• Management Time Who's Got The Monkey Pdf
• Management Time Who's Got The Monkey
• Management Time Who’s Got The Monkey Pdf

Management time: Who’s got the Monkey?

Time Management Improving value and effectiveness within an organization I hereby declare that this essay is my own work and that, to the best of my knowledge and belief, it reproduces no material previously published or written nor material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma, except where due acknowledgement has been made in the text. Signature Table of. Start studying WHO'S GOT THE MONKEY. Learn vocabulary, terms, and more with flashcards, games, and other study tools. If God loves me and you, wants what’s best for us long term, is all-knowing and all-powerful, ultimately He’s got the monkey. Question: If you’ve learned to trust God with outcomes, tell us here. 1 Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey? By William Oncken Jr., Donald L. Wass, Stephen R. Covey, Harvard Business Review, 9 pages.

William Oncken, Jr. and Donald L. Wass

Reprinted from Harvard Business Review

An analogy that underscores the value of assigning, delegating and controlling

In any organization, the manager’s bosses, peers, and subordinates-in return for their active support-impose some requirements, just as the manager imposes some requirements upon them where they are drawing upon his or her support. These demands constitute so much of the manager’s time that successful leadership hinges on an ability to control this “monkey-on-the-back” input effectively.

Mr. Oncken, is chairman of the board, The William Oncken Company of Texas, Inc. a management consulting firm. Mr. Wass is president of this company.

Why is it that managers are typically running out of time while their subordinates are typically running out of work? In this article, we shall explore the meaning of management time as it relates to the interaction between their bosses, their own peers, and their subordinates.

Specifically, we shall deal with three different kinds of management time:

Boss-imposed time – to accomplish those activities which the boss requires and which the manager can not disregard without direct and swift penalty.

System-imposed time – to accommodate those requests to the manager for active support from his or her peers. This assistance must also be provided lest there be penalties, though not always direct or swift.

Self-imposed time – to do those things which the manager originates or agrees to do. A certain portion of this kind of time, however, will be taken by subordinates and is called “subordinate-imposed time.” The remaining portion will be his or her own and is called “discretionary time.” Self-imposed time is not subject to penalty since neither the boss nor the system can discipline the manager for not doing what they did not know the manager had intended to do in the first place.

The management of time necessitates that managers get control over the timing and content of what they do. Since what their bosses and the system impose on them are backed up by penalty, managers cannot tamper with those requirements. The managers’ strategy is therefore to increase the “discretionary” component of their self-imposed time by minimizing or doing away with the “subordinate” component. They will then use the added increment to get better control over their boss-imposed and system-imposed activities. Most managers spend much more subordinate- imposed time than they even faintly realize. Hence we shall use a monkey-on-the- back analogy to examine how subordinate-imposed time comes into being and what the superior can do about it.

Where is the monkey?

Let us imagine that a manager is walking down the hall and that he notices one of his subordinates, Jones, coming up the hallway. When they are abreast of on another, Jones greets the manager with, “Good morning. By the way, we’ve got a problem. You see…” As Jones continues, the manager recognizes in this problem the same 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 to 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 Jones part company.

Let us analyze what has 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 executes a leap 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 Jones 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 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 again, in concluding a working conference with another subordinate, Johnson, the manager’s parting words are, “Fine, Send me a memo on that.”

Let us analyze 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. Johnson dutifully writes the requested memo and drops it in his out-basket. Shortly thereafter, the manager plucks it from his in-basket 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 memo 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 a meeting with a third subordinate, Smith, the manager agrees to provide all the necessary backing for a public relations proposal he has just asked Smith to develop. The manager’s parting words to her are, “Just let me know how I can help.”

Now let us analyze this. Here the monkey is initially on the subordinate’s back. But for how long? Smith realizes that she cannot let the manager “know” until her proposal has the manager’s approval. And from experience, she also realizes that her proposal will likely be sitting in the manager’s briefcase for weeks waiting for him to eventually get to it. Who’s really got the monkey? Who will be checking up on whom? Wheel spinning and bottlenecking are on their way again.

A fourth subordinate, Reed, has just been transferred from another part of the company in order to launch and eventually manage a newly created business venture. The manager has said that they should get together soon to hammer out a set of objectives for the new job, and that I will draw up an initial draft for discussion with you.”

Let us analyze 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 immobilized.

Why does it all 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 now is move the wrong leg, and-presto-the subordinate deftly disappears. The manager is thus left with another acquisition to his menagerie. Of course, monkeys can be trained not to move the wrong leg. But it is easier to prevent them from straddling backs in the first place.

Who is working for whom?

