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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.

Average Customer Rating:

A parable that misses the mark

Customer Rating:

Ken Blanchard has always been one of my favorite business authors, starting with the classic that he wrote with Spencer Johnson: THE ONE MINUTE MANAGER . . . so when I came across something of his that I had missed, THE ON-TIME, ON-TARGET MANAGER (co-authored with Steve Gottry), I grabbed an audio copy of it since I was particularly interested in its subtitle: HOW A "LAST-MINUTE MANAGER CONQURED PROCRASTINATION. I must admit it took me a few weeks to listen to it . . . first, I had to . . . well, I won't bother you with the details, but procrastination definitely came into play . . . unfortunately, I'm not sure that I learned very much from listening that helped me deal with this vexing problem. THE ON-TIME, ON-TARGET MANAGER is another parable that Blanchard typically writes so well . . . this one, however, missed the mark for me . . . I wasn't interested in the main character, Bob, or any of his multiple nicknames that actually got annoying after a very short while . . . moreover, I was thrown by the "3-P strategy" that started off fine with Priority . . . however, I'm still now quite sure how Propriety fit into the mix . . . and Commitment isn't even a "P," but according to the authors was a mnemonic device that didn't work for me. I would have preferred a better ending, along with some actual examples of how the principles could be put into play by Bob or anybody else for that matter. In retrospect, I did at least come away with a reminder that I need to continually ask myself: What is the most important thing I should be doing? Other readers wanting an answer would do better by reading my all-time favorite time management book, HOW TO GET CONTROL OF YOUR TIME AND YOUR LIFE by Alan Lakein.

Too mediocre a parable/book on time management. Nothing on procrastination at all!

Customer Rating:

The proposition of 3Ps, Priority, Propriety (do the right thing at the right time with the right people....) and Committment (yes, it's a C, the author said it's for you to memorize it better, which I duly agree) is straightforward and simple. However, as a victim of procrastination who read tens of books on the subject and is still fighting daily against it, I can tell this book is a mediocre time management book instead of a cure for procrastination, that the psychological or even physiological aspects of procrastination had not been addressed at all. If things can be dealt with easily in the prescribed rational and mechanical manner, there would simply be no market for this book. Even worse, the parable is real bad and boring. For those who want to read to fight against procrastination, I strongly recommend "Unleash the warrior within" by Richard Machowicz. If you wanna improve your time management skills, "10 Natural Laws of Succcessful Time and Life Management" by Hyrum W. Smith is a very good choice.

The Easiest Time Management System

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Time management does not have to be complicated. Daytimers, PDAs, project management software and so on all help . . . especially if you follow the advice in this book. Quite simply, this book teaches time management by dividing tasks into 3 simple categories: * Tasks I have to do * Tasks I can do if I have the time * Tasks I don't have to do but want to Yes, Maybe, and No. It's that simple. Tasks I have to do go into the yes category; tasks I can do if I have time go into the maybe category; and tasks I don't have to do but want to go into the no category. Divide a piece of paper into 3 columns titled "Yes", "Maybe", "No". List your tasks under the appropriate categories. Prioritize the tasks in the "Yes" column. Make sure you do those first. Next, work on the "Maybe" column, and so on. I provided the simple, condensed version of this method. This book provides more valuable information written in an enjoyable format.

Not up to the standard I expect from the series

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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.

Solid Material with Cheesy, Campy, Memorable Moments

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Why do employees and people in general procrastinate? From this allegorical business book from the highly successful Ken Blanchard and his co-author, Steve Gottry, we learn employees and others procrastinate predominantly because they are clueless. They haven't invested in life - or the business. Once our "subject" middle manager Bob make that change from employee mindset to owner mindset, all life will change. With a little bit of help from a Cheerleader-Coach type "Chief Effectiveness Officer" we watch Bob's journey... and pick up many lessons along the way. One of the details I have to mention about this book is memorable. The story it tells and the suggestions it gives stick in the mind. There are cheesy moments (like all of Bob's silly nicknames - really, enough is enough writers). I almost thought there was a sound track over the campy text "dadadada daaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhh" when the words in bold were trotted out. PRIORITY (stated in BOLD) "Yes, it is important!" PROPRIETY (what does that mean exactly?) and COMMITMENT (wait - that isn't a "P" - so get over it already.) The ending section of the book reminded me of what I have heard from network marketers, especially from one company.... Listing what is really important. God first, Family second, then the 3-P's with Commitment being fleshed out as purpose, ideals, goals, integrity, truth and follow through as well as that also tiny bit annoying "you gotta wanna!". I would suggest reading this book for everyone simply because the information is solid, it is familiar enough and reinforces a lot of what you may already know and that you haven't yet tied together. There are enough Bobs in the world - lets introduce them to this book and see what happens.