Monkey Management

How Not to Take on Other People’s Problems

“You know the saying, ‘Human see, human do.’”

Julius, Gorilla security guard in Planet of the Apes

I’ve always been fascinated with monkeys and apes. In fact, they’ve played a big part in my life over the years.

• When I was young, we made frequent visits to see the monkeys at the Detroit Zoo (We lived near enough to walk and visited quite often).
• I made sure to catch any of the “Planet of the Apes” movies when they were shown on TV, along with King Kong and anything else that had an ape or monkey in it.
• My mom nicknamed me “Monkey” until my Great-Aunt Ethel forbade it (That’s a story for another time).
• I watched and listened to “The Monkees” with my older sister (not actual monkeys, but still related).
• My daughter had a monkey stuffed animal she named Debbie (named after Debbie the Bloop from Lost in Space), who famously won the board game Mystery Date during one Christmas holiday (I wasn’t allowed to play, but I was allowed to “help” Debbie).

Those are just the highlights. Monkeys and apes seem to pop up quite often for me, and they’ve not only taught me some important lessons about being a manager but also about life in general.

Important Monkey Lesson

Over the years, I’ve worked in both the learning and IT industries, and I’ve seen many people get promoted from being regular day-to-day workers to management. Some of these individuals are successful, but many have a hard time making the leap to management. Why? In my opinion, it all comes down to monkeys. Of course, I’m not talking about real ones. We didn’t have a vast invasion of monkeys, gorillas, or orangutans swinging from cube to cube though that would’ve been entertaining. These particular monkeys are figurative and represent all the problems new managers face — problems created by other people who pass them on to the new manager to solve.

As a new manager, I experienced this myself. Someone in my group would have a problem, and they’d give it to me to solve. Since I knew how to do the job, I’d work on it, along with my own tasks, and the next person’s problem, and the next… until I’d feel stressed out and overwhelmed and eventually end up at a standstill. While this has happened to other managers, I also saw it manifest with people who weren’t managers. From these experiences, I learned a valuable lesson:

If you take on other people’s problems, eventually you may find yourself stressed out and overwhelmed, and people will be waiting on you while your other tasks pile up.

The Solution

The solution to this universal problem can be found in a book written in 1988 called The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Kenneth Blanchard, William Oncken, Jr., and Hal Burrows. From this slim volume, which my wife recommended, I learned the secrets of “monkey management.” No, I didn’t learn the basics of zookeeping; in this book, the monkey represents the next move.

“For every monkey, there are two parties involved: One to work it and one to supervise it.[i]”

The problem new managers and other overwhelmed people face is that they take on people’s problems (monkeys) and don’t give them back. As a manager, your job is not to take on all the issues (monkeys) members of your team are having. Instead, you need to help your people address their issues themselves, and this is done by following the four rules of monkey management.[ii]

Rule 1. Descriptions: The “next moves” are specified.

Rule 2. Owners: The monkey is assigned to a person.

Rule 3. Insurance Policies: The risk is covered.

Rule 4. Monkey Feeding and Checkup Appointments: The time and place for follow-up is specified.

In monkey management, you first work out what the next actions should be (Rule 1. Descriptions). This doesn’t have to be all the steps and/or actions, just the next ones. During this conversation and assessment, don’t consider the conversation over until the next action is worked out. Doing this helps to prevent action paralysis (not knowing what to do) and helps ensure that the next actions are ones that the person can take themselves. This step will also identify whether this really is something that only you can work on.

Next, you work out who owns the problem (Rule 2. Owners). If no one owns the monkey, then nothing will get done because no one is accountable. To ensure the proper care and feeding of a monkey, it needs to have an owner, and it’s important to remember that “All monkeys must be handled at the lowest organizational level consistent with their welfare!”[iii]. You should keep only the monkeys that only you can handle — the rest should be assigned to the correct person.

The third rule, Insurance Policies, ensures that your people have the freedom to act while safeguarding that any mistakes that occur are ones you and your organization can afford. Therefore, when a monkey is assigned, decide which of the two following steps you want the owner to take.

“Recommend, then act” (The person makes recommendations for you to review first; this is useful when the stakes are high.)” or “Act, then advise” (The person is free to act and then inform you afterwards about that they did. This is useful to keep things moving when the risks are lower.).

Finally, Rule 4, Monkey Feeding and Checkup Appointments, has two benefits.

1. It ensures you’re kept in the loop as to what’s going on and gives you a chance to provide feedback and coaching.
2. It gives the monkey (next step) a deadline. This encourages action, as there’s a clear deadline against which to ensure something gets accomplished. It also ensures more peace of mind for both the manager and the subordinate, as the checkup is planned and shouldn’t feel like a “surprise inspection.”

Being in management can be hard, but if you don’t let the “monkeys” get to you, it can also be very rewarding. Helping your team learn how to care for their own monkeys will allow you to focus on the important issues, as well as give you more time to look after your own troop of monkeys.

I encourage you to read the book, which is full of stories, insights, and humor and provides even more depth and breadth to these four rules. These rules have helped me in both my professional and personal life, and I hope you’ll find value in them as well.

[i] Blanchard, Kenneth H., Oncken Jr., W, Burrows, H. (1988). The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey (p. 29). Simon & Schuster.

[ii] Ibid. (p. 59).

[iii] Ibid. (p. 68).