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Stop Carrying the Monkey: How to Reclaim Your Time as a Boss · Modularity Podcast

• 0:00
  You hired people so you'd get your time back.
• 0:02
  So why are you working 60 or 70 hours a week, which is more than when it was just
• 0:06
  you?
• 0:07
  Because somebody walked up and said, "We've got a problem, what should we do?"
• 0:11
  and you said, "Leave it with me."
• 0:13
  Or, "Send me an email about it."
• 0:15
  Those sentences feel helpful.
• 0:17
  They're actually expensive.
• 0:19
  Say it's a supplier that's out of stock.
• 0:21
  Or a customer who wants a custom spec.
• 0:24
  Or an invoice that doesn't add up.
• 0:26
  The employee brings it to you, you say "let me look into it,"
• 0:32
  and right there, the problem changes hands.
• 0:34
  It leaps off their back and onto yours.
• 0:38
  This comes from a classic Harvard Business Review piece by William Oncken Junior and
• 0:43
  Donald Wass, called "Management Time: Who's Got the Monkey?"
• 0:47
  Every unresolved problem is a monkey, and the question is whose back it's sitting
• 0:53
  on.
• 0:54
  And the strange part is what happens next.
• 0:56
  The employee's work on that item stops.
• 0:59
  They're waiting on you.
• 1:00
  Then they stop by and say, "Hey, did you get around to looking at that?"
• 1:05
  So now they're supervising you.
• 1:06
  Meanwhile your desk collects dozens of these, and none of them are moving.
• 1:11
  Let's talk about what that costs.
• 1:13
  Every decision sitting on your desk is idle time.
• 1:17
  Picture a crew waiting on an answer about a material substitution.
• 1:21
  Or a customer waiting on a quote.
• 1:23
  Or an invoice that doesn't go out because one line item needs your eyes.
• 1:27
  Nobody's working on those things.
• 1:29
  They're just sitting in line, and the line runs through you.
• 1:32
  There's a second cost, and it's the one that really hurts.
• 1:35
  Oncken breaks a manager's time into buckets.
• 1:39
  Time the boss imposes, time the system imposes, and self imposed time.
• 1:45
  Then self imposed time splits again, into subordinate imposed time and discretionary
• 1:52
  time.
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  Subordinate imposed time is all the monkeys your team handed you.
• 1:57
  Discretionary time is the hours you control.
• 2:00
  And if the monkeys keep multiplying, discretionary time shrinks toward zero.
• 2:05
  That's the time you'd use to write procedures, fix the schedule,
• 2:08
  plan for growth.
• 2:09
  The big stuff.
• 2:10
  You can't build systems when your whole day is feeding monkeys.
• 2:13
  One more thing.
• 2:14
  It trains your team.
• 2:16
  Asking the owner is safe.
• 2:18
  If the answer's wrong, it's your fault.
• 2:20
  Making the call themselves feels risky.
• 2:23
  So they stop thinking, because you've made not thinking the safest option.
• 2:28
  So here's the fix.
• 2:30
  Oncken describes five degrees of initiative.
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  One, wait until told.
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  Two, ask what to do.
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  Three, recommend an action, then do it once approved.
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  Four, act, and tell the boss right away.
• 2:48
  Five, act, and report routinely, like in a weekly summary.
• 2:52
  Levels one and two are the monkey handoff.
• 2:55
  Level two especially.
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  "What should I do?"
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  forces you to understand the whole problem and invent the answer.
• 3:01
  So the rule for your standard workflows is simple.
• 3:04
  Outlaw levels one and two.
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  Nobody brings you a raw problem without a proposed solution.
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  That lines up with an old idea called Completed Staff Work.
• 3:14
  Employees hand their boss a solution fully formed and ready for approval,
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  not just a description of the trouble.
• 3:21
  For a small business, boil it down to three parts.
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  Problem, options, recommendation.
• 3:28
  Here's how it sounds.
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  Problem: the part is delayed ten days.
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  Options: A, pay forty five dollars for expedited courier from a backup supplier.
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  B, swap in an equivalent approved model from local stock.
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  C, reschedule the client to next Tuesday.
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  Recommendation: A, because forty five dollars protects an eight thousand dollar
• 3:53
  project milestone today.
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  And your answer takes ten seconds.
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  "Do A."
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  You didn't investigate anything.
• 4:02
  You made a decision.
• 4:03
  But people pass monkeys because they're afraid of making an expensive mistake.
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  So give them guardrails.
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  Set a dollar threshold, maybe two hundred fifty or five hundred dollars per
• 4:13
  incident, where they can fix a customer complaint, expedite a part,
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  or correct a job site issue without asking you.
• 4:19
  Do the math.
• 4:20
  Say you've got a three person crew standing around for two hours,
• 4:24
  or a client waiting, because someone's holding out for approval on a seventy five
• 4:28
  dollar expense.
• 4:29
  The lost labor and the damaged goodwill cost way more than the seventy five dollars.
• 4:35
  Then there's the golden rule from that article.
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  While I'm helping you with this problem, it will never become my problem.
• 4:42
  When this conversation ends, the monkey leaves on your back.
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  Say it out loud.
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  Mean it.
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  And stop the hallway ambushes.
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  No "got a minute?"
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  and no open ended text dumps.
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  Monkeys get fed by appointment.
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  Ten to fifteen minute sync blocks.
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  And every issue gets one of two outcomes.
• 5:02
  An agreed action with a named owner, or it's discarded.
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  Nothing floats around in limbo.
• 5:07
  Okay, quick wins for this week.
• 5:09
  One.
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  Announce the rule: bring a problem, bring at least two options and a recommendation.
• 5:15
  Write it down so it isn't a mood.
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  Two.
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  Give frontline employees written authority to resolve customer or operational issues
• 5:23
  up to two hundred fifty dollars on their own judgment.
• 5:26
  Put the number in writing, so nobody has to guess.
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  Three.
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  Replace constant interruptions with two fifteen minute triage windows a day,
• 5:35
  maybe mid morning and mid afternoon.
• 5:37
  Blockers get handled in batches, and the rest of the day, you actually get to work.
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  If you remember one thing, make it this.
• 5:46
  Your job isn't to carry everyone's problems.
• 5:49
  It's to build a business where the problems get solved before they reach you.
• 5:55
  If you want help improving the systems that power your business,
• 5:58
  learn more at modularity dot us.