When the Monkeys Rule the Zoo

At the final session of the ICAHN supervisor training in January, I talked about an interesting concept of time management and staff development called Monkey Management. It is a thought-provoking way of looking at time management that comes from an article that was originally written in 1974.  Monkey management is a set of rules that allow staff learn to manage issues on their own. It’s all about who is taking on the problem. Are your staff handling their own problems or are they giving them to you to take on?   

Think about it. If one of your staff comes to you with a problem and you agree to take it on, they have effectively shifted the responsibility for their problem onto your shoulders. In other words, you now have their monkey on your back.

Where are your monkeys?

The article “Who’s Got the Monkey?” by William Oncken Jr and Donald L. Wass (Harvard Business Review, 1974) describes a scenario where a manager takes on the unsolved problems of employees, allowing them to delegate upwards and facilitating the “monkey” to jump on to his back. This results in an increased workload for the manager and a failure to develop the potential of the staff. In the article, the manager arrives at work and before he ever gets to his office he has been stopped three times by individuals saying, “Hey boss, I have a problem.” Before he can get settled in for the day he has three monkeys on his back. The result: instead of working on his own projects he is spending his time with the care and feeding of monkeys.

If this sounds like you, maybe it’s time to get the monkeys off your back. Monkey management has two important benefits. The first is better time management and the second is creating independently minded staff who are able to deal with problems on their own.

Do You Have a Monkey Problem?

• Learn to spot the monkey! Many times we take on someone’s problem thinking that is what we should do as a manager. We want to be seen as problem solvers, but then our to-do list gets out of control and we can’t focus on what really needs to be done. The first step is to learn to spot the monkeys coming at you and understand how they come to be in your care in the first place.
• Minimize the number of monkeys you’re actively caring for. Many managers care for too many monkeys at once and become overwhelmed. If this is you, recognize that it’s foolish to feed too many monkeys at once because it eats away at your productivity until you have no time left to do your work.
• Feed monkeys ONLY by appointment. Only talk about the monkey and care for the monkey by appointment. When the employee (with the monkey on his or her back) and the manager meet at the appointed hour, you then explain the that as a manager you are there to help with the problem, but it is the staff member who must solve the problem.  When the staff member leaves your office there should be a solid plan on how to get rid of the monkey (i.e., the problem).

Here are a couple of good quotes, “Where your attention goes, your time goes,” and “The bad news is time flies. The good news is you're the pilot." Or in this case, a monkey wrangler. That’s the view this week from where I sit.