Monkeys in the Office: Why Effective Delegation is Crucial for Managers
“Not my circus, not my monkeys” – Polish Proverb
So, there's this thing that really bothers me. We’ve all seen it, experienced it, or lived through it: the manager who’s great at doing, but not at leading. It’s a common form of failure in technical fields, immortalized in comics like Dilbert. Promotions often reward previous technical proficiency and capacity, but somewhere along the way, we’re thrust into managing people without even being taught how. We are promoted out of the work where we have, up to that point, excelled. There’s a crisis of identity when you transition from a doer to a delegator. You’re used to accomplishing tasks yourself, and now your success hinges on others' abilities. Some people enjoy the shift, while others find it disorienting.
The simplest “solution”, then, is to keep doing the technical work that landed us the promotion in the first place. When technical people become managers, we often fall into the trap of saying “yes” too much. We take on things that should be delegated to our team, convincing ourselves that it’s faster if we do it, or we’ll just have to redo it later anyway. These excuses stem from, in my experience, not knowing how to effectively teach others what we’ve mastered. This “solution” leads to a rapid failure mode as balls are dropped or, more insidiously, individual burnout and team dependency in lieu of shared accountability. The question then becomes, how do you learn this invaluable skillset of leadership before crashing and burning?
Early in my career, fresh out of university, I was assigned an intern. I failed miserably at delegation—either not giving her enough responsibility or, worse, leaving her fully accountable without offering any support. She succeeded because she was highly skilled, not because I provided the guidance she needed. I was scolded by my superiors for letting her carry too much of the accountability on her shoulders. Fine, scoffed the ever-wise 24 year old me, I won’t let that happen again.
Having “learned” that lesson, for many years I carried the weight of multiple, high profile, and complicated projects, and I thrived in roles that demanded high output. But as I aspired to move into leadership, the demands grew. I kept being told I needed to focus on non-billable work—things I couldn't get to because my plate was already overflowing. The solution? Work overtime. Work weekends. Work to get those non-billable things done in “off” hours where others wouldn’t interrupt me with more “important” billable work.
Then my leader gave me a challenge: he piled on about three times more work than my peers and told me I either had to delegate or fail. And it worked. The fear of failure outweighed my reluctance to delegate, and I started trusting my team. However, because the success of each project in the client’s eyes was still on me, I also had to provide support and touchpoints to my team so that I could speak confidently to our client about our progress. It forced me to become a better delegator.
I’m not saying that trial by fire is the best way to learn, but it was certainly effective. Still, there has to be a better approach, and that’s where the surprisingly small and simple book The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Hal Burrows, Ken Blanchard, and William Oncken comes in. Reading this book made it click into my head with a simple metaphor.
In the book, every task is a monkey. You only have enough room in your office for your own monkeys—if you start taking on your team’s monkeys (i.e., their tasks), chaos ensues. When a staff member comes to you with a problem, the last thing you want is to say, “Here, I’ll take that monkey from you,” because soon, your office will be full of monkeys you didn’t ask for and cannot handle. Instead, the goal is to teach them how to care for their own monkey.
When someone brings you an issue, your job is to help them figure out how to solve it themselves, not take the monkey off their back and put it on yours. The analogy stuck with me. Suddenly, every time someone came to me with a problem, I saw their monkey inching closer to my desk, and I realized: if I take this on, it’s never going back to them. The fear of collecting monkeys became very real.
How to Avoid Collecting Monkeys
If you find yourself struggling to delegate, here are some questions that can help you evaluate the situation:
Is this a task I should be doing myself, or is my time better spent elsewhere on something only I can do?
Would it benefit someone else’s career to learn how to do this task, making both of us more effective going forward?
Should I set a reminder to touch base with the person to ensure they haven’t gotten stuck and either haven’t known to or been brave enough to ask for help?
When should I schedule a review session with them before the final deliverable is due?
Do I have an example of the final deliverable I can provide to them to clarify expectations?
Supporting Without Taking Over
When someone asks for your support, ask yourself:
Am I about to let their monkey jump on my back, or am I going to teach them how to care for it?
Where are they stuck? Is it a technical issue, or are they unclear about the end goal? (This might require a couple of clarifying questions to determine with precision.)
Even if you think you know the solution, ask them to iterate what they think the solution is, and help them walk through their own thought process. It will help them learn the PROCESS of problem solving, not just the immediate solution to the immediate problem.
For me, the final key to successful delegation is shifting from a mindset of “What can I accomplish?” to “What can we accomplish?” By focusing on what your team can achieve collectively, you create space for intentional coaching, career development, and increased output. When everyone pulls in the same direction, the results are far more substantial than if you’re pulling alone. One person alone in an office can only manage so many monkeys, but a whole team can care for a circus.