Mid-month, February 2026
The One-Minute Search for Excellence
This post is the sixth in a series of mid-month missives (I like alliteration) that are largely unrelated to behavioral economics (the subject of my first-of-the-month newsletters).
Essay 6: The One-Minute Search for Excellence
That’s a snarky amalgam of two very successful business books: The One Minute Manager (agh, the hyphen is missing in the book) and In Search of Excellence. Yes, these books date me—they’re not current. But they were hugely successful and there are lessons we can draw from them. As the saying goes, history doesn’t repeat, but it informs (you were expecting “rhymes”?).
As its title suggests, The One Minute Manager argues that a manager can be effective by engaging in short-duration leadership, specifically: one-minute goals, one-minute praise, and one-minute reprimands. I’m not convinced of the efficacy of this system (which leaves at least 480 – 3 = 473 minutes a day for a manager to do what?). I’m not alone in my skepticism. One commentator called it “the executive equivalent of paper-training your dog.”[1] It took me more than one minute to paper-train my dog.
In Search of Excellence explores the techniques and approaches used by successful companies in the 1980s. At the time, Japan was the model for business success. Remember when the Japanese bought the Pebble Beach golf course and Rockefeller Center in New York City? Many of you may not, but I do. The Japanese were going to take over the world.
Until they didn’t. Hence the phrase, “management fad.”
And let’s not overlook the book Good to Great. Its subtitle tells the story: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don’t. This book compares some highly successful companies (measured generally by their financial performance) with some companies that were, well, not so great. The author then identifies seven characteristics that differentiate the successful companies and, by implication, lead to greatness.
What’s wrong with this picture? It does not account for something called survivorship bias. A favorite example of mine: Those Facebook posts that show kids riding in the back of a pickup truck, possibly from the 1950s, with commentary like, “We didn’t wear seatbelts and we turned out just fine.” Such posts are a criticism of an over-reaching “nanny state” that legislates away personal freedom by requiring silly things like seat belts.
But you know what? The kids who were killed because they were not wearing seatbelts are not posting on Facebook. Well, duh, you might say. But how many people reading those posts actually stop to think of this critical fact? Very few, I wager.
This example illustrates literal survivorship bias: Only the survivors are around to post on Facebook, and only they have the last word. Unless, that is, you can see through that bias to a bigger world. How? Ask yourself, “What am I not seeing?” In this case, we are not seeing the kids who lost their lives because they weren’t wearing a seatbelt.
How does this relate to Good to Great? Let’s consider the first characteristic of great companies, “Level 5 Leadership.” Question: How many companies over the same time period had Level 5 Leadership but were not great? I’d be willing to bet there were some. But we are seeing only the survivors, those companies chosen because they were successful.
And, because the author was selective about the successful firms to include in his study, we don’t know whether there might have been Great Companies not in the study without Level 5 Leadership. I’ll bet there were some.
It is not surprising that a flawed study misleads. Perhaps this quote from the author summarizes my complaint best: “The book never promised that these companies would always be great, just that they were once great.” You know, if you ask me to “predict” what the stock market did yesterday, you’ll find that I’m very good at it.
I’ll admit to a twinge or two of envy. One Minute Manager has sold more than 2 million copies, In Search of Excellence has sold 3 million, and Good to Great has sold 4 million. My book, The Foolish Corner (available on Amazon), has sold somewhat fewer copies.
References
Blanchard, Ken and Johnson, Spencer, The One Minute Manager, William Morrow & Co, 1982.
Collins, Jim, Good to Great, HarperCollins Publishers, 2001.
Peters, Thomas J. and Waterman, Robert H., Jr, In Search of Excellence, Collins Business Essentials, 2006.
[1] Jackson, S. (January 20, 1986). “Management lingo: how to read between the lines”. Business Week: 58. I have not found a direct link to this article, but it is referenced in this critical review of management writing: https://tinyurl.com/7x9h5ujz