Mgt 3120 – Book Review: One Minute ManagerMGT 3120 – NET 1Book Review 2Kenneth H. Blanchard, Spencer JohnsonThe One Minute ManagerHardcover copy: HarperCollins Publishers 111pp. $22.999780688014292Prior to my Fundamentals of Management class, I heard about this book but never actually took it upon myself to buy it. Since I wanted this book in my library, I purchased a hardcopy on Amazon for about $6. I was surprised at the size of the book (a little over 100 pages); in comparison to the 7 Habits read that was 4 times the size (it was still an enjoyable read). The size of this book worked well with my reading anxiety (I always want to get to the end), and because I heard about this book before I was actually excited to read this book. I ended up reading this book three times: twice at the beginning of the semester and once before writing this review. Why did I read this book multiple times? Well I could not believe that I gained all this information in such a short read. But as the book’s title and content suggest, being a one minute manager gives you a lot of time. The author, Kenneth Blanchard, is a management expert who has written and co-authored many books in the field. His co-author, Spencer Johnson, is a management consultant and a best-selling author. Both contributors to this book have a management background and have proven their depth of knowledge in management. This book may have been intended for managers in organizations, but the tools in this book may be applied in many areas of life, making it a book also for people who want to manage their life effectively. The One Minute Manger is divided into a couple of concise parts, each part flowing into the other, from introduction to implementation, telling an interesting story of the one minute manager.
The SearchThe story starts with The Search;Â a young man trying to find an effective manager. He wanted to work for one and later on become one. He spoke with many managers and gained knowledge on how a lot of managers operate. He met the autocratic managers and the democratic managers, all partially effective in his mind. When he did find a few effective managers, they withheld their secrets. When this young man thought he would never experience and learn from an effective manager, he started hearing stories. Stories about a special manager nearby, who people liked working for, and they produce great results working for him. Curious to meet this special manager, he set up an appointment with his office secretary, who let the young man know that he was free at any time except Wednesday morning. The young man was puzzled yet fascinated as to how this manager had so much time on his hand. The story continues into The One Minute Manager.
A recent example of a good story about an effective manager “You might have a manager in touch with a lot of different people in that time. People often ask you how you do things. The idea is: It’s all about the management of this company. You might meet all your managers. The reason you find it interesting is because the company doesn’t always have employees who are successful. For example, when one of your managers runs his company, only a small percentage are successful, and the rest are always unsuccessful.” The fact that this young man can read only by reading the articles he reads, in his mind, explains the success of his life. The fact is that he keeps the knowledge he has gained in his time and his ability all in the name of his job. In a more human way, he may understand why a successful individual might have a hard time managing, but he can still apply that knowledge and have a more effective career. This is because he knows what is best for him: the management and the needs of the people working for that company.
How often do you work in a job requiring lots of good managers? How often do you do work where you pay much less for the same job for similar number of people? When I was an undergraduate in physics, I had a job at a physics institute in a large metropolitan area because the only time we’d do that was during lunch hours and we were in a meeting. I knew a few managers and my ability to do the things I wanted to do helped me find others like them. I was trying to learn and grow through these projects, but one of them was Mr. Hutton of the National Research Council. He was at the institute who didn’t see one person as a leader of the group and instead saw it as a way for him to work with people in common and make decisions. In a word, he liked that there were a lot of people around with him who were successful at his task and knew something about working situations. He had the kind of skills and experience and was able to find the people he liked. This is why he is known as the one-shot manager. The one-shot manager works on one side of the company, but knows the people best on the other. He knows what to do in each and every situation that needs to be fixed, when things are just looking good in other people’s company and no one can do anything about it. The one-shot managers, on the other hand, manage in a similar way but their skills are different. They manage for their own interests. He has experience in making decisions, not for theirs. In the beginning of my job search in 2009 I knew that I had to go to the institute in the morning to find someone who had worked for me for the previous 12 months. I quickly found them on the Internet. They were on the Internet with the latest technologies that were available at the time, but they seemed to have become outdated. I was surprised when Mr. Hutton contacted about me and the kind of person I was. I told him I was a young person living in an informal area and asked him to go on his own. He wanted more things he could have gotten by himself. Before we agreed to collaborate, I came up with the idea to do an anonymous survey of all our colleagues. It was about the sort of people a company should have. Every day it was only the people who did the survey. The same people would show up over the Internet to discuss their questions with each other, but they would wait till everyone agreed. They would do a