Listening Schedule
Dragon Reborn RED Multistage Stage 1
15 mins, Sunday, 7 days break after 21 days
It was very nice for @RVconsultant to suggest the The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. There is no real shortcuts to becoming an effective manager, but this book can help point in the right direction.
I was looking for more action and less reading books but obviously I become more too much in-love with books, especially the hard bound ones. I like to have a simple checklist on running things, and this One Minute Manager gives me the answer.
My dad used to tell me that when I can take good care of my employees, they will eventually will take good care of me, stayed with me even on hard times. But I need to be an effective manager, not a busy person with a coffee mug, giving assignments and yelling at them.
The book described some managers as “profit-minded” and “realistic”; these were autocratic leaders, interested in results. Others said they were “humanistic” and “participative”; these were democrats, interested in people. However, both autocratic and democratic leaders were only partially effective – because focusing only on people or results, they were just half-managers.
How often did I held meeting with my workers? Not once a week but almost every working days. And in those meetings(toolbox meetings just like in the company I worked for), I discussed what they had accomplished the previous week, what issues they had, and what still needed to be done.
Unlike the One-Minute Manager, I would participate in the decision-making process but I empower my leaders (sub-assistants) and it was totally up to them, and emphasized that the goal of my company was efficiency.
Was I result-oriented?
I was not the best to assess myself. In the One-Minute manager it was explained that people work best when they feel good about themselves:
People who feel good about themselves produce good results.
One Minute Manager – a person who gets things done without spending too much time.
One Minute Goals
One Minute Management is the philosophy of no surprises. Everyone knows what they’re supposed to do from the very beginning, each person in their organization had to write their goals down, together with their performance standards. For each goal and its standards. Typically, every person had one goal in his or her area of responsibility. Everyone was supposed to read and glance their goals every once in a while. I applied what I learned from my military trainings, I give them small mission (tasks) but without yelling, they can if they find a task/s hard for them to do, call anyone’s attention to help him or her finish the job.
One Minute Praising s
Usually managers try to catch people doing something wrong. In One Minute Manager it took the opposite approach – instead catching people doing something right. And right after a person has done something right, he or she will be told what exactly it was. This way, a person didn’t have to wait the whole year to hear appraisals.
Help people reach their full potential - catch them doing something right
It should be done at the beginning when the person would struggle with a new project or responsibility. And the appraisals must be consistent.
This is why it’s so important to catch people doing something right. Instead, a typical leadership style involves punishing inexperienced people for doing something wrong, and that’s not effective at all. So if a person with a lack of confidence and experience doesn’t perform well, a manager shouldn’t yell – he needs to go back to the One Minute Goal Setting and make sure the person knows what is expected.
One Minute Reprimands
As soon as the One Minute Manager would learn about someone’s mistake, he would come to that person and let him or her to know about it. He would express anger, frustration, or any other negative emotion – but that emotion was always directed at the action that person had done. It was not about blaming the person themselves.
One Minute Reprimand is given immediately after a person makes a mistake, and that’s a huge advantage, because a person gets a chance to correct the mistake – or learn how to correct it in the future.
It’s important to finish a reprimand with a praising; and importantly, you have to see the wrong behavior with your own eyes, and not rely on what people say; and it’s also important to tell the person how you feel about his wrong behavior.
“We are not just our behavior. We are the person managing our behavior.”
Reprimands were I had all wrong. Noted.
“Goals begin behaviors. Consequences maintain behaviors.”
We could laugh at our mistakes. To learn that wasn’t hard; they would see the One Minute Manager do it, and learnt from his example.
It also means management doesn’t have to take much time for the manager; however, very often it really takes one minute - that’s why it is called the One Minute Manager.
I spent a lot of time training and upgrading my workers skills.
“The best minute I spend is the one I invest in people.”
Why One Minute Goals Work
“Feedback is the breakfast of champions”
Some managers don’t fully communicate effectively their expectations, but then yell at them when something goes wrong, totally true for me (but sometimes). And this happens because they want to look good.
The One Minute Manager explained: typically, in a company, there are a few winners, a few losers, and many people in the middle.
“Everyone is a potential winner. Some people are disguised as losers. Don’t let the appearances fool you.”
Take a minute. Look at your performance. See if your behavior matches your goals.
Being effective manager has nothing to do with spending days and nights at the office.
The book had taught me that it’s enough to let people know what you want from them, and give them immediate feedback. You don’t have to choose between achieving results and staying human - these are actually two sides of the same coin. And sometimes, being effective takes literally only one minute.
Thanks @RVconsultant .
