High Five (The One Minute Manager) [Paperback]

Ken Blanchard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 3, 2001 | Series: The One Minute Manager

The team-building book for the 21st Century. The author of One Minute Manager proves, with a parable, the guiding notion that "none of us is as smart as all of us". Ken Blanchard, author of The One Minute Manager, and his co-authors, do here for teamwork what Gung Ho! does for motivation and Raving Fans for Customer Service. Using the entertaining and easily-digested parable style that made those books so successful, Blanchard et al have a simple but very powerful message to convey. They disclose four management secrets and highlight the key principles of "repeated reward and repetition". The story is about Alan, who gets fired, despite being highly successful, because of his lone wolf mentality. He breaks through his initial resistance to new ways of working by spending some of the new-found time on his hands coaching his son's hockey team, and in the process learns all about the power of teamwork. An inspirational guide to the art of working successfully together (and the power that derives from being part of a team), this is an invaluable read for anyone who has to work with other people, from one of the world's most successful business authors.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Organizational guru Ken Blanchard has long had a knack for writing management books that are easy and fun to read (The One Minute Manager, plus 11 other bestsellers). Now, in his latest, he becomes (with the help of three coauthors) something of a novelist, relating the saga of the Riverbend Warriors, a come-from-behind boys' hockey team, to teach a broader lesson about the importance of, and the key dynamics behind, good teamwork in organizations of every sort.

High Five! starts with otherwise exemplary exec Alan Foster losing his job because--you guessed it--he isn't a team player. Unemployed, bored, and demoralized, he decides to coach his fifth-grade son's failing hockey team into better shape. But it's not until he enlists the help of Miss Weatherby, an aging African-American retired teacher and champion girls' basketball coach that things really start to turn around. As we follow the struggle of the increasingly well-oiled Warriors machine as they drill, strategize, and bond their way through the season, we learn some of the fundamental lessons of what makes good teams--and good team-building by coaches and managers. Among them are "repeated reward and repetition," the guiding notion that "none of us is as smart as all of us," and four key traits that shall here remain undisclosed (hint: their acronym spells PUCK).

As fiction goes, don't expect high literature here. But to its credit, the book's ending isn't 100 percent happy, either. If you worry that the aged but whip-smart Weatherby might die at the end, don't--instead, she becomes perhaps the world's first octogenarian, black female management consultant. As books on teamwork go, Blanchard's latest is on the lighter side, but it still packs a fair share of commonsense wisdom when it comes to putting together, motivating, and sustaining work teams worthy of the Stanley Cup. And it may even have inaugurated a new fiction genre: the organizational tearjerker. --Timothy Murphy --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

Two best-selling business authors on teamwork.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harpercollins Pb (December 3, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007108222
• ISBN-13: 978-0007108220
• Product Dimensions: 7.6 x 5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (39 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #342,818 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Few people have influenced the day-to-day management of people and companies more than Ken Blanchard. A prominent, sought-after author, speaker, and business consultant, Dr. Blanchard is universally characterized by his friends, colleagues, and clients as one of the most insightful, powerful, and compassionate individuals in business today. Ken is one of the most influential leadership experts in the world and is respected for his years of groundbreaking work in the fields of leadership and management.

Dr. Ken Blanchard is the cofounder and Chief Spiritual Officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies, an international management training and consulting firm that he and his wife, Margie Blanchard, began in 1979 in San Diego, California. In addition to being a renowned speaker and consultant, Ken also spends time as a visiting lecturer at his alma mater, Cornell University, where he is a trustee emeritus of the Board of Trustees.

Ken has received many awards and honors for his contributions in the fields of management, leadership, and speaking. The National Speakers Association awarded him its highest honor, the "Council of Peers Award of Excellence." He was inducted into the HRD Hall of Fame by Training magazine and Lakewood Conferences, and he received the Golden Gavel Award from Toastmasters International. Ken also received The Thought Leadership Award for continued support of work-related learning and performance by ISA--The Association of Learning Providers. Ken has been inducted into Amazon's Hall of Fame as one of the top 25 best-selling authors of all time. The business school at Grand Canyon University bears his name. In addition, Ken teaches students in the Master of Science in Executive Leadership Program at the University of San Diego.

Born in New Jersey and raised in New York, Ken received a master's degree from Colgate University, and a bachelor's and PhD from Cornell University. An avid golfer, Ken belongs to the Loch Lomond Golf Club in Scotland.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Advice for Adult Coachs of Children's Sports Teams!, December 30, 2000

By 

Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!" (Thanks for Providing My Reviews over 109,000 Helpful Votes Globally) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: High Five! The Magic of Working Together (Hardcover)

I found this book to be totally delightful as a model for how to be a better adult coach of a children's team. For many years, I have recommended that all those who want to learn how to be better leaders and managers begin by taking on these coaching chores. This is the first book I have ever seen that successfully captures the important principles of coaching these teams. This book deserves many more than five stars for that accomplishment!

