Three Sixty-Second Rituals Worth More Than Ten Management Consultants
Ken Blanchard published The One Minute Manager in 1982 with Spencer Johnson. A short book, written as a parable, that remains the most useful read for a transition manager taking over a demobilized site. By Mounir Telkass, founder of MT-Transition.
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Ken Blanchard published The One Minute Manager with Spencer Johnson in 1982. A short book (under 100 pages) written as a parable. A young man sets out in search of the best manager in the world and eventually finds one. The book is nothing more than the description of what that manager does, every single day.
Fifteen million copies later, it is one of the best-selling reads in management literature, and one of the most misread. Many remember only the “fast-food management” angle. That misses the point entirely.
What Blanchard managed to extract from the practice of an excellent manager, and what no one before him had articulated with this clarity: three one-minute rituals that, repeated daily, transform a team within a few weeks. No reorganization. No coaching. No tools. Just three short managerial gestures, delivered at the right moment.
From the book, three rituals to set in motion from the first week of a transition assignment.
The One Minute Goal
Everything starts with the goal. Not the manager’s own goal. The employee’s.
Blanchard’s idea holds in one line: an employee who does not know exactly what is expected of them can be neither motivated, nor fairly evaluated, nor fairly corrected. And in nine organizations out of ten, goals are vague, verbal, never reviewed. The employee has a rough idea. Their manager has another. No one will ever admit the two don’t line up.
Blanchard’s rule: each goal is written in under 250 words, on a single page. The employee can read it in under a minute. It is reviewed once a month, face to face. The employee keeps it on them or in their desk drawer. Five to six goals per employee, no more. Everything else is secondary.
On the ground, this is the invisible foundation of any site turnaround. Before any action plan, before any improvement initiative, ask each of the direct reports to put their 5 priority goals in writing. Compare with what leadership believes it asked for. The gap is almost always striking. This exercise, done in week one, saves two months: a reflex close to what a transition industrial director applies from day one on the job.
The One Minute Praising
Blanchard’s most powerful lever, and the most systematically underused in France, where managerial culture tends toward silence when things work and criticism when they grind.
The one minute praising has nothing to do with flattery. It is a very precise routine: the manager catches the employee doing something right, without waiting for the annual review. They tell them exactly what they did well: not “good job,” but a precise behavior. They tell them why it matters for the team and for the company. They leave a short silence, then encourage them to keep going.
The whole thing takes less than a minute. And it changes everything. Why? Because most employees work in a fog of feedback. They don’t really know what’s done well. When they’re told, precisely, they correct course and repeat the behavior. This is behavioral pedagogy, not flattery.
On a demobilized site, this is the first weapon to deploy within the first 30 days. Daily floor walks, spotting invisible virtuous behaviors, precise and public praise whenever possible. The engagement curve shifts within 6 weeks: a challenge well known to any industrial HR director facing a degraded social climate.
The One Minute Reprimand
The most misunderstood tool in the book, and the most important for a transition manager.
When an employee does something clearly wrong, Blanchard rejects both the old-school reprimand (humiliation, authority, distance) and soft management (turning a blind eye, hoping it passes). He proposes a precise protocol: address it immediately, state exactly what the employee did wrong, factually, without detour, say how it makes you feel about it, leave a short silence, then (the key to the model) close by reaffirming the person’s worth.
The principle: separate the behavior from the person. You correct the action, you protect the relationship. The person leaves the conversation more engaged, not broken.
This is the posture that makes the difference between an industrial director who restores authority on a demobilized site and a leader who gets hated. Reprimand fast, factually, without aggression, closing on trust. Repeated over 90 days, this protocol single-handedly rebuilds a site’s managerial backbone.
On a Demobilized Site: 90 Days
A French automotive equipment supplier’s site, 220 people. Social climate strained for two years. Previous director left, taking a quarter of the management team with him. Absenteeism at 11%. Recurring delivery delays. The group sends in a transition director for 9 months.
Month 1: One Minute Goals. The industrial director asks his 6 direct reports to each put in writing, on one page, the 5 priorities they think they have. He does the same exercise himself. The confrontation is striking: 3 out of 6 direct reports have a completely different reading of their priorities. Within two weeks, written alignment.
Months 1 to 3: One Minute Praisings. A 90-minute floor walk every morning. Within six weeks, word of mouth shifts: “the new guy notices when we do good work.”
Months 2 to 6: One Minute Reprimands. Immediate, precise, without aggression, always closed on trust. Three months later, several supervisors admit in review: “we know where the red lines are. Before, we didn’t.”
By the end of the 9 months: absenteeism down to 5.5%. Delays cut by three. No layoffs. Three one-minute rituals, done every day, for 270 days: the kind of result a site turnaround assignment aims for.
What to Remember
Without written, short, regularly reviewed goals, no team is aligned. Whatever the manager’s talent. The one-page sheet changes the game within two weeks.
The one minute praising is the most effective behavioral pedagogy known. Precise, immediate, public if possible. Underused on most French sites.
The one minute reprimand separates the behavior from the person. You correct the action, you protect the relationship. This is what restores healthy authority without breaking people.
The book is 90 pages long. Its promise, modest: three gestures to perform every day. Its reach, underestimated: it is probably the most effective managerial foundation available to a transition manager taking over a site that has lost its rhythm.
Three gestures, done every day, for three months: this is probably the most effective managerial foundation available to a transition manager taking over a site that has lost its rhythm.
Mounir Telkass: MT-Transition, industrial transition management firm.
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