Who's got the monkey

We’ve all heard the long time saying “get the monkey off my back”… Well, this saying has certainly traveled throughout the business world. Last week, during an Emotional Intelligence (EI) course I took, the instructor mentioned we should all look up the Harvard Business Review article, “Who’s Got the Monkey” to help drive home the point that managers need to stop taking responsibility for always being the problem solver in their area. As part of understanding Emotional Intelligence, you must take a step back and help (a) understand what someone is really telling you (between the lines) and (b) empower others to become better problem solvers themselves.

As part of this course, we all were able to send our family, friends, managers, and peers a 360 feedback survey to get an idea of how we each were being perceived by others. Without diving into all of the details here (maybe another post), some of the candid feedback I received was others felt I wasn’t giving them an opportunity to come up with solutions on their own. Ironically enough, throughout my career, I’m asked almost daily to help think through a problem. I thought I was helping….

Reading between the lines of some of my feedback, I quickly learned that I need to empower my staff more by “moving the monkey off of my back”. Not jumping right into problem solving mode when someone stops by, rather ask detailed questions and help them to discover the answer or solution on THEIR OWN. Even if they are expecting an answer (unless it’s critically urgent you land on answer right then).

Depending on your perspective, you’ll pull something different from this article. If you are a manager, you should quickly be able to discern how you can make some minor changes to empower your staff and to gain better control of your time. If you are not in a management position, the article can give you an idea of how to show more initiative which will certainly become apparent to your manager. Helping to save your manager from a barrel of monkeys can bring about rewards as well!

A good quote from the article:

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

This article was written by William Oncken, Jr. and Donald J. Wass in the late 1970′s and is one of the two best-selling articles in Harvard Business Review history!

Please comment and share your thoughts!