To make what follows more credible, let us suppose that these same four subordinates are so thoughtful and considerate of the superior’s time that they are at pains to allow no more than three monkeys to leap from each of their backs to his in any one day.
In a five-day week, the manager will have picked up 60 screaming monkeys-far too many to do anything about individually. So he spends the subordinate, imposed time juggling his “priorities.”

Late Friday afternoon, the manager is in his office with the door closed for privacy in order to contemplate the situation, while his subordinates are waiting outside to get a last chance before the weekend to remind him that he will have to “fish or cut bait.” Imagine what they are saying to each other about the manager as they wait. “What a bottleneck. He just can’t make up his mind. How anyone ever got that high up in our company without being able to make a decision we’ll never know.”

Worst of all, the reason the manager cannot make any of these “next moves” is that his time is almost entirely eaten up in meeting his own boss-imposed and system- imposed requirements. To get control of these, he needs discretionary time that is in turn denied him when he is preoccupied with all these monkeys. The manager is caught in a vicious circle.

But time is a-wasting (an understatement). The manager calls his secretary on the intercom and insurers her to tell his subordinates that he will be unavailable to see them until Monday morning. At 7:00 PM, he drives home, intending with firm resolve to return to the office tomorrow to get caught up over the weekend. He returns bright and early the next day only to see, on the nearest green of the golf course across from his office window, a foursome. Guess who?

That does it. He now knows who is really working for whom. Moreover, he now sees that if he actually accomplishes during this weekend what he came to accomplish his subordinates’ morale will go up so sharply that they will each raise the limit on the number of monkeys they will let jump from their backs to his. In short, he now sees, with the clarity of a revelation on a mountaintop that the more he gets caught up, the more he fall behind.

He leaves the office with the speed of a person running away from a plague. His plan? To get caught up on something else he hasn’t had time for in years: a weekend with his family. (This is one of the many varieties of discretionary time.)

Sunday night he enjoys ten hours of sweet, untroubled slumber, because he has clear- cut plans for Monday. He is going to get rid of his subordinate-imposed time. In exchange, he will get an equal amount of discretionary time, part of which he will spend with his subordinates to see that they learn the difficult but rewarding managerial art called, “The Care and Feeding of Monkeys.”

The manager will also have plenty of discretionary time left over for getting control of the timing and content not only of his boss-imposed time but of his system – imposed time as well. All of this may take months, but compared with the way things have been the rewards will be enormous. His ultimate objective is to manage his management time.

Getting rid of the monkeys

The manager returns to the office Monday morning just late enough to permit his four subordinates to collect in his outer office waiting to see him about their monkeys. He calls them in, one by one. The purpose of each interview is to take a monkey, place it on the desk between them and figure out together how the next move might conceivably be the subordinate’s. For certain monkeys, this will take some doing. The subordinate’s next move may be so elusive that the manager may decide-just for now-merely to let the monkey sleep on the subordinate’s back overnight and have him or her return with it at an appointed time the next morning to continue the joint quest for a more substantive move by the subordinate. (Monkeys sleep just as soundly overnight on subordinates’ backs as on superiors’)

As each subordinate leaves the office, the manager is rewarded by the sight of a monkey leaving his office on the subordinate’s back. For the next 24 hours, the subordinate will not be waiting for the manager; instead, the manager will be waiting for the subordinate.

Later, as if to remind himself that there is no law against his engaging in a constructive exercise in the interim, the manager strolls by the subordinate’s office, sticks his head in the door, and cheerily asks, “How’s it coming?” (The time consumed in doing this is discretionary for the manager and boss-imposed for the subordinate.)

When the subordinate (with the monkey on his or her back) and the manager meet at the appointed hour the next day, the manager explains the ground rules in words to this effect:

“At no time while I am helping you with this or any other problem will your problem become my problem. The instant your problem becomes mine, you will no longer have a problem. I cannot help a person who hasn’t got a problem.”

“When this meeting is over, the problem will leave this office exactly the way it came in-on your back. You may ask my help at any appointed time, and we will make a joint determination of what the next move will be and which of us will make it.”

In those rare instances where the next move turns out to be mine, you and I will determine it together. I will not make any move alone.”

The manager follows this same line of thought with each subordinate until about 11:00 AM he realizes that he has no need to shut his door. His monkeys are gone. They will return-but by appointment only. His appointment calendar will assure this.

Transferring the initiative

What we have been driving at in this monkey-on-the-back analogy is to transfer initiative from superior to subordinate and keep it there. We have tried to highlight the obvious. Namely developing initiative in subordinates, the manager must see to it that they have the initiative. Once he or she takes it back, they will no longer have it and the discretionary time can be kissed good-bye. It will all revert to subordinate- imposed time.

