So, I re-read “The one minute manager meets the monkey” over the weekend. I read it a few years ago, but the learnings hadn’t meant as much to me then, as they do today, which tells me that sometimes, timing is everything.

Let’s start by explaining what is “a monkey”? Essentially, it’s the next move in terms of any work, project or problem. The owner of the monkey is the person who is tasked with the next action, in order for progress to be made. This all sounds great until we realise that we all take on other people’s monkeys without even realising it. You know those brief hallway conversations, where we walk away with more work than we had before the conversation. That’s because you picked up their monkey! In the space of a few minutes, their monkey jumped off their back and on to yours. You walked away 1-task heavier, and they walked away 1-task lighter, and gosh was it subtle. It was so subtle, you either didn’t feel the new monkey jump over at all, or you invited it. It might even have been your idea!!!! Most of the time, the original owner doesn’t intentionally offload their monkey to you (although that happens too), it’s that they came to ask for help and you invited their monkey over with a response like “leave it with me, I’ll come back to you” or “I’ll give them a call”. Sound familiar??? Who knew how such benign statements, came with such anxiety and stress, because just like real-life monkeys, they come with caring responsibilities. They remind me of the Tamagotchi digital pet craze that happened in the 90s. It was adorable and everyone wanted one, and while we knew it wasn’t alive, we still felt like a bad person if we killed it.

The problem with owning the next move, is that until it gets done, you are the one holding up progress. This is especially stressful for managers, if they become the reason their staff have no work to do. Monkeys should be owned by the person best placed to take care of it. Most of the time, that is not the manager, but the employee who brought the problem in the first place. Whether they know it or not, they don’t really want you to solve the problem for them, they’d prefer to be able to solve it themselves. Even though it might be easier and faster for you to do it yourself, it’s their monkey and you have enough monkeys of your own to take care of.

When a member of your team comes to you saying, “We have a problem”, visualise that monkey getting ready to leap over to you and instead help them own their own monkey and own that next task that makes progress towards solving the problem. Give your team the authority, autonomy, confidence and direction (if needed) to own their own monkeys.

If you are an individual contributor or member of a team, don’t just bring problems, bring solutions too. Own your monkeys.

The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Ken Blanchard, William Oncken Jr and Hal Burrows – it’s short, it’s great. Check it out.