A review by t_shaffner
The New One Minute Manager by Kenneth H. Blanchard, Spencer Johnson

3.0

My sense of this book was mixed. On the one hand I think it has some really good advice and thoughts about managing. Giving feedback early and often, limiting the size of goals in discussions, giving positive reinforcement of good work when it's recognized, separating the work involved from the worth of a person when giving feedback and affirming the worth after corrections, these kinds of things are just useful things to hear even if it's not for the first time.

At the same time, the packaging of this advice was incredibly annoying. The story was written up as one about a young man interviewing a particular manager and his team, and their perpetually praising the manager got quite annoying. Similarly, the framework of the "one minute" quickly felt less like good advice and more like just a bad trope to be able to have a particular title. The rotating from person to person in the interviews also just felt like a complete waste of time; the book could probably have been cut by 10-20% or more if this was stripped and been more effective for it.

The end result being, the advice was useful enough to hear and good but prepare yourself for some real annoyance in the reading/listening experience.