Welcome to issue No. 080 of the Lever

Obligations are like monkeys.

They jump around, take up space, and need to be fed or they'll starve.

And you take responsibility for your teams monkeys without even realizing it.

But first...

This post is inspired by an old HBR article by William Oncken, Jr. and Donald L. Wass.

Link to the original down below.

Let’s say somebody walks into your office with a question:

“Hey boss, I need some help with this project,” they say, holding up a report.

“I’m pretty busy right now, but leave it with me and I’ll take a look”

They drop the report on your desk and walk away, whistling a happy little tune.

What just happened?

They came in with a little monkey on their back; a problem with their work.

They walked out and left that monkey on your desk.

The ball is now firmly in YOUR court. You took their monkey willingly and are now responsible for feeding it, lest it starve to death.

You just added another obligation onto your pile.

Obligations need to be taken seriously.

They are easy to make and easy to break. But breaking obligations means breaking your word, failing your team, and letting yourself down.

One of a leaders core responsibilities is to protect your team and help solve their problems.

But we often go about it the wrong way - we say, “sure, I’ll monkey-sit for you”, instead of coaching them how to better care for their own monkeys.

Everything you say Yes to becomes an obligation.

And there are three types of work obligations:

1. Position imposed
2. System imposed
3. Self imposed
​

Position imposed is your core responsibility. It’s what you were hired to do. If you don’t do it you are failing at your job, and there will be consequences.

System imposed is your secondary responsibility. It’s your role in the overall work process. Failing here means you are bottlenecking the system. The consequences won’t be as immediate, but they will happen.

(Check out this thread for a deeper dive)

Self-imposed is what you agree or plan to do. This is your discretionary time, in which you can choose to either feed your monkeys or someone else’s. Letting the monkeys starve is tragic, but there are few repercussions as nobody knew about them in the first place.

You have the most control over your discretionary time and the least over your core responsibilities.

The best use of your discretionary time then is to feed your monkeys. Not someone else’s. This frees you up to get control over your position and system imposed obligations.

And helps you avoid having to play “catch up” on the weekends.

Giving The Initiative

The root of the problem is that you take the initiative for action away from your team member.

There are five levels of initiative, from lowest to highest:

1. Wait to be told
2. Ask what to do
3. Recommend then act
4. Act on own then advise immediately
5. Act on own then routinely report
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The first step is to get your team to level 3 as quickly as possible. (Levels 1 and 2 is where the persistent monkeys live.)

You do this by setting the correct expectations.

Set a meeting to discuss each monkey. This meeting should have two results:

1. That your team member recommend what the next step is (level 3, minimum).
2. A scheduled follow up to determine progress and subsequent next steps.
​

You must be very clear. "This monkey belongs to you. At no point will you leave your monkey here with me."

In the rare case that the next action truly does belong to you make sure to develop that action jointly. At no point should you work alone.

Rules For Monkeys

Here are a few rules to consider when caring for monkeys:

1. Monkeys should be fed or shot​
​Too many monkeys will eat up all your discretionary time. If you don’t have time to feed them, put them out of their misery.

2. Keep feeding times short​
​It shouldn’t take more than 15 minutes to feed a properly cared for monkey.

3. Monkeys should be fed on a schedule​
​You shouldn’t have to chase a starving monkey.

4. Monkeys should be fed in person (or by phone)​
​At no point should a monkey be fed by email. That leaves the obligation of making the next move with you instead of your teammate.

(Though an email follow up to clarify expectations is appropriate.)

5. Every monkey should have an assigned next feeding time and level of initiative
​These may be revised but must be clear. If left vague the monkey will either starve or end up back on your desk.

With the newfound discretionary time that results from putting the care of monkeys back where it belongs you can now focus on a few things.

First, use this time to guide your team and help them rise to higher levels of initiative. This will free up even more discretionary time over the long term.

Second, use this time to better manage your own monkeys. This will help you stay caught up on your work.

It will take some time but training your team is a key part of what you do as a leader.

Help them help you by teaching them to care for their own monkeys.

PS

​Here is a link to the original article.​