A case in point are the three secrets from The One Minute Manager^®, the business parable written by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson in 1981. As a small pass-along book, it has been read by over twenty million people since it first came out. Still, in working with organizations around the world—including organizations that have purchased and distributed the book among their managers—we find a gap exists between understanding the concepts in the book and actually applying them at work.

The first secret of The One Minute Manager—one minute goal setting—is a good example of common sense not necessarily becoming common practice at work. Too often people in organizations are still being evaluated on things they didn’t know they were supposed to be doing in the first place.

The second and third secrets (one minute praisings and one minute reprimands) are also not being used to their full potential in many organizations. When we ask people, “How do you know whether or not you’re doing a good job?” the number one answer is still, “No one’s yelled at me lately!” In other words, no news is good news. The most popular management approach today is still “seagull management.” This undisciplined management style describes managers that are never around until you make a mistake and then they fly in, make a lot of noise, dump on you, and then fly out.

A good way to be managed? We don’t think so.

We say, "undisciplined style of management" purposely because we are convinced that effective leadership is as much about discipline as it is about skill. It’s all about delivering on your good intentions. That’s where coaching comes in to convert knowledge into action, resulting in a big payoff for organizations. Why? Because when these common sense ideas are practiced, results are almost guaranteed. We know that when one-on-one coaching follows a leadership or management training initiative, phenomenal results can be achieved. That’s what we’ve proven at The Ken Blanchard Companies where we combine our world-class leadership training with follow-up work from our wholly owned subsidiary, Coaching.com™.

To understand the importance of one-to-one coaching, we need to look at the three environments in which training can take place—one-to-one, one-to-few, and one-to-many. Most training takes place in a one-to-many environment—managers come together with twenty or more colleagues to learn a new leadership concept. Then organizations, in order to get a bang for their buck, expect these managers to apply what they learned in a one-to-few setting with their direct reports. But this is too big a leap for most managers because they haven’t had a chance to integrate the learnings into their personal behavior. As a result, they immediately become frustrated with their success rate in applying what they have learned with their people. To address this, organizations need to follow training received in the one-to-many environment with coaching on a one-to-one basis. This is the formula that will lead to greater application in the one-to-few environment that most managers work in.

While the cost of a personal coach may not be within the financial means of everyone, managers can employ personal coaching strategies to keep themselves accountable for acting on their own good intentions. In conducting research for their new book, Leverage Your Best, Ditch the Rest, coauthors Scott Blanchard and Madeleine Homan drew on their experiences coaching thousands of managers and leaders and they found that clients get the biggest bang for their coaching buck when they do two things:

• Identify their current strengths and then leverage those strengths to the hilt.
• Identify what is causing "noise in the system" and then eliminate it.

Would you like to learn more about leveraging your strengths and minimizing the attitudes and behaviors that get in your way from performing at your highest level? Then please join Scott Blanchard and Madeleine Homan for a free Webinar on Leverage Your Best, Ditch the Rest.

Leverage Your Best, Ditch the Rest
Thursday, June 17, 2004
11:00 a.m. - noon Pacific Time

Madeleine Homan and Scott Blanchard will help you discover your “leverage points”—the seven issues and challenges that all people face. In this seminar they will explore two of these leverage points: one from the category "Gifts to Leverage" and one from "Tolerations to Ditch." You’ll walk away with an action plan for achieving greater success at work and in all areas of your life.

What is the secret of great leaders?

Who better to answer that question than the team of Ken Blanchard, whose books on leadership have sold over 20 million copies, and Mark Miller, who worked his way up from line worker to vice president of one of the largest fast-food chains in the country.



The Secret revealed

• Why great leaders seem preoccupied with the future
• Why and how people on "the team" are invariably key ingredients of success or failure
• What three arenas require continuous improvement
• Why true success in leadership has two essential components, and
• How to knowingly strengthen—or unwittingly destroy—leadership credibility

Designed for individuals or organizations, these workshops provide the opportunity to learn skills to meet the challenges of today's working environments. Participating in a public workshop is an ideal way to preview the Blanchard processes for possible rollout in your organization. Smaller companies may also use these workshops to meet their employee's training needs.

Gung Ho!
June 21-22 in London, United Kingdom
November 1-2 in San Diego, CA
December 6-7 in London, United Kingdom