291. They Said "One Minute Manager" Would Embarrass Him. It Sold 15 Million Copies, With Martha Lawrence

0:00This man's university professors says that he wasn't intelligent enough to write a book. His colleagues warned him that publishing this book would embarrass him professionally, and one of the most respected academic publishers in the world told him it was too simple to take seriously. Well, he published it anyway. You've probably heard of it. It's called The One Minute Manager, and it's sold 15 million copies, spent years on the New York Times bestsellers list, and quietly changed how an entire generation thinks about leadership. Our guest today, Martha Lawrence, spent 22 years working directly alongside Ken Blanchard, first as his writing partner and eventually as the person who wrote his biography.

0:37She's seen the man behind the myth up close and she's seen him time after time ignore what other people think and just do what he wants anyway.

0:45Martha Lawrence:That's what made The One Minute Manager so different. There wasn't even a category called business books early in those days. It was just kind of lumped into nonfiction, And they were long, heavy tomes, boring. And here comes Ken writing this. It was actually the invention of the business parable. He wrote a story about a young man who was looking for an effective manager. and it was so engaging and so simple to read. And yet, because of Ken's background as a professor of organizational development, it was jam-packed in the most concise way with the most powerful leadership techniques available.

1:25But this episode isn't just a tribute to a management legend. It's about what Ken's philosophy actually means and whether any of us are brave enough to lead the way that he did. Because let's face it, right now, in a world full of loud, ego-driven leaders, Yes, you know who we're talking about. These people who mistake aggression for strength. Ken Blanchard's idea of leading with love sounds either radical or perhaps a little naive. Martha's here to tell you it's neither. Hello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

2:01As you can probably tell, Leanne's not here this week. She's in the UK enjoying a bit of family and friend time. however I am going to bring you one of my favourite interviews of the year so far with the wonderful Martha Lawrence so after this short break we'll meet Martha properly we'll hear how her children's book changed management forever and find out what Ken did with a tape recorder that made a nurse cry don't go anywhere you know that feeling when you've decided on a content strategy the brief is written, everyone's aligned and you realise someone still has to sit down and actually create all this content that someone is you and it's due tomorrow That someone is often me.

2:37But luckily, Bree's assistant can help. It works right inside HubSpot, drafting campaign copy and blog posts and emails, all in your brand voice. It's grounded in your actual customer data too. So you don't just create content, you create content that converts. What a line. Check out HubSpot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses.

3:03I am joined here by one of the nicest women in the world. I will tell you why, what are some of the reasons why I think she's amazing in just a second, but Martha Lawrence. Martha, can you introduce yourself? Can you tell us who you are, what you do, and what you might be famous for?

3:19Martha Lawrence:Well, Al, it's wonderful to be with you today. And to introduce myself, I am a longtime editor, started my career in New York publishing. And for the past 22 years, I have worked directly with Ken Blanchard, the famous management guru. And that's what Al and I will be talking about today. Yeah. And if I read, it was Simon & Schuster you were working with, was it? Yeah, that's where I started my career at Simon & Schuster in Rockefeller Center in New York City. Really great place to cut your teeth in the publishing world. Worked with some of the most famous editors in the world and then worked for Harcourt for many years.

4:01Martha Lawrence:Then I published a series of mystery novels myself. And it was, in fact, I was publicizing my fifth mystery novel when 9-11 happened. And when I got back from the book tours that I was doing for that book, I looked at the manuscript I was working on. and it was all about catching people doing things wrong, you know, about catching the bad guys. And I thought, this is not aligned with what I want to do for a living. I want to make a difference in the world. I want to lift people up. And that is about the time that I found out that Ken Blanchard was looking for a writing partner to help him with all the many books he was doing.

4:43Martha Lawrence:And I just jumped at the chance to do that. So from Elizabeth Chase to Ken Blanchard, what that's probably quite a big step. Tell me, what were your first impressions of Ken? Oh, my goodness. Well, of course, for listeners who may not know, Ken Blanchard published a little book called The One Minute Manager in 1982. That book, it's hard to imagine now in the 21st century. But back in those days, if you had a bestselling book, it was everywhere because the world was not flooded with the books that there are today. So, you know, everyone knew and was talking about The One Minute Manager. It was in the window of every bookstore.

5:24Martha Lawrence:It was on TV. It was on the radio. And the book had changed my view of leadership. So I had admired Ken for decades. And when I met him, I was blown away by how kind he was. He acted like he was excited to meet me instead of the other way around. You know, it was just, he was just the kindest, most wonderful person I'd ever met. I think it's worth noting that back in 1982, before any social media networks were invented, the equivalent of Ken's books were like a LinkedIn post compared to the Drucker's 400 page books. You know, a lot of the texts that were around management back then were big, long books, whereas Ken's book were around about 100, 200 pages.

