Leadership · Proving to Growing
Who's got the monkey?
You hand work over without it ending up back on your plate.
Worth reading first: Situational leadership
Does this sound familiar?
- Someone walks in with a problem, you say 'let me think about it', and now it's yours.
- Your people are waiting on you, and you're waiting for time to look at their questions.
- You're still answering your team's emails in the evening, while they've gone home.
- You hand a project over, and a week later you're doing it yourself again.
Who it's for, and when
For founders and managers who fill their days with other people's problems. It starts as soon as you have your first people taking work off your hands, and it holds you back once everything runs through you and your team is waiting on you.
The model
A monkey is the next step in a problem. While an employee has it on their back, they work on it. Say 'let me think about it' and the monkey jumps across. Now it's waiting on you. With eight people each handing over three monkeys, you end the week with twenty-four of them, and everyone's waiting.
Leave the monkey with whoever has the problem. You help, but the next step stays with them, with a set time to look at it together. If you keep taking work back, it's often because that agreement isn't there: with no next step and no set time, every monkey feels like your problem.
Oncken gives every monkey a level, from 1 (wait until told) to 5 (act, and mention it in the regular meeting). At levels 1 to 3 the decision is still yours. At 4 and 5 the other person decides; at 4 they tell you straight away, at 5 you hear about it in the meeting.
This lesson is about one piece of work: whose is it, and what's the next step. How much direction someone needs for a task is in the lesson Situational leadership, and which decisions a role takes on its own, settled in advance, is in the lesson Who decides what.
William Oncken Jr. and Donald L. Wass, Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey?, Harvard Business Review, 1974. HBR reprinted it in 1999 with a commentary by Stephen Covey. Ken Blanchard later turned it into a book with Oncken and Hal Burrows.
1. Feed it or shoot it
Every monkey gets an agreed time when you'll look at it, or it goes. A monkey without an appointment hangs around and usually ends up on your plate.
2. No more monkeys than you can feed
Every monkey takes time to feed. The fewer there are, the better you can help with each one.
3. Feed by appointment only
You look at monkeys at set times, not in passing in the corridor. In between, you don't ask for updates.
4. In a conversation, not an email
You feed a monkey face to face or on the phone. An email makes it jump back and forth, and anything awkward comes across harsher in writing than you meant.
5. Every monkey has a next step and a level
Agree what the next step is, when you'll look again, and at what level the other person is working. Say it out loud, so they know how much room they have.
Pitfalls
Helping by taking over
You want to help, so you pick up part of it yourself. That's how you walk off with the monkey. Ask where you can help, and leave the next step with them.
Keeping everyone at level 2
If everyone asks what to do about everything, all the monkeys come to you, even your experienced people's. Give them more room step by step: a recommendation first, then acting and reporting.
Watch and read
The model in six minutes, with the sentence where it goes wrong: 'leave it with me'.
Watch on YouTubeA summary of the book by Blanchard, Oncken and Burrows, with the rules for feeding monkeys.
Watch on YouTubeDrawn out on a board: the monkeys from your boss, from the system, and the ones you take on yourself.
Watch on YouTubeRead
The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey
Ken Blanchard, William Oncken Jr. en Hal Burrows · 1989 · ISBN 9780688103804
The HBR article as a short story, 137 pages: a manager buried under his team's monkeys.
View the bookOne Minute Manager en de apenrots
Ken Blanchard, William Oncken Jr. en Hal Burrows · 2006 · ISBN 9789047001522
The Dutch translation of the same book, 126 pages.
View the bookApply it
- 1
Count your monkeys
Write down what you're waiting to do for someone else this week. For each line: whose problem is this really?
- 2
Hand them back, with a level
A short conversation per monkey: 'This is yours. What's your next step, and when shall we look at it together?' Agree what level they work at: a recommendation first, or act and report. Don't make it sound like a telling-off; you took it on yourself.
- 3
Set regular times to check in
For example, fifteen minutes per person every week. In between you don't ask anything, unless they ask you.
The one-to-one - 4
If the same decision keeps coming back, write it down
If someone asks every month whether they can hire a temp, it's no longer a one-off monkey. Put it on their role scorecard as a decision they make alone, one they check first, or one that sits with someone else.
Who decides what
Examples
Stock phrases for the corridor
What do you suggest? What's your next step? When shall we look at it together? Where can I help, without taking it over? Go ahead, and tell me on Thursday in the meeting. Put them up somewhere you'll see them when someone walks in.
Weekly overview: my monkeys
Every Friday, per monkey: The monkey: what's on the table? Whose is it? The next step, and who takes it When are you looking at it together? If the next step has your name on it, ask yourself whether it should. A monkey without a date gets fed or shot.
A project manager asks if you'll quickly ring the client
That's their monkey. Ask what they want to tell the client, rehearse it together if needed, and let them make the call. Agree that they'll tell you tomorrow how it went.
An employee emails three questions on Friday evening
Don't answer at the weekend. On Monday, in the regular meeting: 'What do you suggest for each of the three?' The monkeys stay with them.
Do this in your own business
Everything up to here is free. What you fill in for your own business, you keep in Boldcaster.
- You look back on a situation from your own work. Only you can read what you write.
- You set a date with yourself, and on that day the app asks how it went.
- You assign the lesson to your team and see who has done it.
- The quiz counts towards your progress, and you see which lesson comes next.
Four weeks free. You'll land straight in this lesson.
Quiz
6 situations. You need 5 of 6 right. You can try again at any time.
1.An employee walks in: 'The client wants a discount, what should I do?' What do you say?
2.Your list has said 'new quote layout, Sanne' for three weeks. Nobody has done anything about it and there's no date set for it. What fits this model?
3.At ten in the evening a team lead sends you a long email about a conflict in their team, asking what to do. What do you do?
4.You want to help a project manager who's stuck. What fits this model?
5.Your experienced buyer asks for your approval on every order over a thousand euros. He's never got it wrong. What do you agree?
6.Every day you ask for an update on a project someone else is running. What does the model say about that?
Nothing is saved here. In the app, the quiz counts towards your progress.
Read next
- Mission command · You give an assignment through your managers so that the goal and the why reach two layers down.
- Who decides what · For each decision, you agree who makes it: the person themselves, after checking with someone, or someone else. And everyone can look it up.
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