Mastering Monkey Management for Busy Leaders with Jenny Cole

Jenny Cole: 1:02

Hello and welcome to Positively Leading the Podcast. I am your host, Jenny Cole. It's so lovely to have you with us. This is a solo episode where I get to talk about anything I want. No, that's not true. I love the interviews with my guests and I hope you're loving them too. Thank you to those people who have taken the time to rate and review the episodes that I have with my guests it really makes a difference and thank you to those people who've been sharing them with others that they know. But solo episodes are where I get to talk about things that I think about, train, that I know work, and to share some of my wisdom. One of my very favourite things to talk about is monkey management, and there's been a couple of episodes where people have referenced the book the One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey, particularly Kate Murrihy, who said that it was one of the books that she goes back to over and over again. So we're going to talk a little bit about monkey management today.

Jenny Cole: 2:15

One of the big issues I find when people move from teaching to any kind or indeed any kind of technical role, into leadership or to management, is their temptation to want to do everything themselves, and this comes from two places One, from the fear that if we don't do everything ourselves, people won't think that we're good enough, and the second part is we really don't have the ability to delegate. We've never been taught how to delegate up until now. Chances are you've been the only person in your classroom or you're the key person on your team whose job it is to do everything, and by the time you get to a leadership role, you're worried about delegating to others because you're worried about what they're going to say about you. She doesn't know what she's doing, so therefore she gives it to me, or she thinks she's so clever she's going to give me all of her work and all of that fear about not wanting to be a bother and, you know, looking like we're good enough, all bubbles to the surface and that results in new or for new leaders or people in new leadership roles becoming extremely overwhelmed and stretched and burnt out.

Jenny Cole: 3:41

And, as I said, the term monkey management was coined by the management expert Kenneth Blanchard. He's written a whole series of books, been around for many, many years and he wrote, with co-authors, the five-minute manager series and I have the five-minute manager on Teams, the five-minute manager, and these are little, tiny little books, often with stories or fables inside them about management dilemmas. So my first introduction was the five-minute manager meets the monkey, and the essence of the concept lies in how to appropriately handle distribution of responsibilities within a team or an organisation, and he asks us to imagine that every task or a problem is a monkey and, as a leader, your team members might bring their monkeys to you their problems, their tasks or their issues and they might seek guidance or solutions, or even they want you to look after their monkey. And the key to management, or, in fact, leadership, is not to accumulate too many monkeys on your own back. It's impossible to function if you are collecting monkeys, and not only is it impossible for you to function if we don't allow people to take ownership of their own monkeys, their own tasks or problems. We aren't fostering a culture of accountability, we're fostering a culture of dependence. And just as recently as yesterday, I was talking to a young leader who is very capable and very good and very efficient at doing tasks and so finds himself in a position where he takes on a lot of responsibility and takes back tasks from people, and I talked to him about are you wanting to grow, develop, empower your team. And he said yes, of course, and I said so. By doing the work that they should do, you're not growing them, you're not empowering them. In fact, you're disempowering them and disengaging them, even if they are coming to you with their monkey to solve. You're creating a culture of dependence.

Jenny Cole: 6:22

So let me give you my example. So let me give you my example. It's the example that I have used many times in workshops and elsewhere. So my apologies if you've heard it before, but I have a really clear memory of being a school leader and I would get to work really, really early, when there was nobody else in the school except the cleaner and the gardener, because my aim was to try and get some quiet, uninterrupted time before anybody else arrived. But who is in the school first thing in the morning? Of course the cleaner and the gardener.

Jenny Cole: 7:02

So I'd be sitting at my desk, barely got my first cup of coffee. I'd sit down and Stuart, the cleaner, would turn up and say, hi, jen, how are you doing? And I'd be sitting at my desk, barely got my first cup of coffee. I'd sit down and Stuart, the cleaner, would turn up and say, hi, jen, how are you doing? And I'd say, fine, thanks, stuart, how are you? He said I'm really great, but you know those toilet rolls that we ordered for the junior toilet block? They don't fit in the containers. And I'm like, oh seriously. He said yes, and we've got 15 boxes of them. And I said, oh gosh, that's no good.

