The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey

Part of the popular One Minute Manager Library, The One Minute Manager Meets The Monkey shows executives how to avoid picking up other people s problems. The book calls these problems Monkeys. Managers who have a tendency to pick up other people s monkeys never get anything useful done on time. This is because they have to spend too much time shuffling and managing all the monkeys clambering on their backs, with never any time to do much constructive work. When a manager's staff member comes to them with a problem, they bring their monkey with them. If the manager is not careful and says something like needing a little more time to think about the situation, the problem, or the monkey, climb on to the manager's back leaving the subordinate free. In this way, a manager can accumulate so many monkeys, it will distract him from his own job. The monkeys have a tendency to leap with abandon from one person to the other. The person who leaves himself open as a target will invite too many monkeys. Most of them will not be his own. The book shows how managers can get out of this situation. Instead of taking on other people s responsibilities, they should provide advice and delegate the problems to the appropriate person. They should send the monkeys back with their proper owners, and take measures for insurance against risks. The manager should follow up the problems, to check on the status and the progress made. They should concentrate on being good at delegating and supervising projects, rather than taking on everything on themselves. The One Minute Manager Meets The Monkey is a good resource for those executives who have a tendency to take on too much responsibility on themselves, instead of assigning the tasks to the appropriate people. It teaches the art of delegation and hands-off management. It shows managers that they should only intervene when the situation calls for it.