6:16Is that right?

6:17Martha Lawrence:Yeah, 100 pages. Well, that's what made the One Minute Manager so different. There wasn't even a category called business books early in those days. It was just kind of lumped into nonfiction, you know, and they were long, heavy tomes, boring. And here comes Ken writing this, it was actually the invention of the business parable. He wrote a story about a young man who was looking for an effective manager. And it was so engaging and so simple to read. And yet, because of Ken's background as a professor of organizational development, it was jam-packed in the most concise way with the most powerful leadership techniques available in a simple way that anybody could implement the three secrets.

7:03Martha Lawrence:One minute goals, one minute praisings, one minute redirects, you know. I mean, I remember early in my career, somebody handed me that book. I had a leadership role and they were like, this is how we lead around here. So it was everywhere. There's a quote that I think is attributed to Mark Twain saying I would have made this letter shorter if I ran out of time or something. Yes. And I feel that, couple that with the idea that I'm pretty sure I've read somewhere that Ken was told he wasn't a good writer at one point in time. How has this all this come together to get him to create one of the greatest business books of all time?

7:38Martha Lawrence:Well, forgive me for being an editor here. The quote attributed to Twain, I actually looked that up recently and it was actually Pascal who said that. But that's it. It takes a lot of work to make something more concise. You know, if I had more time, I would make it shorter. So that's absolutely true. So your biography, Catch People Doing Things Right, is about his life, his ethics, his thoughts. What made you want to write this book? Ken is just one of the most remarkable people I've ever met. And I knew that somebody had to document his life. I mean, here was a guy who was told in college that he couldn't write.

8:19Martha Lawrence:And he goes on to pen one of the best-selling business books of all time. He was told in graduate school that he had no academic interest and he wasn't intelligent enough, and he goes on to co-create one of the most widely distributed leadership models in the world. By his own admission, he couldn't even balance his own checkbook, and yet he goes on to co-found a leadership development company that's global. So, you know, how does someone do that? I found it very interesting. What does it take to live that kind of life and to overcome those kinds of challenges? What created this man? So I thought that was worth looking into.

9:05Martha, I don't want to give you too much away from the book, but how did this man get created? It sounds like at the beginning, there was a lot of things against him. But towards, you know, in the last 50 years, he's just done amazing things. What did spur this man on to become the famous Ken Blanchard?

9:24Martha Lawrence:I think one of the primary influences was his parents. He had some incredible parents. His father was in the Navy. He retired as a rear admiral in the Navy and quite the leadership role model for him. Ken learned some of his earliest leadership lessons from his dad. One example is he, Ken was always a popular kid in school and he became the president of his seventh grade class. And he was so proud of himself and he came running home and he said, Mom, Dad, I won the president of the seventh grade class. And his dad pulled him aside and said, Son, that's great. We're so proud of you. But now that you've got that title, don't ever use it.

10:10Martha Lawrence:People follow leaders, not because they have a fancy title, but because they trust and respect them. So always be the kind of guy that people trust and respect. And his mom, too, was a great leadership role model. I mean, she told him early on, nobody is better than you, but you're not better than anybody else. There's a pearl of goodness in everyone. So dig for it. And so I think those were really, he really was influenced by great leadership role models in his parents. And he learned that leadership is an influence process. You don't have to have a fancy title to lead. I think there are a lot of people out there who do enjoy a title.

10:53And we're going to take those people to one side because they're not real leaders, in my opinion. You don't need to agree with that, but they're not, in my opinion, they're not real leaders. So let's talk about the people who don't worry about the title. What do they do instead?

11:07Martha Lawrence:Well, the title, that's great. It gives you position power, but there are many other kinds of power. You know, Ken also taught about using relationship power, using personal power. You know, so the title is not as important. And that's one of the things I love about your podcast, because it's really about people. It's not about profits, profits, profits and title, title, title. I'm curious, when all of Ken's peers at the time were writing three 400 page books, he decided to write one that was a quarter the size. What went through his head, do you think, when he was writing that book? That was actually quite calculated on Ken's part.

11:50Martha Lawrence:The story, the first book he wrote that was short like that was called The One Minute Manager, as we've talked about. He actually met his co-author of that book, Spencer Johnson, who wrote a little book called Who Moved My Cheese, another humongous global bestseller. They met at a cocktail party. And at that time, Spencer was writing children's books. And Ken was working. He was working on a book for managers. And his wife, Margie, introduced the two. And she said, Ken, Spencer's writing children's books. You're writing a book for managers. I think you should write a children's book for managers.

