I was at a conference this week and one of the many great speakers I heard was Ken Blanchard. For anyone who may not know who Ken Blanchard is, he is one of the premier leadership gurus and has decades of experience teaching and writing about leadership and how management tactics can impact employee performance.
Management of people is a learned skill and can have a great impact on how people perform within a work environment. Ken’s approach to leadership and management is to invest time in the development of employees. He believes that all employees strive to do their best and it is management’s responsibility to help them get there. In one of his bestselling books, The One Minute Manager
, Dr. Blanchard talks about those brief moments every day when managers can connect with employees and how those brief connections can make a big difference in how employees perform and work gets accomplished.
These are some things I learned or was reminded of by Ken Blanchard:
- As a college professor, Dr. Blanchard believes in giving his students the final exam the first day of class and then teaches them what they need to know to get an A on the exam. He believes this concept of helping others succeed should be applied in the business environment.
- It is the teacher, or manager’s, responsibility to help their students or employees achieve an A.
- If his students do not achieve an A, he believes he is not doing his job right.
- He believes in setting people up to succeed and not fail.
- Managers should ask employees what they need to succeed.
- Employees need to be coached, praised and corrected, when appropriate.
- A manager’s primary job is to encourage, coach and develop employees.
- It is the manager’s responsibility to find out what employees need and give them what they need to get an A.
- He spoke of an organization he works with that does quarterly reviews with their employees to review their goals, encourage them and keep them on track.
- Goals should change when the environment or market conditions change and employees should always be aware of changing conditions.
- Employees who do not achieve an “A” are either in the wrong job and need to be moved to a more appropriate position or need to be moved out of the organization.
Some great Ken Blanchard quotes:
- “In the past a leader was a boss. Today’s leaders must be partners with their people. They no longer can lead solely based on positional power”.
- “Too many leaders act as if the sheep, their people, are there for the benefit of the Sheppard, not that the Sheppard has responsibility for the sheep”.
- “I absolutely believe in the power of tithing and giving back. My own experience about all the blessings I’ve had in my life is that the more I give away the more that comes back. That is the way life works and that is the way energy works”.
Ken said he has a new book coming out that he co-wrote with the former president of Southwest Airlines. I can’t wait to read it as Southwest Airlines is one of the few airlines that seem to have things figured out. It will be interesting to see what fresh ideas these two great business minds will share with us.
photo by: Jose Kevo
