Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?

1 Management Time: Who s Got the Monkey? by William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. WassCommentary by Stephen R. CoveyReprint 996092harvard business reviewNovember December 1999 ARTWORK BY NIP ROGERSC opyright 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. WassManagement Time: Who s GottheMonke y?Commentary by Stephen R. CoveyHBR CLASSICThe burdens of subordinatesalways seem to end up on the manager sback. Here s how to get rid of IS IT THAT MANAGERS AREtypically running out of timewhile their subordinates are typicallyrunning out of work? Here we shall ex-plore the meaning of Management timeas it relates to the interaction betweenmanagers and their bosses, their peers,and their , we shall deal with threekinds of Management Time: Boss-imposed time used to accom-plish those activities that the boss re-quires and that the manager cannot dis-regard without direct and swift time used to accom-modate requests from peers for activesupport.

2 Neglecting these requests willalso result in penalties, though not al-ways as direct or time used to do thosethings that the manager originates oragrees to do. A certain portion of thisHBR CLASSIC Management Time: Who s Got the Monkey? kind of time, however, will be takenby subordinates and is called subor-dinate-imposed time. The remain-ing portion will be the manager sown and is called discretionary time is not subject topenalty since neither the boss northe system can discipline the man-ager for not doing what they didn tknow he had intended to do in thefirst accommodate those demands,managers need to control the timingand the content of what they what their bosses and the sys-tem impose on them are subject topenalty, managers cannot tamperwith those requirements.

3 Thus theirself-imposed time becomes their ma-jor area of concern. Managers should try to increasethe discretionary component oftheir self-imposed time by minimiz-ing or doing away with the subordi-nate component. They will then usethe added increment to get bettercontrol over their boss-imposed andsystem-imposed activities. Mostmanagers spend much more timedealing with subordinates problemsthan they even faintly realize. Hencewe shall use the monkey -on-the-back metaphor to examine how sub-ordinate-imposed time comes intobeing and what the superior can doabout Is the Monkey? Let us imagine that a manager iswalking down the hall and that henotices one of his subordinates,Jones, coming his way.

4 When thetwo meet, Jones greets the managerwith, Good morning. By the way,we ve got a problem. You AsJones continues, the manager recog-nizes in this problem the two char-acteristics common to all the prob-lems his subordinates gratuitouslybring to his attention. Namely, themanager knows (a) enough to get in-volved, but (b) not enough to makethe on-the-spot decision expected ofhim. Eventually, the manager says, So glad you brought this up. I m in a rush right now. Meanwhile, let methink about it, and I ll let you know. Then he and Jones part us analyze what just the two of them met, onwhose back was the monkey ? Thesubordinate s.

5 After they parted, onwhose back was it? The manager time beginsthe moment a monkey successfullyleaps from the back of a subordinateto the back of his or her superior anddoes not end until the monkey is re-turned to its proper owner for careand feeding. In accepting the mon-key, the manager has voluntarily as-sumed a position subordinate to hissubordinate. That is, he has allowedJones to make him her subordinateby doing two things a subordinate isgenerally expected to do for a boss the manager has accepted a responsi-bility from his subordinate, and themanager has promised her a subordinate, to make sure themanager does not miss this point,will later stick her head in the man-ager s office and cheerily query, How s it coming?

6 (This is calledsupervision.)Or let us imagine in concluding aconference with Johnson, anothersubordinate, the manager s partingwords are, Fine. Send me a memoon that. Let us analyze this one. The mon-key is now on the subordinate s backbecause the next move is his, but itis poised for a leap. Watch that mon-key. Johnson dutifully writes the re-quested memo and drops it in hisout-basket. Shortly thereafter, themanager plucks it from his in-basketand reads it. Whose move is it now?The manager s. If he does not makethat move soon, he will get a follow-up memo from the subordinate.(This is another form of supervi-sion.) The longer the manager de-lays, the more frustrated the subor-dinate will become (he ll be spinninghis wheels) and the more guilty themanager will feel (his backlog of subordinate-imposed time will bemounting).

7 Or suppose once again that at ameeting with a third subordinate,Smith, the manager agrees to provideall the necessary backing for a publicrelations proposal he has just askedSmith to develop. The manager sparting words to her are, Just let meknow how I can help. Now let us analyze this. Again themonkey is initially on the subordi-nate s back. But for how long? Smithrealizes that she cannot let the man-ager know until her proposal hasthe manager s approval. And fromexperience, she also realizes that herproposal will likely be sitting in themanager s briefcase for weeks beforehe eventually gets to it. Who s reallygot the monkey ? Who will be check-ing up on whom?

8 Wheel spinningand bottlenecking are well on theirway fourth subordinate, Reed, hasjust been transferred from anotherpart of the company so that he canlaunch and eventually manage anewly created business venture. Themanager has said they should get to-gether soon to hammer out a set ofobjectives for the new job, adding, Iwill draw up an initial draft for dis-cussion with you. Let us analyze this one, too. Thesubordinate has the new job (by for-mal assignment) and the full respon-sibility (by formal delegation), butthe manager has the next move. Un-til he makes it, he will have the mon-key, and the subordinate will be does all of this happen?

9 Be-cause in each instance the managerand the subordinate assume at theoutset, wittingly or unwittingly, thatthe matter under consideration is aWilliam Oncken, Jr.,was chairmanof the William Oncken Corporationuntil his death in son,William Oncken III, now heads thecompany. Donald L. Wasswas president of theWilliam Oncken Company of Texaswhen the article first appeared. Henow heads the Dallas Fort Worthregion of The Executive Committee(TEC), an international organiza-tion for presidents and CEOs. This article was originally pub-lished in the November December1974issue of HBR and has been oneof the publication s two best-sellingreprints ever. For its reissue as a Classic, the Har-vard Business Reviewasked StephenR.

10 Covey to provide a business reviewNovember December 1999joint problem. The monkey in eachcase begins its career astride boththeir backs. All it has to do is movethe wrong leg, and presto! the sub-ordinate deftly disappears. The man-ager is thus left with another acqui-sition for his menagerie. Of course,monkeys can be trained not to movethe wrong leg. But it is easier to pre-vent them from straddling backs inthe first Is Working for Whom?Let us suppose that these same foursubordinates are so thoughtful andconsiderate of their superior s timethat they take pains to allow no morethan three monkeys to leap fromeach of their backs to his in any oneday.