The New One Minute Manager

The first of the Three Secrets is the One Minute Goal: a practice in which the Manager helps an employee who is learning a new task or responsibility by creating a target to work towards in a short, simple paragraph or two. The employee and the Manager then periodically reference these targets to collaboratively assess whether things are on track. Teresa explains the process more thoroughly to the young man:

[I]nstead of setting our goals for us, he listens to our input and works side-by-side with us to develop them. After we agree on our most important goals, each is described on one page. He feels that a goal and its performance standard—what needs to be done and by what due date—should take no more than a paragraph or two to express, so it can be read and reviewed in about a minute. Once we’ve written the goals out concisely, it’s easy to look at them often and stay focused on what’s important (19).

The key is to help the learning employee identify essential steps towards accomplishing a major goal and to articulate it in a concise manner. After teaching his workers how and why to set One Minute Goals, the Manager eventually reduces his role in the process, trusting that each employee can set their own goals and do the same for others, creating a chain of help and goal-setting for a winning culture.