By Andreas Pettersson, Founder, Leaders ADAPT
The One Minute Manager is the book most new managers are handed first, and the one most experienced managers are embarrassed to admit they still use. It is a parable, it is short, and three of its ideas are correct enough that I built two of my own protocols on top of them.
This page is a summary without the parable, an honest account of what holds up in 2026, and the parts I replace in my own management system.
I run Leaders ADAPT and wrote the 5-Minute Leader. The book's three secrets map directly onto clear expectations, micro-feedback and SBED in the 1:1 Protocol, which is the compliment. The gaps it leaves are the reason I wrote the rest.
Quick answer: The One Minute Manager, by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson, teaches three habits. One Minute Goals: each goal written on one page the employee can read in a minute. One Minute Praisings: catch people doing something right and say so immediately. One Minute Reprimands, renamed Re-Directs in 2015: correct right away, then reaffirm the person. All three still work. What the book lacks is the weekly structure.
What the book is
The One Minute Manager is a 1982 management parable by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson in which a young man visits a manager who runs his team with three short practices, goals, praisings and reprimands, each of which takes about a minute. It was revised in 2015 as The New One Minute Manager, and the revision is the one to buy.
The parable is thin and the characters are furniture. Read it in an hour, keep the three practices, and do not try to quote the dialogue to your team.
The three secrets, in plain terms
| Secret | What the book says | What it is really describing |
|---|---|---|
| One Minute Goals | Agree each goal, write it in a few sentences on one page, read it in a minute, check behavior against it | A clear expectation with a definition of done the employee can self check |
| One Minute Praisings | Catch people doing something right, praise immediately and specifically, pause, encourage more | Micro-feedback, the positive half |
| One Minute Reprimands, now Re-Directs | Correct immediately, name the behavior, say how you feel, then reaffirm the person's value | Micro-feedback, the corrective half, with the relationship kept intact |
The thing the three secrets share is more important than any one of them. Short, specific, immediate. That triad is what most managers get wrong in the opposite direction: long, vague and saved for the review. Gallup's performance review research found that only 14 percent of employees strongly agree their reviews inspire them to improve, and the book's answer to that number is forty years old and still right.
Boomerang check: does your work stay delegated, or does it come back?
Three questions, scored to the protocol that fixes the leak. The 5-Minute Leader is the four protocols, Delegation, 1:1, Accountability and Rhythm, written down so a manager can run them in about five minutes a day, so tasks stop boomeranging back half done.
Get the 5-Minute Leader or see what is inside the 5-Minute Leader.
What holds up
One Minute Goals hold up completely. In the Delegation Protocol I teach, every handover ends with a definition of done the person repeats back, and a goal that fits on a page is the same idea. The gap the book leaves is the authority level: the page says what, and it should also say how much the person can decide alone. I use three levels, decide and tell me, propose and I decide, do exactly this, and the level goes on the page next to the goal.
One Minute Praisings hold up, with one correction. The book has the manager praise early and often while the person is learning. That is right. What managers take from it is that praise is a mood, "great job, keep it up", and that version is worthless. The praising only works when it names the behavior and the effect. "You briefed sales before the first customer call came in, so nobody was surprised" is a praising. "Nice work this week" is noise.
The Re-Direct holds up better than the Reprimand did. The 2015 version has the manager check the goal with the employee before correcting, which catches the case where the goal was never clear, and that case is most of them. It also keeps the ending, where the manager reaffirms the person after correcting the behavior. The Accountability Protocol I teach uses the same shape, Warm but Firm, open with intent, name the behavior and the change, close with what they need from you.
What to replace
The book presents each practice as an event. A goal is set, a praising is given, a reprimand happens. There is no calendar. And the absence of a calendar is why managers who love the book still do not do what it says: nothing in it tells them when.
The fix is the one on one. Every goal from the book lives in the 1:1 as the person's top three priorities, checked weekly. Every praising and re-direct that did not happen in the moment gets a slot in the first forty percent of the meeting, which in the 1:1 Protocol belongs to the employee's agenda, and the second forty percent, which is the manager's. The one on one meetings page has the full structure, and the book becomes something you run rather than something you read.
