“Just cause you got the monkey off your back doesn’t mean the circus has left town” George Carlin
My son recently told me about a book it was suggested he read by his company called “The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey”.
“The One Minute Manager” was required reading back when I was at about the same stage of my career as he is now. I liked it because it was short and the relevant points were easy to follow. I hated it because it was my first exposure to lunatic managers who couldn’t speak or hold a meeting without referencing the damned book. See my blog from February on the subject A Book I'll Read.
So, I get TOMM but what would monkeys have to do with it? Thus I was compelled to read it.
Now, let me digress. I love monkeys. I love monkeys in jokes (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RIY_MQ5x4G4), I love monkeys on television http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelot_Link,_Secret_Chimp) and I especially love monkeys in advertising http://www.trunkmonkeyad.com/). So it only made sense that monkeys would work in How To books.
Not so fast, my friend. These weren’t monkeys like chimps, these were monkeys like Reefer Madness. When you got a room with this monkey you were still by yourself. The essence – so you won’t have to take an hour to read the book yourself - is delegating a task to someone is “giving them the monkey” to take care of as opposed to you taking the money from them and having yet another monkey on your back. There’s a lot of good, sound management stuff like clearly assigning the monkey and following up on the monkey but there’s things like “insuring” the monkey that I’m not so sure about.
My son recently told me about a book it was suggested he read by his company called “The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey”.
“The One Minute Manager” was required reading back when I was at about the same stage of my career as he is now. I liked it because it was short and the relevant points were easy to follow. I hated it because it was my first exposure to lunatic managers who couldn’t speak or hold a meeting without referencing the damned book. See my blog from February on the subject A Book I'll Read.
So, I get TOMM but what would monkeys have to do with it? Thus I was compelled to read it.
Now, let me digress. I love monkeys. I love monkeys in jokes (http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=RIY_MQ5x4G4), I love monkeys on television http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lancelot_Link,_Secret_Chimp) and I especially love monkeys in advertising http://www.trunkmonkeyad.com/). So it only made sense that monkeys would work in How To books.
Not so fast, my friend. These weren’t monkeys like chimps, these were monkeys like Reefer Madness. When you got a room with this monkey you were still by yourself. The essence – so you won’t have to take an hour to read the book yourself - is delegating a task to someone is “giving them the monkey” to take care of as opposed to you taking the money from them and having yet another monkey on your back. There’s a lot of good, sound management stuff like clearly assigning the monkey and following up on the monkey but there’s things like “insuring” the monkey that I’m not so sure about.
Like all How To books this one is based on nice, sound, common sense principles that only have the flaw that all these books have which is that people in the corporate environment never follow nice, sound, common sense principles. However, it is apparent that like it's predicessor it's going to be waved around with great zeal and discussed incessently in meetings.
I guess I’ll now have to rename my fictional book The Seven Flat One Minute Long Tailed Monkeys Who Stole My Cheese.
I guess I’ll now have to rename my fictional book The Seven Flat One Minute Long Tailed Monkeys Who Stole My Cheese.
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