Jenny Cole: 7:32

And so I scribbled toilet rolls on my to-do list and then Stuart, assured that he's now handed his monkey over to me, starts to talk to me about other things, about his job, and then about his dogs and his family, and that's lovely. And he eventually wanders off and I just, you know, type my password into my computer and there's a little knock on my door to say sorry to disturb you, jenny, and it's the gardener. And he says to me you know those trees we planted at the back of the school? Well, it appears that the ball's not working and they've died. And I'm going oh gosh, you're joking, because the PNC donated those trees and we had a big. You know, men of trees came out and helped us plant them and now they're dead. And so I'm writing dead trees and men of trees and call the PNF and let them know that their busy bee was a disaster, because the trees are dead and I've written fix the bore on my to-do list and I have a bit more of a chat to the gardener and he toddles off and then in comes those really keen teachers who are there really early, and I love people with a good idea, so I'm really happy to have in my space a young keen teacher who goes space, a young keen teacher who goes Jen, I was just thinking overnight why don't we get all of those maths resources and we find some big tubs and we put everything in sort of bags and we do a scope and sequence and we make sure that all the resources according to our program that we've just introduced, are all in one place so that teachers can just go.

Jenny Cole: 9:06

And she explains this idea to me and it just sounds fantastic to me and so I say sure, liz, why don't I order the plastic tubs and those plastic containers and you and the maths committee go about collecting all of those resources and we'll get back in touch. And so I write order tubs and get plastic containers, and she goes and eventually people start to arrive and everyone's got something that they want to say, or they'll just drop by to say hi, and that's fine. And then, you know, the buses start to disgorge, kids and parents start arriving and Mrs Smith arrives at your door and said I need to see you. And you say certainly, mrs Smith, please take a seat. And she said Michael hasn't come home with his lunchbox, and that's three days in a row. And I said, oh gosh, I'm terribly sorry about that if you've spoken to his teacher. And she says well, his teacher's a bitch. And so I've tried to bring stuff up.

Jenny Cole: 10:01

And so I am furiously writing notes and looking like I care about Michael's lunchbox and I'm like talk to teacher, give her some instructions about how to handle Michael's mum, find Michael's lunchbox, and eventually Mrs Smith goes away and the day starts. And then there's meetings and case conferences and business plans to write, and my to-do list is just much bigger now than I could ever imagine and there's 70 emails that I need to, you know, triage, and we get to the end of the day and we've got a staff meeting and there's all these things that now end up on my list. You know, jenny, you need to do something about that. Jenny, you need to do something about that. Have you thought about this?

Jenny Cole: 10:47

And then you know, we just get to the end of the day. You're just about to take a breath and go to the toilet for the first time and Mrs Smith comes back and says did you find Michael's lunchbox? And you smile and are polite and respectful to Michael's mum, but on the inside you are screaming. Do you think I have nothing better to do than to look for a child's lunchbox? And then you know she carries on about how she can't afford to buy lunchboxes and that's fair and all of that. But you're wondering why you are doing this. So the kids leave, the parents leave. You finish your staff meeting. You know you've presented some amazing professional learning.

Jenny Cole: 13:43

At the end of the day and everyone goes home and you sit back at your desk with a to-do list that is 15 times longer than it was first thing in that morning and you are feeling resentment that everyone gets to go home except you and you are saying very unpleasant things, like they don't work hard enough. Who do they think they are? Dump all their stuff on me. What I managed to do, in a desire to be helpful and accommodating and pleasant, is that I collected everybody's monkeys. Some of those monkeys were mine to collect, having a conversation to Michael's teacher about how she could speak nicely with parents and to give them the time of day and to make sure they felt important and welcome. That was definitely a job on my to-do list, particularly if Michael's teacher was under my line management authority and some of them were my monkeys to hold on to for a little while while we taught the person how to manage it on their own.