The book also has nothing on delegation, which is where most managers' time actually goes. It assumes the manager knows what to hand over and how. The three minute handover, outcome, authority level, repeat back, is the piece I add, and the how to delegate page covers it.
And it has nothing on the person who does not respond. The Re-Direct assumes one correction works. For the person it does not work on, the book stops, and the Accountability Protocol starts: the pattern conversation, the three kinds of pushback and the point at which a correction becomes a document.
The One Minute Manager versus a five minute system
The honest comparison is not minute against minute. It is event against rhythm.
| The One Minute Manager | A daily and weekly rhythm | |
|---|---|---|
| Goals | Written once, read in a minute | Written once, checked every week in the 1:1 |
| Praise | When you catch it | When you catch it, plus a standing slot for what you missed |
| Correction | Immediately, one off | Within 24 hours, and the 24/48 Rule says when it is too late |
| Delegation | Not covered | Three minute handover with authority level |
| Meetings | Not covered | 15 minute stand up, weekly meeting, weekly 1:1 |
| The person who does not change | Not covered | Warm but Firm, then the pattern conversation, then the document |
The book is the right first hour. The rhythm is what you do with the other hours, and the 5 minute manager page is the bridge between them.
The system the three secrets fit inside
The One Minute Manager gives you three good moves and no calendar. The 5-Minute Leader is the calendar. I wrote it after scaling a company to more than 150 people, when my managers had the book's instincts and none of its moves were happening on any given Tuesday. Four protocols, Delegation, 1:1, Accountability and Rhythm, each run in about five minutes a day, so goals get checked, praise gets said and work that was handed over stays handed over.
The 1:1 Protocol is where the goals and the praisings go, with the 40/40/20 structure and the SBED format that makes a re-direct land in four sentences. The Delegation Protocol is the chapter the book never wrote.
There is one question in the 1:1 Protocol, answered with a number from one to ten, that tells you which of your people needs the praising this week before you have noticed anything.
The One Minute Manager FAQ
What are the three secrets of The One Minute Manager?
One Minute Goals, where each goal fits on a page that takes a minute to read. One Minute Praisings, where you catch someone doing something right and say so immediately and specifically. One Minute Reprimands, which the 2015 revision renamed One Minute Re-Directs, where you correct a mistake right away, say how you feel about it, then reaffirm the person. All three are short, specific and immediate.
Is The One Minute Manager still relevant?
The core is. Short goals written down, praise that is specific and immediate, correction that is quick and ends with the person intact. What has aged is the idea that each of these is a one off event. Today the same three moves work best inside a weekly 1:1 and a daily rhythm, where the goal is checked, the praise is routine and the correction never waits.
What changed in The New One Minute Manager?
The 2015 revision by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson kept the structure and changed the tone. The One Minute Reprimand became the One Minute Re-Direct, with the manager reviewing the goal together with the employee before correcting, and the manager is framed as working with people rather than over them. The goals and praisings sections stayed close to the original.
What is a One Minute Goal?
A goal written in a few sentences on a single page, agreed between manager and employee, that both can read in about a minute. The point is that the employee can check their own behavior against it without waiting for the manager. In practice it is the same thing as a clear expectation: what done looks like, by when, with the authority level stated.
How do you give a One Minute Praising?
Immediately, in the moment you see the behavior. Say exactly what the person did right and what effect it had, pause so they feel it, and encourage them to do more of it. "You briefed sales before the first customer call came in, which is why nobody was surprised. Keep doing that." Specific and immediate is what makes it land. Praise a week later for an unnamed thing does nothing.
Who should read The One Minute Manager?
First time managers, because it takes an hour and gives three habits that most managers lack. Experienced managers can skip the parable and keep the principles. The book does not cover delegation, meetings, accountability conversations or what to do when someone is not responding to feedback, so it is a starting point rather than an operating system.
Keep the three secrets, add the calendar
Read the 2015 edition in an hour. Write one goal on one page for one person this week, with the authority level on it. Give one praising today that names the behavior and the effect. Then put a weekly 1:1 in the calendar, because the one minute manager without a calendar is a manager who agrees with the book and does not do it.
Which of the three secrets have you believed in for years and not done this month?