The benefits of that are many. First, the players will get a role model of how to cooperate in order to be more effective. Second, the coaches will learn how to be better leaders, and will be able to use that skill in other areas of their lives. Third, the parents will learn what to encourage their children to do in order to get the most from the team experience, and this will bring parents and their children closer together.

The book's fable boils down to four key principles:

(1) The team needs a shared purpose, values and goals.

(2) Skills need to be developed individually that enhance the team's effectiveness.

(3) Enhance team effectiveness by integrating the individual skills properly.

(4) Repeatedly reward and recognize individuals for taking actions that enhance team effectiveness.

A weakness of the fable is that it doesn't give enough attention to how to achieve the first principle for the typical team. My suggestion is that you poll your players before the first practice to find out what their purposes, goals, and values are. Then hold a meeting to discuss what you learned, and build a consensus from there. My experience has been that 99 percent of the players want to have fun, want to improve, and win at least a few games. Be sure to find out what they think is "fun" because it's often different from what the coaches would assume. Fun usually turns out to be loosely supervised scrimmaging time. When that was the case, I ran a brief such scrimmage at the end of every practice until the last player was picked up by her or his parents.

The other place where I would like to make a suggestion is about recognition. I was a coach for 14 years, and I found that giving individual awards to every player for every game worked very well. Everybody does something right at least once in a game. I would make a note of it, describe the reasons for each award, and hand out a little token at the end of each game for each such award. At the end of the season, the player could turn in these tokens for other forms of recognition. I also shouted out the person's name and award when they won one. That way, each child could be a winner every time we played, even if the team lost. And we did not lose very often. The players loved to win those awards for passing, defense, and offense. Scoring accounted for well less than 10 percent of the awards in my experience.

This book has one of the best exercises I have ever seen for convincing people to work on team skills. You divide the players into the "best" math students and the least good ones. Then you teach the least good ones how to cooperate to win an addition game. You let the "best" math students struggle on their own. The least good ones will win almost every time. That will make quite an impression on the players about the importance of teamwork.

The book is probably intended to encourage teamwork on the job, as well. That translation will be harder for most to make. The work environment is mentioned relatively little in the book. Also, how is the sense of shared purpose, values and goals supposed to emerge? You may know how to do that from your own experience and reading other books, but most people reading this book will be at sea. Also, how do you decide which skills the team needs to work on? That is also something you may already know how to do, but most people do not. And the book doesn't explain. I'm sure you see the problem.

I do think that the book will be somewhat effective in making those who focus on their individual work performance rather than the company performance think twice. The analogy (not used in the book) that may help is of Michael Jordan. As a young player, he focused on his own statistics and the Bulls did not win championships. Later, he worked on making the other players better, and the Bulls won all the time. Phil Jackson, as coach, played an important role in that transition. That example will be known to most basketball fans.

Let me compliment the authors on their fable. I have read their other books, and this one is both more interesting and more heartwarming than the others.

After you have finished reading this book and applying its lessons to a coaching situation with youngsters, I suggest that you read "The Goal" and "The Fifth Discipline" to get ideas about how shared purposes, goals, and values can be developed in the workplace. These books will also give you many ideas about the skills that a business team needs in order to be more effective.

By the way, if one of your children or grandchildren is about to start a sport where you will not be coaching, I suggest you give a copy of this book to the coach and ask how you can help the team. He or she will undoubtedly get the message.

May your life be filled with high fives!

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Easy-to-read primer on teamwork, January 19, 2001

By 

Michael P. Mesaros - See all my reviews

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This review is from: High Five! The Magic of Working Together (Hardcover)

I have to admit, I'm a bit of a sucker for these "Blanchard/Bowles/Johnson/etc" books. The story lines are hokey and the concepts elementary, however they can usually be read in one sitting and make great airplane books. Besides, I don't think any aspect of management is that complicated. You really just need to (1)understand the basic principles and (2)apply them religiously. And this is where I think Blanchard's formula is successful. The story keeps the book moving along, and at the same time provides a mental "hook" for remembering the priciples taught. I probably won't remember most of the management books I read six months later, but chances are good that I'll remember this dumb story about a grade-five hockey team.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Gung Ho! for High Five, January 1, 2001

By 

Mark Watson (Jonesboro, AR USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: High Five! The Magic of Working Together (Hardcover)

A great book for not only the blue collar workers but the ivory tower group (especially) as well. Blanchard and Company again take a complicated subject such as teamwork and make it so simple by putting it in a parable format. Once the reader sees how these timeless principles apply to a 5th grade hockey team, Alan applies the same principles in his work life.

This would be a great read for our kid's coaches too!