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Management Time:Who’s Got the Monkey?by William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. Wass

Commentary by Stephen R. Covey

New sections to

guide you through

the article:

• The Idea in Brief

• The Idea at Work

• Exploring Further. . .

P R O D U C T N U M B E R 3 9 2 8

The secret to managing

your time is keeping the

monkeys off your back.

To delegate effectively,

avoid primary responsibil-

ity for your direct reports’

problems. Then you can

perform the managerial

tasks you were hired to do.

T H E I D E A

For managers to function effectively, theyneed to have as much discretionary time aspossible. But where can they find it? They can’ttake it away from activities mandated by theirsupervisors, nor can they really borrow it fromtime allocated to helping peers. The only viablesolution is reducing the time spent handlingsubordinates’ problems.

When you accept primary responsibility for asubordinate’s problem or action item, you maynot realize it that very moment, but it’s asthough you have allowed a monkey to be trans-

ferred from your subordinate’s back onto yours.Do the arithmetic: if you allow each of yourdirect reports to put a monkey on your backseveral times a week, before long you’ve lostcontrol of the timing and content of your agenda. Not only are you unable to attend toyour own priorities, your availability to yourgroup is restricted. Ultimately, the work of theentire team suffers. To maintain the leverageyou need to do your job, you need to establishstrict guidelines about accepting and handlingresponsibilities that arise from subordinates.

Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?

Within an organization, there are fivedegrees of initiative available to a manager.Moving from the lowest degree to the highest,they are:

1. waiting to be told

2. asking what to do

3. making a recommendation, then taking the recommended action

4. taking action, but advising others at once

5. acting on one’s own, then routinely reporting it to others.

When you’re dealing with subordinates’ mon-keys, make your minimal expectations clear:tell them they’re not allowed to use options 1and 2. Each time a subordinate comes into youroffice to discuss one of his monkeys, make surehe leaves with a clear understanding of the levelof initiative you’re expecting from him. Also, tryto observe the following advice about monkeys:

• Eliminate some monkeys if your team has more than it can realistically handle.

• Limit your involvement with a subordi-nate’s monkey to no more than 15 minutesat a time.

HBR OnPoint © 2000 by Harvard Business School Publishing Corporation. All rights reserved.

• Make appointments to deal with monkeys.When you try to address them on an ad hocbasis—for example, when you pass a subor-dinate in the hallway—you don’t convey theproper seriousness.

• Agree on a date when the subordinate reports back on the progress he’s made on each action item generated at the last meeting.

Empowerment had not come into vogue whenOncken wrote, notes Stephen Covey in a 1999addendum to this article. Back in 1974, com-mand-and-control-management was the orderof the day. What Oncken doesn’t tell you, Coveypoints out, is that empowerment is initiallymore time consuming than solving the problemon your own. Empowerment flourishes onlywhen the entire organization buys into the con-cept, and when the manager and his subordi-nate have a trusting relationship. But perhapsmost important, the manager must overcomehis natural eagerness to take on subordinates’monkeys. He must develop a “mentality ofabundance” that enables him to relinquish con-trol and seek the growth and development ofthose around him.

T H E I D E A A T W O R K

I N B R I E F

2 harvard business review November–December 1999

AR

TW

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IP R

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Copyright © 1999 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. All rights reserved. 3

by William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. Wass

Management Time:

Who’s GottheMonkey?

Commentary by Stephen R. Covey

H B R C L A S S I C

The burdens of subordinates

always seem to end up on

the manager’s

back. Here’s

how to get

rid of them.

WHY I S I T T HAT MANAGER S ARE

typically 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 subordinates.

Specifically, 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 penalty.

System-imposed time–used to accom-modate requests from peers for activesupport. Neglecting these requests willalso result in penalties, though not al-ways as direct or swift.

Self-imposed time – used to do thosethings that the manager originates oragrees to do. A certain portion of this

H B R C L A S S I C • M anagement T ime: Who’s G ot the M onk ey?

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.Self-imposed 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 place.

To accommodate those demands,managers need to control the timingand the content of what they do.Since what their bosses and the sys-tem impose on them are subject topenalty, managers cannot tamperwith those requirements. 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 it.

Where Is the Monkey?

Let us imagine that a manager iswalking down the hall and that henotices one of his subordinates,Jones, coming his way. When thetwo meet, Jones greets the managerwith, “Good morning. By the way,we’ve got a problem. You see….” 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 company.