Jenny Cole: 15:06

So, for example, I could have said to Stuart the cleaner gosh, that's really unfortunate that those toilet rolls don't fit. Why don't you come back at eight o'clock when the business manager is in and we'll make a time for you to learn how you return things and how all that works in terms of the finances, and so you can return and receive things. You know the right toilet rolls. So sometimes the monkey is yours to hold while you train other people to take care of it. It's a very low level example, but sometimes you will take responsibility for things while you're upskilling somebody else. But what I love about the one minute manager is that they talk about the monkey, or the task or the project belongs to the person lowest in the organisation who will get some joy out of doing it. So I quite often look at leaders and I think you are getting paid $120,000 a year, more or less. That job shouldn't live with you. That should live with somebody who gets the joy out of doing it.

Jenny Cole: 16:18

A really simple example is that in my workshops I use a lot of cards, either playing cards to get people in groups, or I use stimulus cards, or I've got cards with words on on them and they get all muddled when I'm at workshops and I used to come back and put them in a big pile and Jess, my assistant, said to me, would you like me to sort those out? And I said, oh, you won't know what goes in what pile. And she said just leave it with me. And she not only sorted them out, she colour-coded them so it would be easier for her to sort out next time. And I apologised and said oh sorry, that is my mess, that is not your mess to clean up. And she said oh, I love doing this, I love organising things, and that is an example of the person lowest in the organisation who's going to get some joy out of doing it.

Jenny Cole: 17:09

And that's not a hierarchical thing, that is more a financial thing Finding someone who's got the strength to do what it is. So we can't always do that in schools, we can't always give away our jobs, but monkey management is understanding that the problem is not the monkey. The monkey is not inherently a problem. The problem is what is the next step? What is the next step to do with the monkey? So the importance of monkey management lies in the ability to streamline workflow. Now, these are terms that are really familiar in a corporate sense, but it's not something that a lot of leaders in schools are used to. Because we want to streamline the workflow, promote individual growth and ultimately contribute to a more productive and dynamic workforce and workplace. Because when team leaders learn to manage their own monkeys, it frees up your time to focus on the more strategic initiatives and high priority tasks. More strategic initiatives and high priority tasks In very simplistic terms, anyone can teach in a classroom, and I mean any qualified teacher can teach.

Jenny Cole: 18:18

So in an ideal world, it is absolutely perfect to have a high quality teacher in front of those kids for 40 weeks of the year. However, if that teacher is away, another teacher can step in and run a program that hopefully will be just as good or at least suffice the one job that can't be done by anybody but you and the senior leadership team is that big picture, strategic thinking, planning and the high priority tasks that are urgent, important and possibly have risk. So the only person that can do the really high level strategy planning, risk assessment and finance is you. Yes, of course there could be another leader comes into your school, but it is the leader's job to do that. So if you are bogged down in management tasks, you're never going to be able to rise above and get to that strategy.

Jenny Cole: 19:18

And one of the important jobs that leaders always say to me they never get around to is spending enough time with their team. How do I find time in classrooms? How do I find time to do X, y and Z? One of the ways to find time is to make sure your monkeys are looked after by the right person. So I am going to give you a series of things that you might want to think about in order to manage your monkeys, and it starts with my old favourite, about establishing clear expectations, and this is as simple as establishing job roles and responsibilities. So I have seen job roles and responsibilities in school where we've listed absolutely everything that is done by the principal, the deputy's leadership team, everything, and what often happens is we end up with the same kind of tasks on everybody's list. You know staff management or what else could everybody do?

