares it to goals.

One Minute Praisings are broken down into seven steps:

1. Tell people in advance that performance feedback will be given regularly.
2. Praise performance immediately.
3. Explain specifically what the subordinate did right.
4. Explain how the performance makes the manager feel and how it helps co-workers and the organization.
5. Pause for a moment to let the subordinate feel the impact of the praising.
6. Encourage more of the behavior being praised.
7. Shake hands or touch in a way that makes the manager’s support clear.

One Minute Reprimands are arranged into nine steps:

1. Tell people in advance that performance feedback will be given regularly.
2. Reprimand performance immediately.
3. Explain specifically what the subordinate did wrong.
4. Explain how the performance makes the manager feel and how it effects co-workers and the organization.
5. Pause for a moment to let the subordinate feel the impact of the reprimand.
6. Shake hands or touch in a way that makes the manager’s support clear.
7. Reaffirm the subordinate’s value to the organization and that the performance, not the person, is the issue being addressed.
8. Realize that the reprimand is over

CONCLUSION

The authors’ novel presentation of personnel management concepts through a fictional story is effective.  The actual techniques presented in the book are real tools that can be adapted to almost any management style with simplicity and ease.  The writer of this paper has used successfully the methods in this book in business, church and family settings for twenty years.

Goal setting is often a daunting task, and, as a result, avoided by many.  The book’s simple outline for goal-setting (p. 34) makes the seemingly overwhelming task appear not only approachable but inviting.  The method keeps the process focused and manageable, and it encourages and facilitates regular reexamination of goals, behavior modification and improvement.

Praising subordinates is essential to the health of an organization.  Praisings, according to Blanchard and Johnson, should be spontaneous, immediate, specific and genuine (p. 44).  Managers may be reluctant to praise some people whom they fear will perceive the praise as an approval of poor performance, yet people tend to repeat behavior that results in praise.  It is possible to praise good behavior and reprimand bad behavior effectively, as subordinates learn that the One Minute Manager will be fair and sincere in both areas, and has the subordinates, as well as, the organization’s best interests at heart.