Just a couple of weeks ago, I knew nothing about The One Minute Manager until a colleague told me about a book he had just read. He mentioned that, in his opinion, as a manager, I was already following all four rules for “managing monkeys.” That piqued my curiosity, and I decided to figure out what kind of monkeys I was supposedly dealing with.
Ken Blanchard, a well-known author of management books, coined the term One Minute Manager in his book of the same name. By this term, he refers to a highly productive leader who follows some fairly simple rules. Blanchard’s first book, co-authored with Spencer Johnson, sold millions of copies and has been translated into nearly 40 languages worldwide. It kicked off a series under the same name, in which Blanchard, collaborating with various business authors, presents different productivity methods.
The book The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey is one of those in the series. In this book, Ken Blanchard draws heavily from a training program by William Oncken Jr., even borrowing the monkey metaphor itself, and reworks it in the style of his other One Minute Manager books.
The book is quite short—only 144 pages of not very dense text. In fact, its core message can be summed up in one sentence: “Delegate, and you’ll be happy.” This simplicity is also a common point of criticism from readers, who say that a book wasn’t necessary for just two or three ideas. I tend to agree with them, if not for one key factor.
The book introduces an interesting concept for framing tasks and problems. Blanchard suggests viewing them as monkeys that climb onto your shoulders. These monkeys settle in your office, and you need to feed and care for them until the problem is solved. Some monkeys, he argues, might not be worth feeding at all.
It’s precisely this metaphor that makes the book engaging. Dry words often don’t resonate deeply with readers. Sure, people take notes and make changes to their work habits, but it doesn’t typically allow them to see their problems from a different, sometimes humorous, angle.
After reading the book, I was able to speak with my colleague in the language of these “monkey” metaphors. It made it easier for us to discuss certain tasks, and we even started joking about it with other colleagues. This metaphor became deeply rooted in our minds, creating a new way to communicate at work. Moreover, several other colleagues immediately picked up the book to understand what we were referring to.
And this is the book’s biggest strength: its use of metaphor. Thanks to this, it sticks with readers much better, and its principles linger longer than if it were just a book about delegation and time management.
Plus, since it’s short and easy to read, it’s definitely worth picking up. You can read it in an evening, and then stop adopting other people’s monkeys.
My rating: 4.5/5
