One minute digression

One of my favourite authors is Spencer Johnson.

If you’re not familiar with him, he was co-author of the classic book, The One Minute Manager.

That book made huge waves when it was first published in the ‘80s because it took the concepts of management and broke them down into simple principles, told in a parable format.

The management part came from Johnson’s co-author, Ken Blanchard, but the real genius of the book was the parable format and the relentless focus on principles – both of which were the product of Johnson’s mind.

In fact, it’s this exact quality that I love most about Johnson.

Because he used this same tactic in a whole shelf of other books, some of which I re-read every month.

Titles like The Present, Who Moved My Cheese? and its sequel Out of The Maze, One Minute Sales Person, One Minute for Yourself, Yes or No, and The One Minute Teacher have made a huge difference in my life.

In every book Spencer Johnson reduces the subject to a few key ‘minutes’. Which is his way of saying he reduces it to a few key principles that hold good in any and every situation.

And he always presents those simple principles in a simple story format.

Now, this can be bad for some people. His simplistic style rubs some people the wrong way, and I get it.

Because they’re really in parable format, not story – but when you’re reading it’s hard to tell the difference. Which means the story can be a bit ‘twee’ as they say – a bit too cheesy.

And, there’s the perennial problem for the person who can reduce things to the simple: they can be seen as ‘too simple’. It’s easy to say ‘Well duh.’ Or ‘I already knew that.’

Yes, but do you actually apply it?

9 times out of 10, no.

Anyway, stepping away from my rant, let me tell you one more thing about Johnson that I really admire:

He had a long and painful battle with cancer. That’s not the good bit, obviously.

The good bit is that all through it he applied the same simple principles he espoused in his books, and everyone around him described him as a force of happiness.

I don’t know if there’s a lesson here for speakers, but to me, Johnson always reminds me of the value of simplicity… and the truism that for every person you reach there’s at least one who says ‘I knew that already’ and ignores you.

His battle with cancer and his refusal to be cowed by it is also a reminder to me that we may not choose what happens to us – but we get to choose what it means.

We’re the masters if our fate. The masters of our being.

Nobody can take that from us, not an audience, not a business partner, nor a boss, client, or anyone else. Not even cancer.

Food for thought.

Until next time,

Alexander