Jenny Cole: 20:22

There's a whole range of things I want you to get really clear about who actually does the work? Not who has end of line responsibility, because particularly at principal level, but as a team level, leader level, you might have end of line responsibility, but who does the work so that you can direct people there? So somebody will come to you and say I need time off. Sure, as the leader, you probably have permission to give somebody time off. But if they're a year six teacher and the year sixes are managed by the deputy, then you've got to send that person away and say look, that sounds fine with me, but I don't make that decision. The deputy does. Please go and take that to them.

Jenny Cole: 21:10

And when everybody understands exactly what their role is and what their duties are, it helps them to understand the monkeys that are theirs and the monkeys that aren't there. I find this a lot when I coach whole leadership teams. Sometimes they're not clear about whose job is who, and I will often say but I spoke to the other member of the leadership team the other day and they seem to be doing that. So it's really hard to delegate if you're not sure who to delegate to. And people will come to you as the most senior leader because they know that you can make a decision. So you've got to empower other people to make decisions as well. But, for example, both the cleaner and the gardener lovely, so pleased that they came to me, so pleased that I knew that information but they were both managed by the business manager, the MCS, and both of what they wanted to talk about were MCS problems. So this is encouraging ownership.

Jenny Cole: 22:12

So not only have clear roles and responsibilities, but take your fingers out of the pie and allow other people to make final decisions. Tell them I will back you, even if you're wrong. And if you are wrong, I'm going to tell you. We're going to learn, we're going to do it differently. I'm on your side. I'm not going to overturn your decisions unless someone's in danger, and you can always run things past me. But we want to empower others to take responsibility.

Jenny Cole: 22:47

The most overworked and overwhelmed are people who have trouble giving away authority and autonomy to others. So there's the first two clear expectations, clear role descriptions and then the second one is once you have those, encourage people to step into them and bat things back to them. If that's in their lane and they've got responsibility, they're allowed to run things past you, but you need to encourage them to make the final decision. Number three is prioritise and delegate. So, taking opportunities to meet with your team and have a look at what's on everybody's plate and prioritise what's important and focus only on those high priority items, those big rocks that are really going to make a difference. And then just keep an eye on workload, because there will be different bumps in a school year calendar where perhaps it's really busy in student services or the pastoral care team because they're doing all the case conferences and the resourcing, but it's not so busy in another team. So, even though you do have roles and responsibilities, don't forget that sometimes you can delegate other tasks to other people who might not be so busy. So you know, I wouldn't be delegating to the librarian in the middle of stock take, but there might be times when you might delegate a role or a responsibility to somebody in the library, for example. So it's okay to have everyone in roles and responsibilities and all of those sorts of things and make sure that the monkey lands up in the right court with the right person who has authority to look after them, but then you do need to teach problem solving skills.

Jenny Cole: 24:52

I never, ever, ever want to hear another person say don't come to me with problems, come to me with a solution, because, goddammit, if they had a solution, they wouldn't have a problem and they wouldn't be standing at your door. That is a misunderstanding of solution. Focused solutions are options. So what you want to encourage in your staff is here is the problem. Here are some of the things that I have already thought about or already tried, but I'm stuck, and the reason they would be coming to you is either to get additional options or for them to say these are the options I've decided, but this option has an implication for staffing, or this option has an implication because it might upset parents.

Jenny Cole: 25:50

Can we talk through these options? So that's ideal. Don't come to me with a problem. Come to me with what you've already tried and what your options are, and I'm going to coach you through the rest of it. But also, what you're wanting to do there and this is a coaching approach 101, is that you want your team to be thinking as deeply as you are, so when they come to you with a problem, it is not your job to solve it and you have to put away your advice monster, that thing inside of you that says I've got an answer, I know how to do this, and remind yourself that if you jump in, then that you are disempowering that person who doesn't have an answer and doesn't know how to do it. So this is where we train people to look after their own monkeys, and sometimes that might mean coaching people through some options. So you've considered these options. What else have you considered? Or helping them say that some of the options have more risk or more benefit to the others, and that's through questioning and saying what have you tried? What's worked? What's worked? Just a little bit. What do you think the next steps are? To encourage thinking and problem solving and also to promote that idea that they don't come to you for a quick fix.