12:27Martha Lawrence:They won't read anything else. And what Ken and Spencer had researched was people don't often read beyond the first chapter, which is very sad for someone like me who writes a lot of books. But they don't have the attention spans. Even back in the 80s, they don't have the attention span. So they decided, let's front load everything into that first hundred pages. And let's make it easy. Let's make it breezy. Let's make it fun to read. And that is why he did that. And it was, you know, he had colleagues who said, oh, my God, you can't publish this. This is embarrassing, you know, because they were steeped in research and wanted that sort of official respect that comes with deep research and all of that.

13:11Martha Lawrence:And Ken's motivation was not to impress people, but to help people. And it's like if what you're writing is off-putting to people, how are you helping anyone be a better manager? Yeah, and I think that what's cool about that is that I think I got the timeline right that Tom Peters came after One Minute Manager. and he was one he was slightly larger book but the way it was written was almost like he was just talking to you rather than the dense tomes you'd get before and again nothing against Drucker but it was kind of textbook wasn't it well yeah Tom I actually interviewed Tom Peters for the for this biography and he and Ken were fast friends uh you know they knew each other back at Cornell and they they were of the same mind you know Tom had he waged a war against the bean counters you You know, his focus was on if you're overly concerned with the finances, you're going to stifle creativity.

14:12Martha Lawrence:You're going to stifle innovation. You're going to shut people down. You know, as Ken always says, profits are the applause you get for taking care of your people so that they can take care of your customers or your clients. And that takes care of your bottom line. And then everything goes ka-ching, ka-ching, ka-ching. But you don't put the profits first. you put the people first. And Tom was of that same mindset. What's interesting is that's not the first time I've heard profit is the applause. I had Gary Ridge, who you know very well. He was on and he used a very similar idea. Well, Gary Ridge learned it from Ken Blanchard.

14:49Martha Lawrence:Ken Blanchard is actually Gary Ridge's, I love Gary, Gary Ridge's mentor. And the story there is that Gary Ridge, who is the erstwhile CEO of a little company called WD-40, a$3 billion company. He enrolled in Ken's master's in leadership course in San Diego and kind of studied with Ken and was so blown away by Ken's philosophy of don't mark my paper, help me get an A. Now, let me give you some background on that. When Ken was a professor at Cornell, he taught leadership. And on the first day of class, he would pass out the final exam so that everybody could see what was going to be on the final.

15:36Martha Lawrence:And when the faculty heard about that, they said, Blanchard, what are you doing? And he said, I thought I was supposed to be teaching these students. And they said, yeah, you are, but you can't pass out the final exam. That's not fair. And he said, not only am I going to pass out the final exam. What do you think I'm going to do all semester? I'm going to teach them the answers because so that they can get A's because life is about getting A's, not, you know, competing on some stupid normal distribution curve. And so Gary was so impressed by that philosophy of not punishing people, not rank ordering people.

16:12Martha Lawrence:That's ridiculous. You just want to lift them up and empower them. And eventually, Ken and Gary wrote a book together called Don't Mark My Paper, helped me get an A. Do you think if One Minute Manager series didn't exist right now and it was released this year, do you think it would do as well? Boy, that's hard to say because the number of books being published today is exponentially greater than the number of books in 1982. So it's really hard to get your signal through the noise because of the explosion of publishing technology. But I do think it would be tremendously successful. It's still in print after 40 years.

16:54Martha Lawrence:It's been revised, the new One Minute Manager, but it's still a bestseller. So the principles are timeless, you know, and they're easy to apply. Martha, let me ask you, your book is full of amazing stories about Ken and your life together. Can you, I mean, don't spoil it, but can you give us some of your favorite moments? Well, there are a lot of stories in the book that I hope people will find inspiring in terms of leading their own lives and becoming leaders themselves. But let's talk about servant leadership for a moment. That was one of Ken's major principles, that if you are in a position of leadership, you are there to serve, not to be served.

17:40Martha Lawrence:it's very different than the kind of leadership we see today, unfortunately. And one of the guys I interviewed for the book was an author, Mac Anderson. And he said, you know, Ken is such the real deal. I remember I was visiting him. They were talking about a collaboration together. They were in a business meeting. And Mac said there was a knock on the door, and it was a woman who wanted to see Ken. She was the wife of an employee who had passed away. And Ken said to Mac, you know, do you mind? Do you have a few minutes? I'd like to spend some time with her. And he took Mac and he took this woman and he grabbed a tape recorder and he went to the warehouse where the woman's husband had worked and went around to all the colleagues that the man had and said, tell us your favorite memory of this person and recorded all these wonderful memories and people talking about her husband.

