One Minute Manager

by Ken Blanchard

Mission Possible



Once there was a time in business when you could experience a change and then return to a period of relative stability. That era was followed by one in which, as soon as you got one change handled, you had to get ready for another. Nowadays, the changes are occurring rapid-fire. In the heat of this chaos, it's hard for people to maintain perspective.

Constant change is a way of life in business. In fact, to stay competitive today, you have to simultaneously manage the present and the future.

Why? Because focusing on either dimension while ignoring the other is a formula for failure. If you don't organize your company today to make decisions faster and to move closer to the customer, you're likely to lose your present market to a quicker competitor. However, if your fascination with what you already have precludes you from creating what you don't have, you're likely to end up as an accident on the highway to the future. A balance must be struck between continuity and innovation.

A conceptual model that reflects the need to work on the present and the future of your organization at the same time is the S-shaped Sigmoid curve shown in Figure 1.

This model describes the natural development of things. Some call it a learning curve; people start to learn through trial and error, develop confidence and achieve mastery. But unless they continue to renew themselves, they become bored and complacent, and performance drops off.

In terms of organizational effectiveness, looking at everything in terms of the curve could prove depressing: Leaders would study where they are on the curve and predict when decline will take place. Organizational life would consist of little more than waiting for the slide to begin and then trying to turn it around.

The curve experience may be compared to riding a roller coaster. In the beginning as the car goes up, the climb is steep and slow, and everyone enjoys the ride. As it approaches the top, the whole world opens up, and people smile and enjoy what seems to be a mountain-top experience. Then suddenly it plunges over the crest and hurtles downward-and the screaming begins.

Many companies are experiencing the down side of that roller-coaster ride today. Having achieved mastery in their industry, they jubilantly enjoyed success-only to suddenly find themselves frantically fighting with the controls as a sudden decline in market share or customer loyalty drops them off a cliff. Their moment of peak success proved merely to be the prelude to their plunge into obscurity.

Once you have under-stood the Sigmoid nature of development, you will realize that you need not wait until a crisis occurs to begin to renew yourself or your organization. Figure 2 shows you how this might look.

A study of the typical development curve shows that there is a wisdom in anticipating the drop-off before it begins to occur. The point on the first curve designated as "a" is the "observation point." It is the stage at which a different plan needs to be put into effect. It represents the best time to step back, contemplate your organization's progress on the curve and consider launching a new one. By point "b," the slide has already begun. At point "c," it's too late.

Whereas, in the past, organizations concentrated only on what they were doing at the time, today's condition of constant change requires that they pay attention not only to improving their present process (i.e., maintaining the upward thrust of the first curve) but also designing for the unseen future ahead (i.e., beginning a second curve). This brings us to our definition of a world-class organization: An organization that is working effectively, not just on one curve or the other, but on both at the same time, and learning from both.

It will take time for the second curve to become established and the first curve to wane. As a consequence, both curves need to coexist in the same time and space. Living between these curves or waves presents today's leaders with an interesting set of challenges. Chief among these are the need to:
Keep the first curve alive long enough for the second curve to firmly establish itself.
Develop the perspective and discipline necessary to allow funds to be siphoned away from the curve they currently are leading (the first curve) to one that they may not be leading (the second curve).
Be able to live with and manage the confusion and tension that results from having both curves operating simultaneously.

© 1996 by Blanchard Management Report, Blanchard Training and Development Inc. Telephone (800) 728-6000, ext. 5201, or fax (619) 743-5030.