Ken Blanchard made his name with his "One Minute Manager" series.

Blanchard
management style is based on two four-category ...

Ken Blanchard made his name with his "One Minute Manager" series. Blanchard management
style is based on two four-category modes of analysis: Low competence, low commitment (D1);
low competence, high commitment (D2); high competence, low commitment (D3); high
competence, high commitment (D4. The second four-category mode is for leadership styles:
directing (S1), coaching (S2), supporting (S3), and delegating (S4).

The management theory of Ken Blanchard additionally demonstrates that different leadership
styles are needed for different business situations. Ken Blanchard proposes business solutions
based on using his categories and mixing and matching the appropriate leadership styles to solve
management problems.

1. Business orientation should fit leadership style.

2. Blanchard's gung ho theory focuses a lot on empowering employees in order to release their
strengths for the betterment of the business and its productivity.

3. Kenneth Blanchard and his company publishes books from other management authors, gives
web seminars on management and advertises seminars and company assessments.

Jump into action with Blanchard management information

Ken Blanchard is one of the gurus of business management. He is a writer and speaker on
management styles. His theory is highly influential in the business world.

Invest in Ken Blanchard management theory consulting

Having a consultant assess your company's business practices with the Ken Blanchard
management theory can empower your staff and strengthen the company's productivity.
Consultants can give you management solutions that are not obvious to you.

Train your company's leaders in Blanchard management techniques

Your are never too old to learn and you never want to go stale because you do not refine your
leadership skills. Training workshops or web seminars are good investments to keep your
managers up to speed in business management techniques.

https://www.pocketbook.co.uk/blog/2015/01/27/kenneth-blanchard-management-storyteller/

Posted on January 27, 2015 by Mike Clayton

Kenneth Blanchard: Management Storyteller

It was tempting to describe Ken Blanchard as a simplifier, because that’s what he has done
throughout his career; simplify the skills of management. But that is not the essence of what he
does. He starts by telling a story and it is that process that both cuts away extraneous theory and
also renders his ideas easy to access. Ken Blanchard has turned management theory into a
successful training business to a degree that no one else has achieved.

Short Biography

Kenneth Hartley Blanchard was born in New Jersey in 1931 and grew up in New York. He
attended Cornell and Colgate Universities, gaining a BA in Government and Philosophy, an MA
in Sociology and Counselling, and a PhD in Education Administration and Leadership, in 1967.
From there, he went to Ohio University to become an Assistant Dean. Here, he met collaborator,
Paul Hersey.

Hersey had been developing a strong model of leadership, based on his industrial experiences
before entering academia in 1966, incorporating ideas from researchers like Fiedler, and Blake
and Mouton. The pair worked together on a book, Management of Organisational Behaviour,
that was published in 1967 and is now in its tenth edition (2012). This book included a model,
then called ‘a lifecycle theory of leadership’ but now better known as Situational Leadership. It
was not the first situational theory of leadership (see the earlier Pocketblog article: ‘Situational
Leadership‘) but it rapidly became the best known.

In 1979, while a professor of organisational behaviour and leadership at the University of

Massachusetts, Amherst, he and Hersey agreed to split and Blanchard formed a company called
Blanchard Training and Development – that was later (1998) renamed as The Ken Blanchard
Companies and is today one of the most successful international businesses of its kind. In that
year too, he published his own model of Situational Leadership: Situational Leadership II.
The following year, he was introduced to a psychologist called Spencer Johnson, with whom he
rapidly collaborated to write a short book on management, in the form of a fable-like story. They
self-published ‘The One Minute Manager‘ in 1980, and it was subsequently published by
Morrow in 1982. It has become the kind of best-seller that truly justifies the title: the cover
simply proclaims ‘multi-million’.

This became the start of an industry with subsequent collaborations with different authors – the
first handful bearing the ‘One Minute Manger brand’ – appearing every few years. Most follow
the format of a younger manager seeking the wisdom of an older, more experienced teacher.

Notable contributions (and personal favourites mixed in) include:

Putting the One Minute Manager to Work (1983)

Leadership and the One Minute Manager (1985)

The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey (1989)

The One Minute Manager Builds High Performing Teams (1990)

Raving Fans : A Revolutionary Approach to Customer Service (1993)

Gung Ho!: How To Motivate People In Any Organization (1998)

Blanchard’s Contribution

Blanchard’s contribution has been to systematise the skills of management and to explain them
extremely clearly. Many British readers find the folksy fable style of his books not to their taste,
but the fact is that they use simple language and compelling acronyms to make management
techniques accessible and memorable.