Jenny Cole: 27:19

I think as humans, we're all inherently lazy and if we know someone is just going to solve our problem, or if we know that our boss is ego driven and therefore is just going to give us the solution and it's going to stop us having to go through the motions of finding it out ourselves. They're going to keep coming to you with their problem. It's the old analogy of teach a man to fish we can keep giving them fish and they will just keep coming to you with their problem. It's the old analogy of teach a man to fish we can keep giving them fish and they will just keep coming back day after day. But we need to teach our team members to be self-sufficient, and that involves reminding ourselves to shut up, listen, ask questions and make sure that the monkey ends up back where it belongs. So that's teaching problem solving skills.

Jenny Cole: 28:06

Number five is hold regular check-ins. If we gave you a monkey for the first time ever, we gave you a baby monkey and we said, off you go, we wouldn't check in on you and the monkey in two years time time or in six months' time. We'd be doing really regular check-ins about how you're going. And so, whether it's a real monkey or a problem, good leaders and managers check in to see how the monkey is being managed. You need to check in more frequently with new and inexperienced staff. So if you give somebody a problem or a project to do, that they've never done before and you've coached them through it and you've asked them lots of questions and they're taking action. They will probably be only taking very small steps, very tentative steps, because they're new at it, and so they will need you to check in not check up, but check in on them far more regularly. However, if you give it to a person to do, if you delegate or share a problem or a task with somebody who's very competent, then you don't need to check in as regularly. They don't need the guidance. But I often see people doing either micromanaging people who are perfectly competent or leaving newbies for far too long before checking in and making sure that they're on the right track. Checking in and making sure that they're on the right track and I will probably save for another episode.

Jenny Cole: 29:46

This is the notion of situational leadership and leaders understanding what different staff need at different times, whether they need directing, whether they need coaching, whether they need leaving alone so that they can just get on to it. So what we're trying to do here is create some leadership skills and attributes and ways of being that promote a workplace culture that values responsibility. So we want a workplace culture where we have independent problem solving people, take responsibility for their own actions and interactions and ultimately, this enhances team efficiency. If you're a senior leader, this could be the senior leadership team, you and your deputies and your business manager and anyone at that level, but it also could just be the front office team, the non-teaching staff, the people who work in the offices answering the phones and doing finance, and all of those very important skills. We want to build those teams so that they feel like they have autonomy and authority to make decisions too, and it could be deputies or middle leaders, holers and so forth, head of learning with their teachers. We want those middle leaders to know exactly what they're responsible for and when they can make a decision and about what and with whom. So one, that we empower the middle leaders, but two what we don't want is that awful thing that happens in far too many schools where a teacher will bypass a middle leader, not because they necessarily don't like what they're going to say, but they know the teacher knows that the middle leader doesn't have authority to do anything. So what's the point of talking to that person who's also then just going to talk to the person above them? And that's the inefficiency. It's just faster if the monkey stays with the person lowest down in the organisation, who might get some joy out of looking after it.

Jenny Cole: 32:06

It's not just about distributing your tasks but cultivating that mindset of accountability and collaboration. It's a super little book and it's told in a fable. I'm sure that's what the genre is told in a fable. I'm sure that's what the genre is. I often say to people don't go and buy it, because chances are your leader will have one on their shelves, but by all means do buy the Five Minute Manager Meets the Monkeys. It's so simple that it almost feels too simple. It is something that you go back to over and over again and say this is my circus, but is this my monkey? We want to foster a culture of ownership and responsibility but, importantly, your wellbeing is dependent on your ability to hand back monkeys. These are the boundaries that form the basis of our wellbeing, because the minute we feel overwhelmed and stretched, we are doing more than we are capable of. We have the ability, but we just don't have the bandwidth, and so understanding when we have perhaps taken on more monkeys than we should do is absolutely a crucial first step in your leadership journey.