18:40Martha Lawrence:And at the end, he gave it to her and he said, here, I want you to have this as a memento. We loved your husband. He was such a big part of this company. And, you know, thank you so much for coming in. That to me, that's an example of someone who is leading from the heart and not, you know, he saw the need to lift someone else up in that moment. A lot of stories like that from the book. Another story that always touches me is it's similar. When Ken's father was dying, he had been teaching at a seminar and he got a call that his father was in the hospital. He went to see him and his dad was in a really bad way.

19:27Martha Lawrence:he knew the end was near. And so when he left the hospital room, he did the same thing. He took a tape recorder and he poured into this tape recorder all the things his father had done over his lifetime that made a difference and all the ways he loved him and just specifically the things that his father had done and what a difference he'd made in so many lives. And before he left for the night, he took the tape recorder and the tape into his dad and he said, Dad, listen to this. I think you might enjoy it. And later that night at the hotel, he got a call from the nurse that his father had passed away and he burst into tears and he said, you know, I gave my dad a tape recorder and a tape.

20:16Martha Lawrence:Did he get a chance to listen to that? And she said he listened to it over and over and over again. So, you know, to me, that is a little peek into the real guy, not just the guy on stage who could, you know, command audiences and win awards and all that. But he was the real deal. That's such an incredible story. But I'm thinking some people might think, OK, so to be a good manager, be a good leader, you just need to walk around with a tape recorder. That's not really the lesson you're trying to teach us here, is it? No, no, no, no. No, it's just about being present to people. And there are moments when leading with love looks like being forthright with someone, you know, telling them if they are not performing in the way that they need to be performing to achieve the goals and the vision, what love looks like is helping them, you know, coming alongside them, that side-by-side leadership and directing them and then praising them and helping them until they do achieve that vision at that high.

21:23Martha Lawrence:So it's no, it's not about just being nice to people. There's a whole other aspect to it. I don't suppose you've got any good podcast recommendations. Do you know what I do? And coincidentally, this podcast is on the HubSpot Podcast Network. Who knew? The audio professional. We're going to come to that. This old marketing is hosted by Joe Polizzi and Robert Rose, and it's brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. The audio, Leanne, together. The audio destination for business professionals. where all podcasts, good podcasts live. Exactly. Joe and Robert are two of the most well-known experts in the content marketing space and they talk about the latest content marketing trends and discuss how businesses can use content to attract and retain customers.

22:01Lovely. Yeah, I've actually been listening. Each podcast show features a discussion of content marketing headlines. We like headlines. Love them. Rants from Joe and Robert on what's going on in the industry. We like that too. And this old marketing example from the past that we can learn from. It's always useful, entertaining in never more than 60 minutes. Yeah, I love the recent episode about alternatively influential. These are the micro-influencers who have real impact, but they don't have massive follower counts. Listen to This Odd Marketing wherever you get your podcasts.

22:36I mean, we've got lots of notes down here about leading with love. I think some people might look at that and say there are two possible problems with that. One is I don't want to be trodden on and looked as weak. And the other person might go, where is leading with love too much? So which of those do you want to tackle first to sort of teach people what leading with love really means?

23:01Martha Lawrence:Yeah, leading with love is really about getting yourself out of the way so that other people can be magnificent. You know, it's really about where your focus is. If your focus is on you and your needs and your authority and power, that's not leading with love. If your focus is on what you can do to help others achieve the goal, that's leading with love. I have a sense that a lot of great leaders are great listeners. Is that something which you've come across in your career? Absolutely. If you don't listen, you don't learn. You know, it really depends on your values. One of the things that Ken always taught was you go back to the values.

23:51Martha Lawrence:And so the values that Blanchard early on were ethical behavior, relationships, success, and learning. And he rank ordered those values. so if there was a conflict between let's say success and relationships and relationships was ranked higher than success if if something you were going to do was going to destroy a relationship with a client or customer you would weigh that more heavily than you would the financial success that does seem to be a bit of a theme at the moment with people in the press who sort of almost like bully their way into leadership, who almost see leadership as showing how strong they are and how, you know, decisive they are and how awesome they are.

24:43This just seems like a worrying trend.

24:47Martha Lawrence:Oh, boy. Yeah. What can we say about that, Al? You know, it's Ken would call that ego oriented leadership and ego stands for edging good out. You know, again, if you are in a leadership position, Ken's philosophy is that you are there to serve, not to be served. You are there to establish the vision and the values and then turn that hierarchical pyramid upside down so that you are now serving the people who are working toward that vision. It's not about you. It's about the vision and you're guided by the values. And that is not what we see in a lot of leadership today. No, and we won't name any names, but I think a lot of people have an idea of who we're talking about, which people we're talking about.