Thank You Dr Ken Blanchard

This blog post is special. It’s my way of saying “Thank you” to Dr Ken Blanchard who continues to inspire millions around the world with his books, speeches, coaching, seminars and workshops.

At the time of writing this, he is in my city of Bangalore to conduct a leadership workshop and am super excited about getting to meet him in person and express my gratitude for the inspiration and knowledge his books have brought me.

The Ken Blanchard Impact
His style of using stories to introduce powerful concepts, management philosophies, to illustrate real life work scenarios, to convey key learnings is amazing and memorable.

Over the years, Dr Ken Blanchard’s books have helped me dramatically improve my personal effectiveness, made me more productive, brought me rich perspectives, helped me think and act better. They have also helped me in my coaching work with clients, be they individuals or groups

Here are my favorite books of Dr Ken Blanchard along with learnings from the same

1. The One Minute Manager
This is where it began for me. As Dr Ken Blanchard says this book focuses on “Learnings in behavioral sciences about how people work best with other people” Though first written in 1982, many of the concepts shared still hold good for today’s high pressure workplace.

Filled with gems like “let’s remind ourselves to take a minute out to look into the faces of the people we manage and realize that they are our most important resources”, “helping people feel good about themselves is key to getting more done”, ” Catch them doing something right”, “the best minute I spend is the one I invest in people” and my favorite, my personal mantra “feedback is the breakfast of champions“, this is a book that will having you underlining most portions of each page to come back, reread and reflect.

2. Know Can Do
‘Put your know how into action’, six simple words on the cover of the book that convey a lifetime of learning. We spend a lot of our valuable time learning and picking up new information. However retaining and more importantly putting it to use effectively seems to be challenging for a lot of us. This book addresses ‘the gap between what we know and what we do with it’ in a simple, interesting and effective manner. Full of practical advice, it will arm you with effective tools and techniques to translate what you know into powerful, result oriented action.

3. Raving Fans
As customers every one of us wishes to be treated better, much much better. And when we are, we go from being just customers to raving fans. How do you know what will satisfy your customers? Is keeping them satisfied enough or do you need to do more? Read this book to discover numerous tips and techniques that you can use to turn your valuable customers into raving fans.

4. High Five
‘None of us is as smart as all of us‘, BOOM, that powerful line from this book sticks in my head after all these years. A wonderful story about having a great approach to working as a team, to identifying key ingredients of winning teams, to learning the value and power of teamwork. A must read.

5. Whale Done
This book is about the power of positive relationships. Its a lovely story about the Whales at Sea world and how learning to accentuate the positive and redirecting energies leads to higher effectiveness, greater performance and better relationships. I have used this book extensively in group coaching sessions and feedback from my clients has been extremely positive.

6. The One Minute Entrepreneur
I picked up two books the day I quit my successful 20 year corporate career to follow my passion for coaching. The first was ‘ The E – Myth’ by Michael Gerber and the second was this. Both have served me very well and I continue to reread, refer to them in growing my coaching practice. If you miss having fun while building you business, this is the book for you.

7.The Little Book of Coaching
As the title suggests this book is about coaching. However, its not just for coaches. I read it because I am a coach. You should read it so you can learn how to motivate your people, your teams to be winners.The principles and practical advice shared in this book will help you lead by example, keep winning and losing in perspective and teach you how to unleash excellence in others

While sharing my views about these books I have been careful to not reveal the plot as I would recommend you invest in all of them for they will certainly bring you rich dividends.

Has Dr Ken Blanchard positively influenced your life too? Do share, I would love to hear from you

“Humility does not mean you think less of yourself. It means you think of yourself less.”
~ Dr Ken Blanchard

Points to ponder:
1. How much time do you devote to reading something inspiring and insightful everyday?
2. What three skills if developed would bring you greater success at work and in your personal life?
3. Are there specifics books that could help you learn these skills?
4. What would happen a year from now if you were to read these books for just 30 minutes every single day?
5. When will you start reading them?

Other books of Dr Ken Blanchard that you should read
1.Gung ho
2.Full Steam Ahead
3.Trust Works
4.Big Bucks
5. The Heart of a Leader

You can learn more about Dr Ken Blanchard by visiting his website http://kenblanchard.com or http://coaching.com

Note: In the interest of brevity I have not mentioned the various wonderful co authors for each of the above mentioned books, I owe my gratitude to them too.