The New One Minute Manager

The Manager explains how and why One Minute Goals are necessary for efficiency and success in business. He uses bowling as an analogy to demonstrate his philosophy. In bowling, a participant is driven by the motivation and excitement to knock down as many pins as possible. Even a poor employee who is unmotivated and problematic in the workplace can find joy and success while bowling. However, in most companies, bowling becomes a task of negative feedback and deception. The Manager explains how at work, it’s like bowling with a sheet that covers the pins, so the employees don’t know where exactly to aim or what they need to hit.

Furthermore, a supervisor stands behind curtain and rates how many pins you’ve missed. Instead of removing the curtain and praising the employee for how many pins have been hit, the supervisor makes it difficult and demoralizes the spirit of the worker/bowler by rating them poorly for whatever they haven’t done. The young man asks why a supervisor would do this, and the Manager says that it makes the supervisor feel good and look competent to his/her superiors when he/she can evaluate others poorly in their performance. If everyone was scoring highly, then the supervisor would look like they weren’t doing their job correctly.

The Manager continues and uses an example of how Albert Einstein chose not to memorize irrelevant information—like his own phone number—in order to maximize his attention in other areas he deemed more important. From the outside, Einstein could have been judged as an incapable “loser” by this standard (53). However, the Manager says everyone can become a winner if we know how to assess them. Better yet, a leader’s role should be to look past the surface-level flaws in an employee and train everyone to become a winner over time. That’s where One Minute Goals come in—an excellent supervisor should help establish these goals in order to set up employees for tangible success. The young man—for the first time referenced as “the aspiring young manager” (56)—is intrigued, takes notes, and asks if the Manager can also explain why One Minute Praisings work.

The Manager this time uses an analogy of a baby learning how to walk and talk. Parents don’t expect them to begin walking perfectly or speaking fluently from birth. Instead, they highlight small benchmarks towards a greater goal, celebrating whenever a baby first stands, then eventually stumbles forward, before finally taking steps. He states: “These examples illustrate that the most important—and natural—thing to do to help people become winners is to catch them doing something approximately right in the beginning. Then you move on toward the desired result” (58). This series of achievable goals allows a beginner to feel progress towards mastery. Similarly, after initial encouragement and guidance, employees will inevitably recognize their own growth and success.

According to the Manager, outdated forms of leadership in workplaces used to operate on the principle of “leave-alone-zap,” wherein a new employee would be introduced to new coworkers, left alone to work without periodic check-ins, begin to feel alone, before finally getting “zapped” for doing something wrong (60). This would cause employees to feel demoralize and lose motivation for productivity. The Manager emphasizes that punishment doesn’t work when someone is first learning a new responsibility or skill. Understanding his point, the young man agrees and shares his own story about how a friend mistreats a new puppy whenever the dog does something wrong. The Manager laughs in agreement and praises the young man for being such a quick learner. The young man is glad and asks to learn more about why One Minute Re-Directs are effective.

The manager underscores that the key to Re-Directs is making sure to deliver any constructive feedback immediately. In most cases, he says, managers “gunnysack” their feedback—“[t]hat is, they store up observations of poor behavior until frustration builds” for weeks and months—then unload it onto the employee during a periodic performance review (62). This also happens in homes between spouses, and between parents and their children, to equally unsatisfying results. A manager should deal directly, clearly, and fairly with mistakes as they happen to avoid miscommunication, resentment, or denial.

An essential aspect of Re-Directs is the sequence: The Manager is first tough, then nice. He shares a story about a Chinese Emperor who was nice then tough, and how he wasn’t obeyed by his subjects, versus a Chinese Prime Minister who was tough then nice, and who was praised by the people. He provides a second example about a basketball coach who benches his star player, tells him why, then lets him know that he believes the player is worth more than what he has shown; the player goes back into the game later and performs better.

The young man asks if this is a form of manipulating people, but the Manager explains that it’s only manipulation if one’s intention is to only benefit oneself. Because one’s intention as a leader should be to develop better workers so they can excel in their areas, that leader is helping everyone. The young man admits he “has grown to like the New One Minute Manager” (70); he shares his notes with the Manager and the Manager praises him for his astuteness. The Manager offers him a job, and the young man eagerly asks if he would work for the Manager. The Manager responds by saying, “No. I mean work for yourself, like the other people on our team. I don’t believe anybody ever really works for anybody else. Deep down, people like to work for themselves” (70), emphasizing the importance of teamwork and collaboration in his department. The young man happily accepts, and eagerly begins his career.