60 SECONDS WITH KEN BLANCHARD
- By Ken Blanchard
- Published 08/19/2008
- Careers
- Unrated
Ken Blanchard
Few people have impacted the day-to-day management of people and companies more than Ken Blanchard. A prominent, gregarious, sought-after author, speaker, and business consultant, Dr. Blanchard is universally characterized by his friends, colleagues, and clients as one of the most insightful, powerful, and compassionate individuals in business today.
When Ken speaks, he speaks from the heart with warmth and humor. His unique gift is to speak to an audience and communicate with each person as if they were alone and talking one on one. He is a polished storyteller with a knack for making the seemingly complex easy to understand.
From his phenomenal best-selling book, The One Minute Manager®, coauthored with Spencer Johnson, which has sold more than 12 million copies and remains on best-seller lists, to the library of books coauthored with Sheldon Bowles, Raving Fans®, Gung Ho!®, Big Bucks!, and High Five!, Ken’s impact as a writer is far reaching.
He wrote his latest book, Leading at a Higher Level: Blanchard on Leadership and Creating High Performing Organizations, with the founding associates and consulting partners of The Ken Blanchard Companies. This definitive "Blanchard on Leadership" combines more than 25 years of breakthrough leadership insights in one extraordinary book.
Ken is Chief Spiritual Officer of The Ken Blanchard Companies®, an international management training and consulting firm that he and his wife, Dr. Marjorie Blanchard, founded in 1979 in San Diego, California. He is also a visiting lecturer at his alma mater, Cornell University, where he is a trustee emeritus of the Board of Trustees. Ken is cofounder of The Center for FaithWalk Leadership, which is dedicated to helping leaders walk their talk in the marketplace.
Ken has received many awards and honors for his contributions in the fields of management, leadership and speaking. The National Speakers Association awarded him its highest honor, the "Council of Peers Award of Excellence." He was inducted into the HRD Hall of Fame by Training magazine and Lakewood Conferences, and he received the Golden Gavel Award from Toastmasters International. And in 2004 Ken was awarded with The Thought Leadership Award for continued support of work-related learning and performance by ISA—The Association of Learning Providers.
http://www.kenblanchard.com
You wrote "The One Minute Manager," which sold more than 10 million copies, and your new book is "The One Minute Entrepreneur."
One of the big secrets of these "60 Seconds With" columns is that they actually take longer than one minute. What's the big secret of entrepreneurial success that most folks don't know?
I've broken it down into four P's. One is passion: You've got to love what you're doing. Two is the profits: Somebody's got to pay you to have fun or you're going to have a hobby. And you've got to manage your finances. Third is people: You've got to take care of your people, who take care of your customers. The fourth P is about priorities. One of the problems is, once people succeed in their business, they forget what's important in life, like their family and friends.
How can you tell if you have what it takes to start a business?
That really starts with the passion. You meet some people who just love the restaurant business. It's just in their blood. And those are the people who are going to pull it off. You've got to go in it because it's in your gut.
Passion notwithstanding, how do you know if your business will provide something people want?
I think you have to field-test anything. Take my book. I had over 150 people read it at different stages. I asked, "What are the three things you like about it? What three suggestions would you make to make it better?" And that's what you have to do with an idea. You have to run it up the flag and see if anybody will salute it.
Is now really the time to think about starting your own business?
I think it's always a good time to think about starting your own business. I don't recommend that you quit your job. If you've got a business idea, it's better to test it and see what you have before you jump ship. But if for some reason you get downsized or outsized, it might be the Lord's way of saying, this is the time.
Article Source: http://www.kenblanchard.com/news/View.asp?id=1151
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