One Minute Manager is a book that you could finish in one session! the book is a story-like where a young man is meeting the One Minute Manager, his reports and coworkers to understand the secrets of the One Minute Manager efficiency.
According to the book, One Minute Goals, One Minute Praisings and one Minute Reprimands is all you need to be an effective manager. The main idea of the 3 techniques is to give straight forward directions and feedback in one minute only.
It all starts with One Minute Goals. The goal is no more 250 words, fits on one paper and requires only a minute to read
As the employee start with the implementation, the manager should stay close to give One Minute Praising as the employee does something right! According to the author, support and enthusiasm is what employees need in their new assignments. Again, it should not take more than one minute and it should be very soon, straight-forward . The manager illustrate what was done right and how he feels about it. The One Minute Praising should end up with encouragement and shaking hand. With time employees become familiar with One Minute Praising and continue to praise themselves every while and then.
Overall, the book is really very interesting and worth reading. The illustrated techniques look very practical and are illustrated in a simple and clear language.
However, Personally I am not sure if these techniques are really valid for all cultures, backgrounds, education levels and personalities. I believe the assumption that doing these techniques work perfectly with all type of employees is very optimistic.
Also, though the techniques look practical, I believe it would have been great if they were supported by statistics and real life examples.
Finally, I do highly recommend reading this book as it is really light, straight to the point and interesting.
Ala' Yasin Abuhijleh 