Managing Management Time: Harvard's Monkey Paper by Oncken

Monkey Business ManagementIf you are looking for information on Managing Management Time(tm) seminars, please visit Management Training of DC.

You're working hard today
so that you can enjoy the future;
we're here to help you make that happen --
and to get that darn monkey off your back
Ad for MarketWatch Retirement Weekly
from The Wall Street Journal, March 2007
emphasis, Your Business Blogger
The Tipping Point

The Three Second Rule

The Monkey on Your Back

The Monkey on Your Back?

Managers 'round the world recognize this expression as the situation where an individual has the next move in an assignment.

As in "the ball's in your court."

Every capitalist thought leader and opinion maker dreams of creating a cliche that enters the popular language, the popular culture. A short hand phrase because we are all In Search of Excellence.

Managing Management Time: Who's Got The Monkey
by William Oncken, Jr.
from Harvard Business Review Who's got the monkey? is one of my favorite questions that is derived from the classic article,Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? by William Oncken, Jr. and Donald L. Wass. The article was published in 1974 by Harvard Business Review and has been one of HBR's two best-selling reprints ever. Your Business Blogger bought one.

Oncken and Wass ask,

Why is it that managers are typically running out of time while their subordinates are typically running out of work?

Although they were the co-authors of Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey?, they were not the first with the phrase. The

The Monkey on Your Back
Ancient Egypt earliest recorded instance was in ancient Egyptian mythology. Tehuti was their deity of wisdom, writing and learning. He had the head of a baboon. And as a scholar he would sit "on the backs" of scribes aand watch over their efforts.

A more modern interpretation might be from Fifth Voyage of Sinbad the Seaman where an ape-like creature torments from atop Sinbad's back. The monkey signs,

"Take me on your shoulders and carry me to the other side of the well channel."

Sinbad takes the monkey on his back and takes on an assignment. And provides a lesson for us all.

The monkey is the task. And resides on the individual responsible for the next step, the next action.

The manager must always know where the monkeys are. And must ensure that the monkeys always leap from high levels to low.

Monkeys that move up from subordinate to manager is reverse delegation -- this is not healthy for the relationship or the organization or capitalism.

The manager who would allow an upward-leaping monkey is an amateur in need of professional help.

The professional manager keeps the monkeys on the proper backs. And how to manage them.

The manager does not manage time, he manages management time.

Sinbad would say so.

Thank you (foot)notes:

UPDATE: Press Release: Partnership of The William Oncken Corporation and Management Training of DC, LLC

Full Disclosure: Over the past two decades, Your Business Blogger has personally and through my organizations, retained Bill Oncken III, son of Oncken Jr. I am proud to call him friend...This is also an endorsement of The William Oncken Corporation.

Read more about the Harvard Business Review article at the jump.

And visit Management Training of DC for pricing on the Managing Management Time(tm) seminars.

Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey?

They tell the engaging story of an overburdened manager who has unwittingly taken on all of his subordinates' problems. If, for example, an employee has a problem and the manager says, "Let me think about that and get back to you," the monkey has just leaped from the subordinate's back to the manager's. This article describes how the manager can delegate effectively to keep most monkeys on the subordinate's back.

Stephen Covey wrote a review of Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey? saying,

[Management Time] offers suggestions on the care and feeding of monkeys and on how managers can [manage] initiative. In his accompanying commentary, Stephen R. Covey discusses both the enduring power of this message and...

Most important,

...[H]ow theories of time management have progressed beyond [time management] ideas. Management thinkers and executives alike now realize that bosses cannot just give a monkey back to their subordinates... It means bosses have to develop their subordinates and establish trust. Perhaps even more important and relevant than it was 25 years ago, Covey says, this article is a powerful wake-up call for managers at risk for carrying too many monkeys.

This is an enhanced edition of the HBR reprint 99609, originally published in November/December 1999. HBR OnPoint articles save you time by enhancing an original Harvard Business Review article with an overview that draws out the main points and an annotated bibliography that points you to related resources.

Posted at 7:48 AM
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