Book Title: Whale Done!

Author: Ken Blanchard

Genre: Performance Management

Sub-Topics: Leadership, Relationships

Rating: Good

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I was excited to get through my first Ken Blanchard book.  I have read a lot of his principles and being that he is ranked a top 10 leadership guru, it was about time I got to it.   Wale Done! is actually also coauthored by Thad Lacinak and Chuck Tompkins (experts in animal training) as well as Jim Ballard who has worked on 3 other books with Blanchard.  Whale Done! is a fictional anecdote designed to deliver some uncommon yet amazingly powerful management methods.

So does Whale Done! hit the mark?

I jammed through this book in basically one afternoon and found myself taking less notes due to the fictional nature of the story and the lack of facts, figures, etc.  While the reading may be light, I found the core principles outlined in Wale Done! to be truly powerful.  It may have dragged on a little but perhaps this was in effort to reinforce the message.

The whole concept of the book is to focus on “catching people doing this right,” as apposed to focusing on criticizing them when they do things wrong.  This is the method in which Sea World trainers use to train killer whales such as Shamu; thus the title of the book and the ensuing pun.

Core Concepts From Wale Done!

• “The more attention you pay to a behavior, the more it will be repeated”

• “If you don’t want to encourage poor behavior, don’t spend a lot of time on it.”

3 Steps for positive relationships

1. Build trust
2. Accentuate the positive
3. When mistakes occur redirect the energy

The ABC’s of performance management

• A = Activator – Whatever gets performance going
• B = Behavior – The performance that occurs
• C = Consequence – Your response to the performance

The key is then to focus on what reaction or consequence you are giving rather the outcome is desirable or not.  This makes up the 4 C’s, or the 4 consequence options, good or bad.

1. No response

2. Negative

3. Redirection

4. Positive

The book encourages that instead of negatively reacting to undesired behavior an alternative and more effective method is redirection which includes the following steps.

Redirection

1. Identify challenge without blame

2. Show negative impact

3. Take blame if possible for poor communication, etc.

4. Clearly outline task

5. Express trust and confidence

This is contrary to common thought on managing employees, relationships, etc.  When I first read this I immediately realized by self-reflecting how on a few occasions when I accidently got this right, how well the other person responded. How great to have a formula for it now!

The other key is giving an effective “Whale Done” or positive response.  Not just giving an insincere “good job” but going through the following steps.

1. Praise immediately

2. Be specific

3. Share your feelings

4. Encourage

This is something that I learned a long time ago I had to do especially when trying to motivate, significant others, business partners, independent contractors and vendors.  When you can’t directly fire someone yelling and screaming will not work, just like it would never work with a killer whale.  Unfortunately I still find myself on a daily basis either screwing this up or missing chances to give the people around my praise.  Reading this book was a great reminder for that purpose alone.

Although that pretty much sums up the meat of the book, I would still recommend you pick it up and give it a read.  This is particularly the case if you manage people either at work or in a business.

When is the last time you gave someone around you praise?

Let us know in the comments below.

To Purchase Whale Done! Follow the Link Below

Whale Done! : The Power of Positive Relationships