Kenneth Blanchard, Ph.D. in Administration and Management is the writer of famous book "One Minute manager builds high performing teams". The book is regarded as an allegory and a simple compilation of what many wise people have taught us and what we have learned ourselves. According to Dr. Ken Blanchard, there are four states of development (Orientation, Dissatisfaction, Integration, and Production) in which all groups move through and reveal how a manager can help any group become fully effective and high performance teams.
A team is a group of people with a common focus. A common problem is putting a team together, giving them a task, and waiting for the good results. That won''t work. People have to have the right skills, knowledge, information, tools, and attitude to perform. That includes experience with working together on teams. The book points out that this is to be expected, and gives you step-by-step guidance in how to assist new teams to be effective towards the world beating performance that we all crave. The author has successfully conveyed the current thinking of complex interacting areas of Group dynamics, teamwork and leadership styles to its readers.
Although, groups tend to start in a high-energy, high motivation but low skills and understanding mode of operation and in this stage, directive leadership is responsible to provide the necessary structure to move forward. Understanding something of ''group dynamics'' is an area of knowledge and skills which is highly developed in effective teams. Allocating time and energy to understanding and managing relationships is an important investment.
The term "group dynamics" is new, but the ideas which it represents are, as developments in the social sciences go, relatively old. As a matter of fact, the relevant knowledge in this area has been the concern, often explicitly, of most scholars and researchers in sociology, anthropology, and social psychology. Modern sociology, since its inceptions, has concerned itself with the processes by which individuals are compelled or induced to conform to the customs of the group. It is not an exaggeration to say that sociology is the study of the ways in which social conformity and social solidarity are achieved and maintained. So conceived, sociology has been investigating "group dynamics" almost from its beginnings. While psychology came upon the group dynamics scene somewhat later, it has made important contributions to the subject during the past thirty years.
A collaborating leadership style that allows control to be shared and facilitates the surfacing of disagreements is critical to the group''s continued growth. According to David C. McClelland, top manager of a company must possess a high need for power - that is, a concern for influencing people. In fact, their need for power has to be greater than their need to be liked. He categorizes the managers as (1) The institutional manager, high in power motivation, low in affiliation motivation, and high in inhibition; (2) the affiliate managers, the need for affiliation is higher than the need for power; and (3) personal-power managers, the need for power is higher than the need for affiliation but with a low inhibition score. The scores for each kind of manager are based on sense of responsibility, organizational clarity and team spirit.
A Manager''s main responsibility is to get positive results but even with all the management training programs and "expert" advice available, effective leadership still eludes many people and organizations. Coercive leaders demand immediate compliance. Authoritative leaders mobilize people toward a vision. Affiliate leaders create emotional bonds and harmony. Leaders are advised to inspire a vision, empower their followers, and not mistake management for leadership--all in an attempt to build more effective social structures. This focus on effectiveness can lead to a producentation that may in fact undermine the development of organizations.
While analyzing author''s view, one comes to know that a deepened understanding of effective leadership is built on relationships, and that the quality of relationships reflects the quality of leadership. Relational leadership is introduced as a forum for enhancing effective leadership. The approach is centered on interpersonal relationships - a technique called intentional forgiveness or avoiding conflicts designed to restore meaningful relationships necessary in the context of effective leadership. By adeptly avoiding conflict with coworkers, some executives eventually wreak organizational havoc. And it''s their very adeptness that''s the problem.
The effective team leader is instrumental in establishing a set of values from which standards of performance, acceptable methods and member behavior emerge in a consistent way. The team leader is in a crucial listening role and one of communicating between the organization and the rest of the team. An important factor in the link man role is that of helping team members understand expectations held by the organization concerning the team''s goals as leadership not as something residing in the individual, but as a way of behaving derived from the leader''s relationship with others.
A team leader makes sure that team members experience opportunities for achievement through personal growth. This requires special skills from the team leader, especially in coaching (identifying performance-related and development needs, and helping team members identify means of satisfying them). Continuous learning process of leadership and workers is an important factor. It''s a well proven fact that learning is a coercive process that requires blood, sweat, tears, and a certain level of anxiety to achieve the desired effect. For any organization, the employees having learning desires are the assets for that organization. Educating / Counseling skills to deal with performance related problems are another crucial skill area. The leader is not endowed with mystical power, and he is not independent of the group of which he is a part. Effective leadership is often considered to be one of the best solutions for many social problems and the call for effective leadership can be heard in a variety of districts of our society.
Never before has the concept of teamwork been more important to the functioning of successful organizations. Most managers spend over half their time working with a team, and the One Minute Manager''s practical advice shows how any team can work better and more effectively. As our world grows more interconnected and complex, effective leadership may become a holding environment for increased meaning and relational connection, serving to enhance organizational confidence and reduce chaos to manageable levels.
Conclusion
The structure and style of the book is simple to read and flows so logically that it is easy to understand. The conversational style of the book is written with regard to business projects and the key points and informative charts (though drawn from right to left, somewhat odd for Western audience) convey the message well for such contexts. Readers and Management trainees can learn and integrate new concepts more effectively, as they learn how the pieces all fit together and can quickly get a sense of what they need to do to effectively contribute to the tasks, which inevitably include the processes that the group uses to get things done.