Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager
Self-Leadership and the One-Minute Manager is written by Ken Blanchard, Susan Fowler, and Lawrence Hawkins. It completes the trilogy that began with Leadership and the One-Minute Manager and was followed by The One-Minute Manager Builds High-Performance Teams.
Unlike most business textbooks, the One Minute Manager series is told through parables, making it much more like reading a story. Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager follows Steve, a young account executive who is about to lose his account for a large company and probably his job. This book is a quick and easy read, and the lessons are laid out in front of you in large, bold text, so you’re sure not to miss them.
Essentially, Steve is promoted to account executive from a position in budget and finance. On her first project for his account, he’s dealing with one of the company’s largest accounts, and his initial pitch falls through miserably. While drafting his resignation letter in a coffee shop, Steve meets Cayla, the understudy of the famed “One Minute Manager” guru. Talking to Cayla, Steve decides to follow her self-leadership guidance in an attempt to save the account and his job. Ultimately, there are five lessons to be learned:
1: Accept responsibility for getting what you need
When Steve initially failed with his proposal, he immediately began to blame. His manager gave him too much responsibility too soon with too little guidance, and his creative advertising team was not supportive to the level he expected. But upon reflection, Steve realized that he didn’t ask his manager for help or give his creative team the direction and guidance they needed from him, his manager. People don’t read minds and you can’t expect them to know what you want or need if you don’t explain it to them. He must take responsibility for creating the situation he finds himself in (whether good or bad).
2: Assumed Challenge Restrictions
An assumed constraint is a belief you have, based on past experiences, that limits your current and future experiences. In the book, this is also known as “elephant thinking.”
When a circus first receives a baby elephant, a chain is attached around its leg and secured to a large stake deep in the ground. The baby elephant will pull and pull and try to escape, but it won’t be strong enough to lift the peg or break the chain. The elephant learns this lesson and it becomes an assumed constraint. Years later, the elephant has grown and yet cannot escape. This 6-ton beast has learned from past experience that it cannot escape and therefore does not even attempt to do so. Circus handlers claim that a mature elephant could be restrained with a piece of rope once this lesson has been learned.
This lesson is quite obvious. There’s a quote that goes something like “Whether you think you can or you can’t, you’re probably right.”
3: Power Points
Steve initially believed that the only form of power that existed in the business world was the “Position of Power”; His manager had power over him and he had power over those under him. What he couldn’t understand were the other forms of power that surrounded him within his organization. The book identifies four other forms of power: knowledge, task, relationship, and personal, but surely there are more.
Let’s examine the structure of many of today’s organizations. Fifteen years ago, managers managed between 4 and 10 people and were therefore able to keep in touch with most events and operations that occurred in the workplace. But with organizations streamlining and teams empowering, managers now oversee literally hundreds of employees. These managers still have position power, but they lack any form of organizational power.
These people will generally have very little knowledge of how many specific projects work. Therefore, there is someone else who has the power of knowledge. They will also have little understanding of who the suppliers, distributors, and support staff are. So someone else will have the power of the relationship. The manager is also unlikely to know what needs to be done, in what order, and when. Therefore, someone else will have the power of the task.
Steve had to learn that even though he had position power, he still lacked many of the pieces needed to put the whole puzzle together. He had to work as part of a team and maximize the different powers each individual had to offer.
4: The continuum of development
Ken Blanchard has developed a continuum that he believes most people walk through each time they start a new initiative. I believe this continuum is true in both business and personal ventures. There are four stages on this continuum and each stage is factored by a level of competence and commitment. Ken goes further by stating that different types of support are required for each stage.
Instead of using an example from the book, let me use my own example of how to learn to play the guitar. Where do I start?
In D1. This stage is defined by a high level of commitment but a low level of competition. I hear someone playing the guitar around the campfire and I’m like, “I’m going to learn to do that.” I’m very excited and fired up and I’m going to buy a guitar. But then I sit down with my guitar and my chord book and immediately jump to:
D2. This stage is defined by low competition and low commitment. When I strum that first chord on the instrument all that comes out is noise. There is no music there. So I try again with the same results. Playing the guitar is going to be much more difficult than I thought. I may never be good at this!
It is at this stage that many people give up and quit. This is when it’s important to have someone there who is highly directive and very supportive. I not only need someone who can teach me how to play the guitar, but someone who will motivate me to keep going. In the D1 stage, I didn’t need anyone to motivate me (I had enough motivation on my own), but it may have helped to have strong leadership. It would have been nice to know what to expect and to know which chord was easiest to start with.
If I’m able to hang in there and follow my lessons, I’ll move on to D3. At this stage I will have risen to a moderate level of competence and have a variable level of commitment. There will be days when I can see myself playing the guitar in front of an engrossed campfire audience, but other days I’ll realize that I’m still not as good as the person I heard playing last summer. Maybe I’m not cut out to play the guitar and maybe I should focus on another goal?
At this stage I won’t need as much direction. I’ll be good enough on the guitar to be able to teach myself most things, but I’ll need a lot of support. Someone has to convince me that I’m not that far from the light at the end of the tunnel. I just need to hold on and the rewards will come soon.
If I can hold out, I’ll move on to D4. I will have a high level of competence and a high level of commitment. I’ll learn new songs on my own, easier than I’ve ever learned them before and as soon as the sun goes down people will ask me to get out my guitar to play a song. I will need very little direction or support training and will be able to provide that training to someone else.
5: The Power of Collaboration and “I Need”
Steve needed to stop making excuses, to identify what points of power he had, where he lacked, and where he was in Continual Development. From there he was able to assess his needs and admit them to those around him. Steve recognized that he was at the D2 level of account management. He needed a lot of direction AND support. By admitting these needs to his manager and his team, he found that everyone was more than willing to help. They were all working towards the same goal and they all wanted to succeed. Steve simply needed to pitch in and fill in the gaps for his needs.
Self Leadership and the One Minute Manager is a quick and fun read with some moving lessons that can help people in many aspects of their lives. In a nutshell, Blanchard states that self-leaders “defy assumed limitations. Celebrate their points of power. And collaborate for success” and that a “leader is anyone who can give you the support and direction you need to achieve your goal.”