The On-Time, On-Target Manager: How a "Last-Minute Manager" Conquered Procrastination [Hardcover]

Ken Blanchard (Author), Steve Gottry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 6, 2004

Ken Blanchard's phenomenal bestsellers, such as The One Minute Manager and Raving Fans, have made him a globally recognized business legend. Millions look to Blanchard for innovative approaches to management, leadership, customer service, and much more. Now, he has joined with noted business author Steve Gottry to explore one of the most common and insidious problems plaguing the workplace—procrastination.

The On-Time, On-Target Manager is the story of Bob, a typical middle manager who puts things off to the last minute. As a result, he misses deadlines because his lack of focus causes him to accomplish meaningless tasks before getting to the important things. Like many professionals, Bob rationalizes, justifies, and tries to explain. Luckily, Bob is sent to his company's CEO—which stands for "Chief Effectiveness Officer"—who helps him deal with the three negative side effects of procrastination: lateness, poor work quality, and stress to himself and others. Bob learns how to transform himself from a crisis-prone Last-Minute manager into a productive On-Time, On-Target manager.

With this engaging parable, Blanchard and Gottry offer practical strategies any professional can put into practice to improve his or her performance.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Procrastination is the focus of mega-selling One Minute Manager Ken Blanchard's latest business fable. Blanchard, and co-author Steve Gottry, tell the tale of "Manager Bob," the uber procrastinator, whose lateness, missed deadlines, and lack of priorities have put his job in jeopardy. And Bob is not alone. "If you study the personal and corporate crash and burns of this world, you'll discover that procrastinators move to the head of the class."

The authors create a dialogue between Bob and a fictional chief effectiveness officer who introduces a three-step strategy to work "on-time and on-target." The first technique "create priority," is explained in terms of triage, a battlefield term for assigning an order of medical treatment on the basis of urgency. Next, Bob encounters the intriguing notion of "Propriety" expressed in the format of a succinct "Bill of Rights": Am I doing the right thing, for the right person, at the right time, with the right reasons? Finally, Manager Bob learns to distinguish between interest and commitment and the deeper meaning of yes and no.

Each of the three strategies underline the premise of procrastination as a failure to define what is important. Occasionally, their message is sidetracked by cuteness, (nicknames for Bob) confusion, (calling the approach a "3-P strategy" ignores the C in commitment) and a contrived ending where Bob becomes the chief effectiveness officer. Still, the center holds with practical techniques, explained with brevity and clarity. Blanchard and Gottry know how to make a long story short. --Barbara Mackoff

About the Author

Ken Blanchard is an international bestselling author and motivational speaker whose books, including The One Minute Manager^®, The One Minute Entrepreneur^™, and Leading at a Higher Level, have sold more than eighteen million copies in thirty languages. He lives in San Diego, California.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 144 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1 edition (January 6, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060574593
• ISBN-13: 978-0060574598
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.8 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #449,159 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

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not up to the standard I expect from the series, March 7, 2005

By 

Ray Salemi (Framingham, MA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The On-Time, On-Target Manager: How a "Last-Minute Manager" Conquered Procrastination (Hardcover)

I have always enjoyed Ken Blanchard's management books because they deliver simple and straightforward management principles in an easy-to-learn style. For example, The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey is a classic of proper delegation.

Unfortunately, the Last Minute Manager was not up to the usual standards of this series. The book was not compelling and did not really teach the reader a solution to the problem of procrastination.

* The basic problem was that the book did not have a simple system to teach. Though the system was called The Three P's these were really headings for a complex variety of questions, ideas and principles that made the execution process more complex than it needed to be. The fact that the third "P" started with C was a bit jarring. The book claimed this was a mnemonic device but I see it more as an symptom of the fact that the whole model needed more work.

* The main character is a doofus. I didn't find myself cheering for his success, I simply found myself annoyed with him. The descriptions of him as "Bob the last-minute Manger", "Bob the suddenly-surprised Manager", "Bob the newly-focused Manager" etc were also annoying.


* The book had too much theory and not enough tactics. It presented you with high levels questions and ideas about your priorities but it was light on examples of how to use them. For example it shows you a "triage" form but we never see Bob use it.

* There were no examples of how Bob the-highly-annoying Manager used his new found skills to improve his work or productivity. The book did not clearly tie the process in the book to the problem of lateness, poor-quality, and stress.

There is definitely room for a Blanchard book on the problem of time management. I'm afraid that I can't recommend this one. Instead I recommend "First Things First" by Steven Covey for those struggling with this issue. It is much more work to read, but I think it solves the problems that afflict Bob in this story in a more straightforward manner.

Finally there is a pet peeve. Why do all these management book use married men as examples of people who need to be fixed? I agree that the problem of choosing a sex for someone with a problem is vexing, and its most likely that married men will be the least likely to complain. That said, I think there is room for some originality in this realm. The work world has a much wider constituency than married men named "Bob". I hope we see it reflected in future books.

22 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Doesn't address what causes procrastination, October 6, 2004

By 

McKenzie Lake (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The On-Time, On-Target Manager: How a "Last-Minute Manager" Conquered Procrastination (Hardcover)

The central message to this book seems to be "if it's important, don't procrastinate". Well, life's not quite that simple.

While the book uses the usual Blanchard style of sounding like a novel telling someone's inspiring story, it doesn't address why people procrastinate. It basically says you should do the right things, for the right reasons, at the right time. This tells me... absolutely nothing. Darn it, I've been doing the right things at the wrong time, silly me. Time to change that!

When I finished the book, I was left with little more than a couple of simplistic lists, but no action plan as to how to either better manage my time, how to get a handle on my priorities, or any deeper unstanding of my problem. It was like a big rice cake that left me just as hungry as when I started.

Two things procrastinators constantly fight is the sense of being overwhelmed with so many things that simply have to get done that you can't make out what has to be done when; and the feeling once you actually get started on something that there's something else you should do. Today, thinking of this as I was reading another book (see below), I finally forced myself to write the minutes of a meeting I was just in. As I sat there, I suddenly flet the urge to listen to music (to help me think of course!), to check my inbasket, to tidy up my desk so I could (allegedly) concentrate, to go get a coffee, and so on... you constantly feel you should be doing something else.

If this sounds like you, then you need to read "Procrastination - why you do it, what do about it" by Jane Burka and Lenora Yuen. It makes you realize the causes of your condition and why simple "just don't procrastinate anymore" advice doesn't cut it.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Simple parable, effective learning, May 19, 2004

By 

B.Sudhakar Shenoy (India) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The On-Time, On-Target Manager: How a "Last-Minute Manager" Conquered Procrastination (Hardcover)

Story telling is a very effective way of driving home powerful lessons. Regardless of age, the human mind retains the "moral of the story". Ken Blanchard gives us another story, another hero and another lesson. Easy to read and remember, this book will be helpful to most of us. It is important to realize how postponing of seemingly unimportant and routine tasks like filling up gas can lead to a snowballing effect on the really critical issues on hand.

Though the book starts with a note the you may not fall into the category of Bob, the "Last Minute Manager", we do tend to be Bobs to some extent some times and to a large extent many times. Lateness, poor quality of work and stress, form the vicious circle of procrastination that needs to be broken. Three hours is worth the time to read this book to understand the three P's that can pull us out of this trap and make a significant difference to our lives at home and at work.