Let us analyze what just happened.Before the two of them met, onwhose back was the “monkey”? Thesubordinate’s. After they parted, onwhose back was it? The manager’s.Subordinate-imposed 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 progressreport.

The 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?” (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).

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? Wheel spinningand bottlenecking are well on theirway again.

A 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 im-mobilized.

Why does all of this happen? Be-cause in each instance the managerand the subordinate assume at theoutset, wittingly or unwittingly, thatthe matter under consideration is a

William Oncken, Jr., was chairmanof the William Oncken Corporationuntil his death in 1988. His son,William Oncken III, now heads thecompany.

Donald L. Wass was 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–December1974 issue of HBR and has been oneof the publication’s two best-sellingreprints ever.

For its reissue as a Classic, the Har-vard Business Review asked StephenR. Covey to provide a commentary.

4 harvard business review November–December 1999

joint 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 place.

Who 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. In a five-day week, the managerwill have picked up 60 screamingmonkeys – far too many to do any-thing about them individually. So he spends his subordinate-imposedtime juggling his “priorities.”

Late Friday afternoon, the manageris in his office with the door closedfor privacy so he can contemplatethe situation, while his subordinatesare waiting outside to get their lastchance before the weekend to re-mind him that he will have to “fishor cut bait.” Imagine what they aresaying to one another about the man-ager as they wait: “What a bottle-neck. He just can’t make up hismind. How anyone ever got that highup in our company without beingable to make a decision we’ll neverknow.”

Worst of all, the reason the man-ager cannot make any of these “nextmoves” is that his time is almost en-tirely eaten up by meeting his ownboss-imposed and system-imposedrequirements. To control those tasks,he needs discretionary time that isin turn denied him when he is pre-occupied with all these monkeys. Themanager is caught in a vicious circle.But time is a-wasting (an understate-ment). The manager calls his secre-tary on the intercom and instructsher to tell his subordinates that hewon’t be able to see them until Mon-day morning. At 7 pm, he driveshome, intending with firm resolveto return to the office tomorrow toget caught up over the weekend. Hereturns bright and early the next day

only to see, on the nearest green ofthe golf course across from his officewindow, a foursome. Guess who?

That does it. He now knows whois really working for whom. More-over, he now sees that if he actuallyaccomplishes during this weekendwhat he came to accomplish, hissubordinates’ morale will go up sosharply that they will each raise thelimit on the number of monkeysthey will let jump from their backsto his. In short, he now sees, withthe clarity of a revelation on a moun-taintop, that the more he gets caughtup, the more he will fall behind.

He leaves the office with the speedof a person running away from aplague. His plan? To get caught upon something else he hasn’t hadtime for in years: a weekend with hisfamily. (This is one of the many vari-eties of discretionary time.)

Sunday night he enjoys ten hoursof sweet, untroubled slumber, be-cause he has clear-cut plans for Mon-day. He is going to get rid of his sub-ordinate-imposed time. In exchange,he will get an equal amount of dis-cretionary time, part of which hewill spend with his subordinates tomake sure that they learn the diffi-cult but rewarding managerial artcalled “The Care and Feeding ofMonkeys.”

The manager will also have plentyof discretionary time left over forgetting control of the timing and thecontent not only of his boss-imposedtime but also of his system-imposedtime. It may take months, but com-pared with the way things havebeen, the rewards will be enormous.His ultimate objective is to managehis time.

Getting Rid of the MonkeysThe manager returns to the officeMonday morning just late enough sothat his four subordinates have col-lected outside his office waiting tosee him about their monkeys. Hecalls them in one by one. The pur-pose of each interview is to take amonkey, place it on the desk be-tween them, and figure out togetherhow the next move might conceiv-ably be the subordinate’s. For certainmonkeys, that will take some doing.The subordinate’s next move may be

so elusive that the manager may de-cide – just for now – merely to let the monkey sleep on the subordi-nate’s back overnight and have himor her return with it at an appointedtime the next morning to continuethe joint quest for a more substan-tive move by the subordinate. (Mon-keys sleep just as soundly overnighton subordinates’ backs as they do onsuperiors’.)

As each subordinate leaves the of-fice, the manager is rewarded by thesight of a monkey leaving his officeon the subordinate’s back. For thenext 24 hours, the subordinate willnot be waiting for the manager; in-stead, the manager will be waitingfor the subordinate.

