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A Review: The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey

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 The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey
by Ken Blanchard, Hal Burrows
ISBN-13: 978-0007116980

When I made the move to lead engineer from senior engineer my instinct was still to try and fix everything for my engineers rather than get them to complete their own tasks, or as Ken Blanchard puts it, Monkeys. It was useful and interesting to read about someone in a very similar situation, how it affected them and their family and how they eventually overcame it with four simple rules:

Rule 1: Describe the Monkey: The dialog must not end until appropriate “next moves” have been identified and specified.

Rule 2: Assign the Monkey: All Monkeys shall be owned and handled by the lowest organisational level consistent with their welfare.

Rule 3: Insure the Monkey: Every Monkey leaving your presence on the back of one of your people must be covered by one of two insurances:

  1. Recommend, then act
  2. Act, then advise.

Rule 4: Check on the Monkey: Proper follow up means healthier Monkeys. Every Monkey should have a checkup appointment.

I first read The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey about ten years ago and by the time I reread it recently, I was well on my way to developing my own delegation strategy.  The book helped me fill in some of the gaps, think about it in a different way and add some more, less engineering focused, practices.

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