The original One Minute Manager sets out just three simple tasks in management: one minute
goal setting, to clarify what I expect of you, one minute praisings, to recognise progress and
performance, and one minute reprimands, to show where you are going wrong.

Putting the One Minute Manager to Work extends this, looking at the management ABC of
Activators (what a manager must do to set you up to succeed), Behaviours (your performance)
and Consequences (how the manager responds to you with with support and feedback).

Leadership and the One Minute Manager introduces Blanchard’s own view of situational
leadership using the OMM format, which he later extended, in The One Minute Manager Builds
High Performing Teams to leading teams. This book creates a neat merger of the situational
leadership model with Bruce Tuckman’s model of group formation.

One of Blanchard’s most successful collaborations was with William Oncken Jr (and Hal
Burrows), in The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey. This presents a simple metaphor (the
Monkey) for the problems managers accept from their colleagues and team members. It is a
powerful articulation of the processes of good delegation and effective management of workload.

In the 1990s, Blanchard wrote four books with Sheldon Bowles, of which my favourites are
Gung Ho! and High Five! (2001 – now out of print – about team working). 2000’s Big
Bucks! (also out of print) is about making money. The exclamation mark in the four titles is
indicative of the amplified style of writing, but all were turned into successful training
programmes (not all of which persist, I think).

In summary…

There are many other books as well, some still available. Blanchard is a prodigious collaborator
and his company is hugely successful in training managers across the world. I don’t think he will
ever be seen as a great and innovative thinker, but without a doubt, he has a talent for tapping
into oher people’s ideas and making them highly accessible, from Paul Hersey down to more
recent collaborations with Don Shula (Everyone’s a Coach), Colleen Barrett from Southwest
Airlines (Lead with LUV), and Garry Ridge, president of WD-40 Company (Helping People
Win at Work).

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Hersey and Blanchard Model

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What is the 'Hersey and Blanchard Model'

The Hersey and Blanchard model is a situational leadership model which suggests that there is
no single optimal leadership style, and successful leaders adjust their styles based on "follower
maturity." Follower maturity is determined by the ability and confidence of the group they are
attempting to lead. The model proposes that leaders deal with varying levels of follower maturity
by adjusting their relative emphasis on task and relationship behaviors. According to the model,
this gives rise to four leadership styles -
Delegating Style: a low-task, low-relationship style, where the leader allows the group to take
responsibility for task decisions.

Participating Style: a low-task, high-relationship style that emphasizes shared ideas and
decisions.

Selling Style: a high-task, high-relationship style, in which the leader attempts to "sell" his ideas
to the group by explaining task directions in a persuasive manner.

Telling Style: a high-task, low-relationship style where the leader gives explicit directions and
supervises work closely.

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BREAKING DOWN 'Hersey and Blanchard Model'

Managers using the Hersey-Blanchard model must be able to select the leadership style that
matches the maturity of followers. For example, if follower maturity is high, the model suggests
a delegating style of leadership where the leader has to provide minimal guidance. By contrast, if
follower maturity is low, due to inexperience or unfamiliarity on the part of the followers, a
telling style could be more appropriate in order to ensure the group has clarity on their goals and
how they are expected to achieve them.

The model was developed in 1970s by professor and author Paul Hersey and leadership expert
Ken Blanchard, author of "The One Minute Manager."

Applications and Limitations of the Hersey-Blachard Model

This leadership method lets executives, managers, and other positions of authority take charge of
their followers based on the acumen, understanding, and context of the group. By taking into
consideration how the strengths, weaknesses, and awareness of the followers can affect
their performance and the outcomes of the project, leaders can apply an appropriate structure and
degree of control to achieve the desired result.

There are limitations to the model, which may be beyond the leader’s control. The position and
authority of the leader may be restricted by the operational chain-of-command or hierarchy for
an organization, which could force them to adopt rigid styles rather than adapt to follower
maturity. Furthermore, time constraints, a narrow field of options, and limits on available assets
can also force managers to act based on the circumstances they face, eliminating the possibility
of enacting strategies built around follower maturity.

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