Later, as if to remind himself thatthere is no law against his engaging

in a constructive exercise in the in-terim, the manager strolls by thesubordinate’s office, sticks his headin the door, and cheerily asks,“How’s it coming?” (The time con-sumed in doing this is discretionaryfor the manager and boss imposedfor the subordinate.)

When the subordinate (with themonkey on his or her back) and themanager meet at the appointed hourthe next day, the manager explainsthe ground rules in words to this effect:

“At no time while I am helping youwith this or any other problem willyour problem become my problem.The instant your problem becomesmine, you no longer have a problem. Icannot help a person who hasn’t got a problem.

“When this meeting is over, theproblem will leave this office exactlythe way it came in –on your back. Youmay ask my help at any appointedtime, and we will make a joint deter-mination of what the next move will

harvard business review November–December 1999 5

M anagement T ime: Who’s G ot the M onk ey? • H B R C L A S S I C

In accepting the

monkey, the manager

has voluntarily assumed

a position subordinate

to his subordinate.

When Bill Oncken wrote this article in 1974, managers were in a terriblebind. They were desperate for a way tofree up their time, but command andcontrol was the status quo. Managersfelt they weren’t allowed to empowertheir subordinates to make decisions.Too dangerous. Too risky. That’s whyOncken’s message – give the monkeyback to its rightful owner – involved acritically important paradigm shift.Many managers working today owehim a debt of gratitude.

It is something of an understate-ment, however, to observe that muchhas changed since Oncken’s radicalrecommendation. Command and con-trol as a management philosophy is allbut dead, and “empowerment” is theword of the day in most organizationstrying to thrive in global, intenselycompetitive markets. But commandand control stubbornly remains a com-mon practice. Management thinkersand executives have discovered in thelast decade that bosses cannot just givea monkey back to their subordinatesand then merrily get on with their ownbusiness. Empowering subordinates ishard and complicated work.

The reason: when you give problemsback to subordinates to solve them-selves, you have to be sure that theyhave both the desire and the ability todo so. As every executive knows, thatisn’t always the case. Enter a wholenew set of problems. Empowermentoften means you have to develop peo-ple, which is initially much more timeconsuming than solving the problemon your own.

Just as important, empowermentcan only thrive when the whole orga-nization buys into it – when formalsystems and the informal culture sup-port it. Managers need to be rewardedfor delegating decisions and develop-ing people. Otherwise, the degree of

real empowerment in an organizationwill vary according to the beliefs andpractices of individual managers.

But perhaps the most important les-son about empowerment is that effec-tive delegation – the kind Oncken advocated – depends on a trusting rela-tionship between a manager and hissubordinate. Oncken’s message mayhave been ahead of his time, but whathe suggested was still a fairly dictato-rial solution. He basically told bosses,“Give the problem back!” Today, weknow that this approach by itself is tooauthoritarian. To delegate effectively,executives need to establish a runningdialogue with subordinates. They needto establish a partnership. After all, ifsubordinates are afraid of failing infront of their boss, they’ll keep comingback for help rather than truly take initiative.

Oncken’s article also doesn’t addressan aspect of delegation that has greatlyinterested me during the past twodecades – that many managers are ac-tually eager to take on their subordi-nates’ monkeys. Nearly all the man-agers I talk with agree that their peopleare underutilized in their present jobs.But even some of the most successful,seemingly self-assured executiveshave talked about how hard it is to giveup control to their subordinates.

I’ve come to attribute that eagernessfor control to a common, deep-seatedbelief that rewards in life are scarceand fragile. Whether they learn it fromtheir family, school, or athletics, manypeople establish an identity by com-paring themselves with others. Whenthey see others gain power, informa-tion, money, or recognition, for in-stance, they experience what the psy-chologist Abraham Maslow called “afeeling of deficiency” – a sense thatsomething is being taken from them.That makes it hard for them to be gen-uinely happy about the success of oth-ers – even of their loved ones. Onckenimplies that managers can easily giveback or refuse monkeys, but manymanagers may subconsciously fearthat a subordinate taking the initiativewill make them appear a little lessstrong and a little more vulnerable.

How, then, do managers develop theinward security, the mentality of“abundance,” that would enable themto relinquish control and seek the

growth and development of thosearound them? The work I’ve done withnumerous organizations suggests thatmanagers who live with integrity ac-cording to a principle-based value sys-tem are most likely to sustain an em-powering style of leadership.

