Building trusting relationships is one of the most important elements of being an effective leader. The good news is that turning around a low-trust environment isn’t rocket science. It starts with performance evaluation. If you are evaluating your people’s performance with a judgmental mindset, I guarantee you are eroding trust. But if you partner with […]
Don’t Just Sit There, Say Something!
Managers typically react to the performance of their direct reports with one of three responses: positive, negative, or no response at all. It isn’t hard to guess which one works best for increasing good performance—the positive response. A person who does something correctly and receives a positive response will most likely continue to perform using […]
Re-Direct the Behavior, Not the Person
As a manager—or a parent, coach, or any other kind of leader—you want to get rid of bad behavior but keep the good person. To do this, you must give feedback frequently—this goes for catching people doing things right as well as noticing mistakes or poor performance. It makes no sense for a manager to […]
A Positive Approach to Re-Direction
One of the things people seem to be most interested in about The New One Minute Manager® is the modern version of the Third Secret: One Minute Re-Directs. Spencer Johnson and I realized that One Minute Reprimands worked years ago when you needed to change behavior in a command-and-control management environment, but today working side […]
Catch People Doing Something Right
I believe the key to developing employees and building a great organization is to wander around and catch people doing things right. This is a powerful management concept that isn’t used as often as it should be. Unfortunately, most leaders tend to focus on the things that are being done wrong so they can fix […]
Bringing Out the Magnificence in Your People
Last week I had the chance to spend time with my old friend John Calipari, coach of the University of Kentucky basketball team. I met “Coach Cal” more than 35 years ago at the University of Massachusetts when he was on the coaching staff and I was a faculty member. Through the years, our careers […]
Don’t Be a One Dimensional Leader—Adjust Your Style to the Task
HarperCollins just released our revised edition of Leadership and the One Minute Manager. Much has changed since the original book was published nearly 30 years ago—workforces are more diverse, workplaces are less centralized, and technology has revolutionized business communications. Surprisingly, much has remained the same, especially when it comes to managing people. Today more than ever […]