Get Rid of Your Monkeys

Have you ever read the book, "The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey?"  

If you have, you know where I am going in this short post.  If not, it is a great read.  The book is essentially about how distractions and problems of others can and will become yours if you are not careful.

The essence of the book is about how to say no, delegate, and empower - because it you don't, everything will end up on you.  For example, if an employee comes to you with a problem and because you are busy and don't to really want to deal with it, but know you can do it quickly and get back to things - you take it on from the employee to get it done.  You have essentially been given "the monkey" and trained that person that they can dump their problems and issues, their monkeys, on you and you will handle them.

This happens all of the time in entrepreneurship.  In fact, entrepreneurs are the worst at this.  Because we have so much going on and most of the time as high functioning individuals, to stop and take the time to coach someone and empower them to solve their own problem is not something we do by instinct.  It is much easier just to take it on ourselves.  What is one more thing, right?  Wrong.  We have to learn to say no, delegate, and empower.  Otherwise, the business it just us and cannot scale or survive long term.  If you have to do everything, things will eventually break down.

The same thing happens to middle managers, which is what the book is about.  They essentially, get saddled with everything and end of working long hours and get burned out.  As entrepreneurs, we seemingly have an unending reservoir for work, but that is not healthy.  We can and will get burned out.

So, the next time you are being given a monkey.  Stop it.  Take a little extra time to say an outright no, delegate or most importantly, empower and coach your team to grow and handle these things themselves.  If you do, you will find yourself much more successful, have a better quality of life, and have a better business.  Get rid of your monkeys!