Nor can both manager and subordinate effectively have the same initiative at the same time. The opener, “Boss we’ve got a problem,” implies this duality and represents, as noted earlier, a monkey astride two backs, which is a very bad way to start a monkey on its career. Let us, therefore, take a few moments to examine what we prefer to call “The Anatomy of Managerial Initiative.”

There are five degrees of initiative that the manager can exercise in relation to the boss and to the system: (1) wait until told (lowest initiative); (2) ask what to do; (3) recommend, then take resulting action; (4) act, but advise at once; and (5) act on own, then routinely report (highest initiative).

Management Time Who's Got The Monkey Pdf

Clearly, the manager should be professional enough not to indulge in initiatives 1 and 2 in relation either to the boss or to the system. A manager who uses initiative 1 has no control over either the timing or content of boss-imposed or system-imposed times, and thereby forfeits any right to complain about what he or she is told to do or when. The manager who uses initiative 2 has control over the timing but not over the content. Initiatives 3, 4 and 5 leave the manager in control of both, with the greatest control being at level 5.

The manager’s job, in relation to subordinates’ initiatives is twofold; first, to outlaw the use of initiatives 1 and 2, thus giving subordinates no choice but to learn and master “Completed Staff Work”; then, to see that for each problem leaving the office there is an agreed – upon level of initiative assigned to it, in addition to the agreed – upon time and place of the next manager – subordinate conference. The latter should be duly noted on the manager’s appointment calendar.

Care & feeding of monkeys

In Order to further clarify our analogy between the monkey-on-the-back and the well known processes of assigning and controlling, we shall refer briefly to the manager’s appointment schedule, which calls for five hard and fast rules governing the “Care and Feeding of Monkeys” (violations of these rules will cost discretionary time):

Rule 1
Monkeys should be fed or shot. Otherwise, they will starve to death and the manager will waste valuable time on postmortems or attempted resurrections.

Rule 2
The monkey population should be kept below the maximum number the manager has time to feed. Subordinates will find time to work as many monkeys as he or she finds time to feed, but no more. It shouldn’t take more than 5 to 15 minutes to feed a properly prepared monkey.

Rule 3
Monkeys should be fed by appointment only. The manager should not have to be hunting down starving monkeys and feeding them on a catch-as-catch-can basis.

Rule 4
Monkeys should be fed face to face or by telephone, never by mail. (If by mail, the next move will be the manager’s-remember?) Documentation may add to the feeding process, but it cannot take the place of feeding.

Rule 5
Every monkey should have an assigned “next feeding time” and “degree of initiative.” These may be revised at any time by mutual consent, but never allowed to become vague or indefinite. Otherwise, the monkey will either starve to death or wind up on the manager’s back.

Concluding Note

“Get control over the timing and content of what you do” is appropriate advice for managing management time. The first order of business is for the manager to enlarge his or her discretionary time by eliminating subordinate-imposed time. The second is for the manager to use a portion of this new – found discretionary time to see to it that each subordinate possesses the initiative without which he or she cannot exercise initiative, and then to see to it that this initiative is in fact taken. The third is for the manager to use another portion of the increased discretionary time to get and keep control of the timing and content of both boss-imposed and system-imposed time.

The result of all this is that the manager’s leverage will increase, in turn enabling the value of each hour spent in managing management time to multiply, without theoretical limit.

“The woods are full of them.”

Quoted by Alexander Wilson American Ornithology (1808)

One of the biggest challenges facing leaders today is how to improve ways of working. However, spending time on this is often drowned out by day to day issues such as answering emails, running meetings, spending time with employees, and so on, and so on. The fact is that you can't improve anything unless you find some time to work 'on' the business rather than only 'in' the business.

One of the most popular concepts with regard to how to release your time so that you can work 'on' the business can be found in the popular Harvard Business Review article 'Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?'. The original article was written in the 70's and while the concepts are as relevant as ever, we think the monkey is getting a bit long in the tooth! So here's an abbreviated and updated version which includes some new thinking and self assessment questions.

Let's begin with...

In any organisation, a manager’s time is always in high demand and managers often find themselves running out of time while their employees are running out of work. One of the characteristics of successful leaders is that they remain in control of their time.

Management time can be divided into three types:

1. Boss-imposed time: for completing tasks required by higher-level management.
2. System-imposed time: for completing tasks requested by peers.
3. Self-imposed time: for completing tasks that the manager originates or agrees to do. This is subdivided into:
   • Employee-imposed time: for duties originating from the members of the manager’s team.
   • Discretionary time: for the manager’s own allocation – useful for long-term thinking, working on the organisation and individual development.

