a friend of mine sent this to me:

Do you ever go home feeling that you’ve spent the whole day doing jobs on other people’s “to do” lists instead of your own? Do you feel that you’re doing more but accomplishing less?

Your life may seem out of control, but it doesn’t have to be if you learn the art of monkey management. A “monkey” is the next move after two individuals meet, as illustrated here:

Say you meet a colleague in the hallway. They say, “Can I see you for a minute? We have a problem.” You listen; time flies. Twenty minutes later you know enough about the problem to realize you’ll have to be involved, but you don’t know enough to make a decision. So you say, “This is very important, but I don’t have time to discuss it now. Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you.”

The detached observer understands what just happened, but when you’re in the middle, it’s harder to see the big picture. Before you met your colleague in that hall, the monkey was on their back. While you were talking, the matter was under joint consideration, so the monkey has one leg on each of your backs. But when you said, “Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you,” the monkey moved squarely onto your back.

The problem may have been part of your staff member’s job, and he may have been perfectly capable of proposing a solution. But when you allowed that monkey to leap onto your back, you volunteered to do two things: (1) You accepted the responsibility for the problem, and (2) you promised a progress report. Just to be sure it’s clear who’s in charge now, your staff member will stop in on you several times the next day to say, “Hi! How’s it coming?” If you haven’t resolved the matter to their satisfaction, they will begin to pressure you to solve what is actually their problem.

To avoid this travesty, monkey management is necessary.

Teachers-librarians must be careful not to pick up other people’s monkeys. When they do, they broadcast the message that their colleagues lack the skills to care for and feed the monkeys themselves. Teacher-librarians who grab monkeys off people’s backs often kill initiative, and everyone is left waiting for the teacher-librarians to make “the next move”.

Nobody wins when you take care of other people’s monkeys. You become hassled and don’t feel very good about yourself. And you have co-workers who look to satisfy their needs elsewhere, because they feel under-utilized and unappreciated. The care and feeding of other people’s monkeys is the ultimate lose-lose deal.

There are four rules of monkey management to help give back monkeys without being accused of buckpassing or abdication. They are:

1. Describe the monkey. The dialogue between a teacher-librarians and a staff member must not end until appropriate next moves have been identified and clearly specified.
2. Assign the monkey. All monkeys shall be owned and handled at the lowest organizational level possible.
3. Insure the monkey. Every monkey leaving you on the back of one of your people must be covered by one or two insurance policies: recommend, then act; or act, then advise.
4. Check on the monkey. Proper follow-up means healthier monkeys. Every monkey should have a check-up appointment.

If you follow these rules, you’ll stop viewing your colleagues as the major source of your problems and will soon start seeing them as major solutions, because each of their hacks can be a depository for several monkeys.

Try monkey management — it works!