The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey Paperback – 29 Nov. 2000

When I first read read this book in the early 1990s, it was a huge wake-up call.No wonder there weren't enough working hours in the day as I allowed my staff's monkeys to jump onto my shoulders.A monkey is the next move in a problem or project. All too easily, when a staff member comes to you with a problem, you can fall into the trap of accepting responsibility the next action eg thinking about it to try to find a solution, contacting someone else etc. The less time you have to work through it with your staff member, the greater the tendency for the monkey to jump.To rub salt into the wound, your staff can then start chasing you to see if you've done your step. They are holding you accountable for doing their work.The book explains the entire process which is illuminating. More importantly, it teaches you how to deal with these monkeys, which normally means making sure that they stay with the staff members but you remain in control by scheduling the next review meeting.This monkey transfer happens with good intentions. As the manager, you know your job is to support your staff and you're responsible for what they do or don't do. Unfortunately allowing a monkey to jump is harmful to you, your organisation and your staff. You get busier, the business doesn't get the things done it needs done. Your staff can't learn and develop if, every time things get hard, you take responsibility for the job off them.Just like The New One Minute Manager (The One Minute Manager), this is a great book that will change the way you work. These books are told in a management fable style to make them easy to read and understand. This one doesn't have much of a story but hopefully you can see yourself first in the before scenario and then in the after when you've learnt monkey management.About my book reviews - My goal is to help you to find the best business advice. I aim to be a tough reviewer because the main cost of a book is not the money to buy it but the time needed to read it and absorb the key messages. 5 stars means that I think that overall it has some vital messages in it.Paul Simister, a business coach who helps business owners who feel stuck, get unstuck.

Great book - I was new to leading a team and wasn’t aware of just how many monkeys I was carrying until I read this book!Where I thought I was supporting my team I wasn’t because I wasn’t allowing them to learn, take ownership. I was also not helping myself by doing everyone else’s tasks meaning I didn’t have time to reflect and look grow my team individually and as a whole.This has really supported my development and how I develop my teamI have read the book through twice initially and I know it will be a re-read again just to keep me on track and support birds eye thinkingFully recommend

Very helpful read for work or life...

Read it. If you have not read this, then buy it, or spend the rest of your life in the dark.

I have read hundreds of management books over the last five decades and can honestly say that this one is the best value for money you can ever hope to buy.However, Because you have read this one, don't automatically assume you will get the same amount of value from the others in the "One Minute Manager" series.I have recommended this to a score of friends and colleagues always with the same promise. Which is "if you don't find this book is worth the money, give it to me and I will refund the clost to you in full." Not one of the twenty people came back to me.There are too many managers too ready to have their employees "monkeys" scramble on to their backs. (The monkey is the problem and this shows how to help "grow" your employee without taking their "monkey" onto your back.)Many junior staff are "punch-drunk" by the time they get to you. They have been sworn at, shouted at, to such an extent that they are frighted to assume any authority for themselves. This shows how you can take one of these, now frightened people, and grow them into people who can take decisions for themselves.As far as I can remember, the book is only around 150 pages. I came here as I am about to buy two more for people I know.

Although part of Ken Blanchard's One Minute Manager series of short management books, the Monkey Manager idea comes from the late William Oncken Jr's "Managing Management's Time" seminars - still promoted by the organisation that bears his name.A monkey is defined as the "next move" or task in a project, and the authors explain in the normal anecdotal style of this series how subordinates often succeed in delegating such tasks upwards to their harries managers, who, by accepting such tasks, make themselves the bottlenecks in their departments and unwittingly teach their subordinates that they don't really trust them. Their reward - even more "monkeys".Blanchard, Oncken and Burrows proceed to demonstrate how a manager can give those monkeys back to subordinates, to everyone's increased satisfaction in the long run, make sure that new monkeys are correctly assigned to people in the first place and, in due course, how responsibilities for certain types of monkeys can be delegated properly, so that managers need on get involved in exceptional problems.This is a great little book - only takes couple of hours to read its 130 pages - and if you can lived with the continuous repetition of the word "monkey" as a jargon word, which did get a little tiresome after a while, I believe that you would find it of great value.

Its OK, the principles are good but few practical stuff.

Great book a must for busy managers