Where Is the Monkey?
This well known analogy is worth reviving and sharing.
Allied to this topic is a training workshop Celtar offers on Business Effectiveness, how to make clear requests, and how responsibility for actions is passed from one person to another. From experience, you will recognize the situations where colleagues do not take responsibility for actions……………………..read on.
Here is part 1 of the story, email Celtar [email protected] and we’ll send you the rest.
Let us imagine that a manager is walking down the hall and that he notices one of his subordinates, Sean Fogarty, coming his way. When the two meet, Sean Fogarty greets the manager with, “Good morning. By the way, we’ve got a problem. You see …. ”
As Fogarty continues, the manager recognizes in this problem the two characteristics common to all the problems his subordinates gratuitously bring to his attention. Namely, the manager knows (a) enough to get involved, but (b) not enough to make the on-the-spot decision expected of him. Eventually, the manager says, “So glad you brought this up. I’m in a rush right now. Meanwhile, let me think about it, and I’ll let you know.” Then he and Fogarty part company.
Let us analyse what just happened. Before the two of them met, on whose back was the “monkey”? The subordinate’s. After they parted, on whose back was it? The manager’s. Subordinate-imposed time begins the moment a monkey successfully leaps from the back of a subordinate to the back of his or her superior. And does not end until the monkey is returned to its proper owner for care and feeding. In accepting the monkey, the manager has voluntarily assumed a position subordinate to his subordinate. That is, he has allowed Fogarty to make him her subordinate by doing two things a subordinate is generally expected to do for a boss the manager has accepted a responsibility from his subordinate, and the manager has promised her a progress report.
The subordinate, to make sure the manager does not miss this point, will later stick her head in the manager’s office and cheerily query, “How’s it coming?” (This is called supervision!)
Or let us imagine in concluding a conference with Shane O’Donoghue, another subordinate, the manager’s parting words are, “Fine. Send me an email on that.”
Let us analyse this one. The monkey is now on the subordinate’s back because the next move is his, but it is poised for a leap. Watch that monkey. O’Donoghue dutifully writes the requested email and sends it to his boss. Shortly thereafter, the manager plucks it from his inbox and reads it. Whose move is it now? The manager’s. If he does not make that move soon, he will get a follow-up email from the subordinate. (This is another form of supervision!) The longer the manager delays, the more frustrated the subordinate will become (he’ll be spinning his wheels) and the more guilty the manager will feel (his backlog of subordinate-imposed time will be mounting).
Or suppose once again that at a meeting with a third subordinate, Niamh O’Sullivan, the manager agrees to provide all the necessary backing for a public relations proposal he has just asked O’Sullivan to develop. The manager’s parting words to her are, “Just let me know how I can help.”
Now let us analyze this. Again the monkey is initially on the subordinate’s back. But, for how long? O’Sullivan realizes that she cannot let the manager “know” until her proposal has the manager’s approval. And from experience, she also realises that her proposal will likely be sitting in the manager’s briefcase for weeks before he eventually gets to it. Who’s really got the monkey? Who will be checking up on whom? Wheel spinning and bottlenecking are well on their way again.
A fourth subordinate, John Halligan, has just been transferred from another part of the company so that he can launch and eventually manage a newly created business venture. The manager has said they should get together soon to hammer out a set of objectives for the new job, adding, “I will draw up an initial draft for discussion with you.”
Let us analyse this one, too. The subordinate has the new job (by formal assignment) and the full responsibility (by formal delegation), but the manager has the next move. Until he makes it, he will have the monkey, and the subordinate will be immobilised.
Why does all of this happen? Because in each instance the manager and the subordinate assume at the outset, wittingly or unwittingly, that the matter under consideration is a joint problem. The monkey in each case begins its career astride both their backs. All it has to do is move the wrong leg, and-presto! — the subordinate deftly disappears. The manager is thus left with another acquisition for his menagerie. Of course, monkeys can be trained not to move to the wrong leg. But it is easier to prevent them from straddling backs in the first place.
Celtar business consultants – business advice from Dublin