Given the times in which he wrote,it was no wonder that Oncken’s mes-sage resonated with managers. But itwas reinforced by Oncken’s wonderfulgift for storytelling. I got to know On-cken on the speaker’s circuit in the1970s, and I was always impressed byhow he dramatized his ideas in color-ful detail. Like the Dilbert comic strip,Oncken had a tongue-in-cheek stylethat got to the core of managers’ frus-trations and made them want to takeback control of their time. And themonkey on your back wasn’t just ametaphor for Oncken – it was his per-sonal symbol. I saw him several timeswalking through airports with astuffed monkey on his shoulder.

I’m not surprised that his article isone of the two best-selling HBR arti-cles ever. Even with all we know aboutempowerment, its vivid message iseven more important and relevantnow than it was 25 years ago. Indeed,Oncken’s insight is a basis for my ownwork on time management, in which Ihave people categorize their activitiesaccording to urgency and importance.I’ve heard from executives again andagain that half or more of their time isspent on matters that are urgent butnot important. They’re trapped in anendless cycle of dealing with otherpeople’s monkeys, yet they’re reluc-tant to help those people take theirown initiative. As a result, they’re of-ten too busy to spend the time theyneed on the real gorillas in their orga-nization. Oncken’s article remains apowerful wake-up call for managerswho need to delegate effectively.

Stephen R. Covey is vice chairmanof the Franklin Covey Company, aglobal provider of leadership devel-opment and productivity servicesand products. He is the author ofThe 7 Habits of Highly EffectivePeople (Simon & Schuster, 1989)and First Things First (Simon &Schuster, 1994).

by Stephen R. Covey

Gori l lasfor

MakingTime

H B R C L A S S I C • M anagement T ime: Who’s G ot the M onk ey?

6 harvard business review November–December 1999

be and which of us will make it.“In those rare instances where the

next move turns out to be mine, youand I will determine it together. Iwill not make any move alone.”

The manager follows this sameline of thought with each subordi-nate until about 11am, when he real-izes that he doesn’t have to close hisdoor. His monkeys are gone. Theywill return – but by appointmentonly. His calendar will assure this.

Transferring the InitiativeWhat we have been driving at in thismonkey-on-the-back analogy is thatmanagers can transfer initiative backto their subordinates and keep itthere. We have tried to highlight atruism as obvious as it is subtle:namely, before developing initiative

in subordinates, the manager mustsee to it that they have the initiative.Once the manager takes it back, hewill no longer have it and he can kisshis discretionary time good-bye. Itwill all revert to subordinate-im-posed time.

Nor can the manager and the sub-ordinate effectively have the sameinitiative at the same time. Theopener, “Boss, we’ve got a problem,”implies this duality and represents,as noted earlier, a monkey astridetwo backs, which is a very bad way tostart a monkey on its career. Let us,therefore, take a few moments to ex-amine what we call “The Anatomyof Managerial Initiative.”

There are five degrees of initiative

that the manager can exercise in re-lation to the boss and to the system:

1. wait until told (lowest initiative);

2. ask what to do; 3. recommend, then take

resulting action; 4. act, but advise at once; 5. and act on own, then routinely

report (highest initiative).Clearly, the manager should be pro-fessional enough not to indulge ininitiatives 1 and 2 in relation eitherto the boss or to the system. A man-ager who uses initiative 1 has nocontrol over either the timing or thecontent of boss-imposed or system-imposed time and thereby forfeitsany right to complain about what heor she is told to do or when. Themanager who uses initiative 2 hascontrol over the timing but not overthe content. Initiatives 3, 4, and 5leave the manager in control of both,with the greatest amount of controlbeing exercised at level 5.

In relation to subordinates, themanager’s job is twofold. First, tooutlaw the use of initiatives 1 and 2,thus giving subordinates no choicebut to learn and master “CompletedStaff Work.” Second, to see that foreach problem leaving his or her officethere is an agreed-upon level of ini-tiative assigned to it, in addition toan agreed-upon time and place forthe next manager-subordinate con-ference. The latter should be dulynoted on the manager’s calendar.

The Care and Feeding of MonkeysTo further clarify our analogy be-tween the monkey on the back andthe processes of assigning and con-trolling, we shall refer briefly to themanager’s appointment schedule,which calls for five hard-and-fastrules governing the “Care and Feed-ing of Monkeys.” (Violation of theserules will cost discretionary time.)

