Author: Ken Blanchard

What do you expect of people?

/ Ken Blanchard / 3 Comments

Here is a small sampling I really enjoyed from my book with Don Shula, Everyone’s A Coach.

The way managers treat people is powerfully influenced by what they expect of people. If a manager’s expectations are high, productivity is likely to be excellent. If expectations are low, productivity is likely to be poor. It is as though there were a natural law that caused a person’s performance to rise or fall to meet his or her manager’s expectations. My wife Margie has often said that one of the reasons she didn’t get into trouble when she was a young person was that she knew her parents expected the best of her and knew she would be a good role model for her younger sisters. She never wanted to let her parents down. Continue reading →

Take what you do seriously, but yourself lightly

/ Ken Blanchard / 1 Comment

I had a wonderful time recently, playing in a charity golf tournament with coworkers Steve Murphy, Randy Conley, and Brent Bystedt. It was really a lot of fun; we played a scramble.

One of the things it reminded me of—and this is so important to Colleen Barrett and Herb Kelleher at Southwest—is you really have fun in life and do well when you take what you do seriously, but yourself lightly. That was really evident as we were playing golf. We were trying to do the best we can, but we were laughing and enjoying ourselves. I don’t think there’s anybody who is more fun to be around than Steve Murphy. He’s one of our great consulting partners and he is absolutely fun. He takes what he does seriously but himself lightly, and I think that’s what endears him to clients. Continue reading →

If I Had My Life to Live Over

/ Ken Blanchard / 4 Comments

I recently saw a wonderful piece about “If I Had My Life to Live Over.” I thought it was worth sharing with you. It’s from the late Nadine Stair of Louisville, Kentucky, who wrote it when she was 85 years old:

If I had my life to live over again,
I’d dare to make more mistakes next time.
I’d relax.
I’d limber up. Continue reading →

Be as good to your loved ones as you are to strangers

/ Ken Blanchard / 2 Comments

At the ASTD conference in Chicago recently, Colleen Barrett made a really interesting point in the session we did together. She said at Southwest, they want to make sure that their customer service is as good internally as it is externally. They believe in the Golden Rule—treating people the way you would like to be treated. One of the things we talked about is that it’s amazing how people will treat strangers or customers better than they would treat people they love or people who are coworkers. Continue reading →

Three Deep Breaths

/ Ken Blanchard / 4 Comments

Recently I spent some time with Tom Crum and his daughter, Alia. Tom’s a good buddy of ours and is an Aikido expert. He wrote a wonderful book called Three Deep Breaths. I think I probably have shared these at some point but they are worth repeating… You know, as you head off any day in the car – I think the car is a wonderful place to quiet yourself if you don’t listen to the radio.

The first breath is the Centering Breath – you just breathe in, into your center right below your belly button. Just center yourself and feel your breath. Continue reading →