The One Minute Manager

An excellent must read for all managers. Easy to read once a year to keep on track.

Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson birthed a monster writing style when they published THE ONE MINUTE MANAGER, "The Runaway #1 National Bestseller!" -- and that style is surrounding a hideously boring topic with clichés, adverbs, adjectives, redundancies, dull characters, and exclamation points. The book is then called a nonfiction fable. Hunh?

When this book came out in 1981 it used a new, perhaps fresh, approach to teaching management skills, but since then it has been copied and copied and copied ... when it should be put in a cage. It's time to stop dumbing down and start smartening up books for managers. Enough already!

Note: You'll only need 1 minute to get what's useful out of this book.

I'm a human resources manager and use this book and CD to help first-time supervisors understand the power of managing people properly. Not an intimidating, theoretical book that they will never read, but a real world "how-to" manage people. It's a great first step as they make their foray into management. Plenty of time for the heavier stuff later in their careers.

The OMM presents a set of tools that a manager needs to use to do his or her job well. The book is short and sweet. It gets to the point without wasting time.

The One Minute Manager is an oldie and a goodie. It's been a fun book to watch over the years as new generations of managers entering the workforce are exposed to it. I recently bought a copy for a new manager that reports to me, and bought the Amazon recommended title Squawk!: How to Stop Making Noise and Start Getting Results along with it.

It turns out Squawk! is a new book that's also for managers, and let's just say I read it while my subordinate was reading The One Minute Manager. I guess you can teach an old dog new tricks. Both are great books and they're short enough that I suggest following Amazon's recommendation and getting them together at a discount.