Rule 1. Monkeys should be fed orshot. Otherwise, they will starve todeath, and the manager will wastevaluable time on postmortems or

attempted resurrections.Rule 2. The monkey population

should be kept below the maximumnumber the manager has time tofeed. Subordinates will find time towork as many monkeys as he or shefinds time to feed, but no more. Itshouldn’t take more than five to 15minutes to feed a properly main-tained monkey.

Rule 3. Monkeys should be fed byappointment only. The managershould not have to hunt down starv-ing monkeys and feed them on acatch-as-catch-can basis.

Rule 4. Monkeys should be fedface-to-face or by telephone, butnever by mail. (Remember – withmail, the next move will be the man-ager’s.) Documentation may add tothe feeding process, but it cannottake the place of feeding.

Rule 5. Every monkey should havean assigned next feeding time anddegree of initiative. These may be re-vised at any time by mutual consentbut never allowed to become vagueor indefinite. Otherwise, the mon-key will either starve to death orwind up on the manager’s back.

“Get control over the timing andcontent of what you do” is appropri-ate advice for managing time. Thefirst order of business is for the man-ager to enlarge his or her discre-tionary time by eliminating subordi-nate-imposed time. The second isfor the manager to use a portion ofthis newfound discretionary time tosee to it that each subordinate actu-ally has the initiative and applies it.The third is for the manager to useanother portion of the increased dis-cretionary time to get and keep con-trol of the timing and content of bothboss-imposed and system-imposedtime. All these steps will increasethe manager’s leverage and enablethe value of each hour spent in man-aging management time to multiplywithout theoretical limit.

Product no.. 3928To place an order, call 1-800-988-0886.

harvard business review November–December 1999 7

M anagement T ime: Who’s G ot the M onk ey? • H B R C L A S S I C

The manager can

now see, with the

clarity of a revelation

on a mountaintop,

that the more he gets

caught up, the more

he will fall behind.

ARTICLES

“What Effective General Managers Really Do”by John P. Kotter (Harvard Business Review,March–April 1999, Product no. 3707)A gap has existed between the conventionalwisdom about how managers work and theactual behavior of effective managers. Kotterexplains that managers who limit their inter-actions to orderly, focused meetings actuallyshut themselves off from vital informationand relationships. Seemingly wasteful activi-ties like chatting in hallways and havingimpromptu meetings can, in fact, prove quiteefficient when managers have an agenda onwhich they are always working. Unplannedencounters thus provide an opportunity toadvance the agenda.

“The Manager: Master and Servant of Power”by Fernando Bartolomé and André Laurent(Harvard Business Review, November–December 1986, Product no. 4215)When workers’ commitment to their jobswanes, or when they allow resentmentstoward bosses, direct reports, and others tofester, the reason isn’t that bosses are power-hungry or direct reports rebellious. Conflictand misunderstanding usually arise becauseof power dynamics. Many managers can’t seehow their behavior toward direct reports andsuperiors alike is distorted by hierarchical dif-ferences. The result can be a lessening of trustbetween manager and subordinate, whichinhibits open communication and risk taking.

“Pygmalion in Management” by J. SterlingLivingston (Harvard Business Review,September–October 1988, Product no. 88509)Further substantiation of the manager’s cru-cial role in developing initiative. Experimentsand studies have demonstrated that man-agers’ expectations have a direct impact ontheir direct reports’ productivity—the “Pyg-malion effect.” High expectations on the partof managers lead to the development of a“superstaff.” Low expectations result in dam-aged egos and poor performers. The differ-ence in the behavior of these two groups is adirect result of how each of them is treated by the manager.

BOOK

Harvard Business Review on Managing People(Harvard Business School Press, 1999,Product no. 9075)The articles in this collection suggest ways to build organizations with judicious andeffective systems for managing people.Although each article presents a thought-provoking perspective on some aspect of people management, two are especially appli-cable to the subject of time spent managingothers. Writing on empowerment, ChrisArgyris warns that using it as the ultimatecriterion for success in an organization maycover up deeper problems that need to beaddressed. Jay Conger argues that persuasion,defined as learning from others and negotiat-ing a shared solution, is gaining importanceas a management tool in post-command-and-control organizations.

Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?E X P L O R I N G F U R T H E R . . .

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