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I received a recommendation a couple weeks ago to read a book called The One Minute Manager by Kenneth Blanchard and Spencer Johnson. I also read their book The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams. I was hoping I would find ideas in it for managing my family and I was not disappointed.

“A One Minute Manager is someone who gets good results without taking much time.”

There are several things I learned that I want to incorporate into our family. The first is One Minute Goals. I have known for some time that I need to sit down with my nine year old and help him get his goals written down. He makes many goals for himself now but I know writing them down would make them clearer and he would have a better reminder of what he wanted to accomplish. If they are written down he will be able to review them every day to see if his choices are matching his goals. Once I teach him to set goals and follow them then I’m hoping he can teach me!

The next thing I want us all to learn is One Minute Praising. I especially want to teach my kids to praise themselves. Ultimately they are making their own decisions so they need to decide if they are making the right choices and they need to learn how their choices are affecting themselves, our family and others around them.

The third thing we need to learn is The One Minute Reprimand. I find myself too often getting mad at my kids instead of getting mad at what they did. “We are not just our behavior. We are the person managing our behavior.” This is easy to remember with my two year old. It’s easy to see that she is just learning to manage her feelings and behaviors but I need to remind myself that my older kids are still learning as well and so am I. A One Minute Reprimand is much more effective than a thirty minute lecture!

The following are my favorite quotes from The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams. These quotes all support my belief that my job as a Mother is not to control my kids but to teach them to lead themselves.

“If we’re interested in productivity and human satisfaction it is important that everyone involved feels empowered to influence the decisions that affect them.”

“Your job is to educate your people, to help them develop to the point where they can take responsibility for their work and to give them opportunities to perform.”

“Maria found that becoming an effective team leader was exciting, challenging, but not simple. It took time, persistence and commitment on her part. Being a good team leader was much harder than being an autocratic leader. She learned that when you want to empower people it is exhausting to get them ready to share responsibility. It takes less energy to say ‘my way or the highway’. It’s not for the fainthearted, but the results are worth it.”

If you want more information on the One Minute Manager then be sure to check it out along with many more One Minute titles; One Minute Mother, One Minute Father, One Minute Sales Person, Leadership and The One Minute Manager, One Minute Potty Training (I wish!), The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, Putting the One Minute Manager to Work, Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager, The One Minute Apology, (I think my husband wrote this one) One Minute for Yourself, The One Minute Teacher and more I’m sure. I’m going to read them all!

[tags]the one minute manager, Ken Blanchard, Spencer Johnson, management, family, parenting, organization, time[/tags]
Photo graciously provided by slack12, through a Creative Commons license, some rights reserved