MONKEY MANAGEMENT
Do you sometimes get the impression that you are overwhelmed by the sheer volume of responsibilities? Instead of ticking off more tasks from your list and reducing the amount of work, you notice that, on the contrary, only more and more work is done. In addition, your co-workers, subordinates or family members approach you every now and then, overwhelming you with their problems, requests for help or even new tasks to be performed. Sounds familiar? If so, let’s look why this is happening and how to deal with the problem called „Monkey Management” also known as monkey on the shoulder.
- What does that mean we have a monkey on our shoulder
- Why is wearing a monkey over your shoulder a problem?
- How to prevent monkeys on your shoulder
WHAT DOES THAT MEAN WE HAVE A MONKEY ON OUR SHOULDER
This is a situation in which you are responsible for completing the task. You hear it when people talk about a challenge or expectation of performance that has plagued you for a while and seems impossible to achieve.
As an example, we can cite a situation in which an employee escalates a problem to his manager. When the manager hears all the arguments and facts and takes the responsibility for his employee, he takes the monkey on his shoulders. It often happens that the employee is at this point relieved of a difficult task and can devote his time to performing other tasks and the manager himself takes another „pebble to his backpack”. The described manager may have a whole team of such employees who discuss their duties with him every day and delegate some of them to him. In a normal, healthy supervisor-employee relationship, it is the boss who supports his employees and serves them so that they can perform their duties. Unfortunately, abuses in this area are very frequent. Lack of assertiveness or inability to recognize the problem can lead to a situation in which the person carrying the monkey on the shoulder has a multitude of duties that he cannot cope with.
The situation is similar in private life. It can be, for example, a request to take the dog out, throw out the rubbish, go shopping, arrange matters in the bank, etc. The spouses can transfer their responsibilities to each other, children to parents, parents to children, etc. If we add in-laws, friends and neighbors to this, it turns out that the relationship grows significantly.
WHY IS WEARING A MONKEY OVER YOUR SHOULDER A PROBLEM?
A supervisor who helps his employees is perceived as a leader who together „pulls the car uphill” rather than sitting on the cart. As well a parent who looks after their children is a caring parent. A helpful neighbor is a treasure. So what is the problem?
Well, this is a problem for several reasons. I will not elaborate on the role of the savior and the dramatic triangle in general because I wrote about it in the article „IT IS YOUR FAULT!” – WHAT IS THE „DRAMA TRIANGLE”? and I invite you to read it.
However, each of us has a limited time to use, which is a limited good. It is impossible to extend the day forever. The person accused of someone else’s duties does not have time to perform their tasks. She can also be seen as an unlucky worker with delays or a parent who is neglecting her responsibilities.
The sheer volume of tasks affects the quality of work and life. We try to be on time with everything, as a consequence of which we do everything much faster, often at the expense of accuracy, sleep and rest.
Another aspect is that the people from whom we accept tasks simply deprive themselves of the opportunity for development. It is the work on difficult things that makes us leave our comfort zone, which means that the scope of our knowledge and experience is expanding. Taking responsibility for our own tasks and carrying them out successively strengthens our self-discipline.
HOW TO PREVENT MONKEYS ON YOUR SHOULDER
Let’s see how we can get rid of the monkey on our arm. In order to choose the appropriate method, let us ask ourselves why someone delegates our duties to us. The following questions may be helpful.
- Is the delegated task covered by the responsibilities of the delegator?
- Does the delegating person know their scope of duties?
- Does the delegated task exceed the abilities and scope of knowledge or skills of the delegating person?
- Is the delegation caused by independent factors such as: illness, force majeure, unplanned and sudden events
-Is the delegation caused by factors influenced by the delegated person, e.g. laziness, self-discipline, inappropriate use of tools, etc.
Based on the questions and answers given, we can choose the right solutions. It is impossible to describe all the cases here, but let’s look at one of the professional and private life.
Professional example
A company dealing in the production of parts for the automotive industry in which the assembly of parts purchased from sub-suppliers is performed. An employee responsible for supplier quality escalates the supplier quality problem to his supervisor and says:
„Hi, could you help me with this supplier because if they don’t provide us with good quality parts, we will stop our production in 2 weeks?”
Some of the managers will help, of course. They will arrange a meeting with the supplier, they will regularly discuss the problem until they come to a common solution. And what do you think will happen in some time? Yes. The situation will repeat itself.
The second part of the managers will ask themselves. Why is my employee asking me for help? Why can’t he solve this problem when he is responsible for suppliers? What can I do so that he can, under his responsibility, solve this problem himself.
An employee guided and developed in this way will be a valuable asset for the supervisor. He will be able to perform his duties on his own and the scope of his competences will significantly expand.
An example from private life
A teenage daughter does not hesitate to ask her parents to buy her a dog. Parents are overworked and have a lot of responsibilities and warn their daughter that this involves a lot of responsibility and the daughter replies that she will take full responsibility for the dog. As it happens in life, parents buy a dog and after some time the child ceases to identify with responsibility.
Some parents will simply take care of the dog and it will be their next daily duty. Is this the correct approach? Or maybe we should ask ourselves one of the previous questions, try to find the answer why the monkey or the dog is sitting on our shoulder?
Obviously, convincing a teenage child to do their duties is much more challenging than convincing an employee. However, a certain amount of assertiveness and consistency will be very helpful here. Developing the habit of self-discipline and taking responsibility in a child will bear fruit in the future.