A useful analogy for managers aiming to control their self-imposed time is to think of the tasks and responsibilities of their employees as “monkeys”. (Please note we're referring to tasks and responsibilities as 'monkeys' - definitely not employees!) This a concept most closely associated with William Oncken, Jr.’s Managing Management Time. Each time a manager takes on a task that should be the responsibility of an employee – even if there is good reason to do so – the “monkey” is transferred from the employee’s back to the manager’s. If the manager receives a monkey from each member of his/her team every day, the manager’s self-imposed time quickly becomes dedicated exclusively to the care of his/her employees’ monkeys – tending to responsibilities that are of a level below what the manager is paid to do – and the manager’s discretionary time completely disappears.

To illustrate this concept, let us imagine that a manager, Anna, is talking to John, a member of her team, about a problem he is having. Anna knows she will not be able to deal with the problem immediately, so she tells John that she will get back to him with a decision. In taking responsibility for the problem, Anna has just adopted John’s monkey and a demand on her self-imposed time. In addition, John has freed himself of a monkey and released some of his own time.

Anna speaks to three more members of her team that day, each one bringing three problems each. Anna unknowingly adopts nine more monkeys. If this continues every day for a five-day week, Anna finds herself caring for 50 monkeys by Friday afternoon. As she struggles under their demands and makes an attempt to prioritise caring for certain monkeys before others, a “bottleneck” begins to form: the members of her team are unable to continue with their work until the monkeys are fed and returned to their owners.

Soon, all of Anna’s self-imposed time is taken up with employee-imposed tasks – the monkeys. Anna cannot risk using some of her boss- and system-imposed time for dealing with the monkeys, but she has no remaining discretionary time either. She is trapped and her evenings and weekends suddenly seem under threat (this variety of discretionary time should not be spent caring for monkeys).

At this point, Anna remembers that these monkeys do not belong to her, but that she has voluntarily taken responsibility for their care. What is more, she understands that the more monkeys she adopts, the more monkeys she will be offered. Refusing to give up any more of her discretionary time to the responsibilities of her employees, Anna decides that her team must learn to care for their own monkeys.

Anna sets about returning all the monkeys to their owners and calls each member of her team in for a meeting. In every meeting, Anna must ensure that the monkey(s) leave on the employee’s back – they must remain the employee’s responsibility. This means that Anna is waiting on her employees, not the other way around.

'Bring resolutions, not just problems'

There is a very clear direction for each of these meetings. At no point while Anna is helping a member of her team with a problem must the problem be transferred to Anna. If this were to happen, the employee would no longer have a problem, and a manager cannot help an employee who hasn’t got a problem. A useful ground rule for these meetings is “nobody is allowed to bring me problems without also proposing a potential solution'.

At the end of the meeting, the problem will leave as it arrived – on the back of the employee. The employee may ask for help at any time, and a joint decision will be made on what must happen next and who will be responsible. Anna will not make a decision on the problem alone.

Management Time Who's Got The Monkey

Rule 1

Monkeys should be fed or shot. Leaving a monkey to starve to death will cost the manager valuable time in post-mortems or attempted resurrections.

Rule 2

The manager and his/her employees must always keep the monkey population at a manageable level. It should not take longer than 15 minutes to feed a properly prepared monkey.

Rule 3

Monkeys should be fed by appointment only. At no point should a manager have to hunt down starving monkeys, feeding as he/she finds them.

Rule 4

Monkeys should only be fed face-to-face or by telephone, never by email – a manager will adopt a monkey if there is an email requiring a reply.

Rule 5

Every monkey should have an assigned “next feeding time”. These may be revised by mutual consent, but never allowed to become vague or indefinite. Otherwise, the monkey will either starve to death or climb onto the manager’s back.

Managers must enlarge their discretionary time by eliminating employee-imposed time. This discretionary time can then partially be used to ensure that each employee possesses and uses initiative when dealing with problems. The remainder of this discretionary time can be used to control the timing and content of both boss and system-imposed time.

Ask

1. Is this my monkey or someone else’s? Who is working for whom? Are any of the following phrases familiar to you?
   • “Leave it with me”
   • “It’s quicker if I do it myself”
   • “I’ll draw up a proposal”
   • “Let me know how I can help”
2. How can I enable others to care for their own monkeys?
3. Are the roles and boundaries for all my employees clear?
4. Am I too helpful?
5. How many of my employees are in their “stretch zone”?
6. Which parts of my role could others take on, with a view to their future development?

If you think 'monkeys' are alive and well in your department or company, a useful exercise is to start by giving everyone a copy of this article. Then set some time aside with each individual in your team to discuss where their job boundaries are and the benefits of ensuring that everyone is doing the job they are paid to do.

Management Time Who’s Got The Monkey Pdf

Want to find out more? We cover caring for 'monkeys' and many other ways to ensure each team member invests their time and energy most effectively in our Achieving More With Less Time workshop. Effective time management and many other skills for improving individual effectiveness are also included in our Increasing Organisational Effectiveness programme.

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