S01E05 The Keep Your Monkeys Episode

Mar 21, 2022

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Vincent starts off with a story….

Big Ideas:

Don’t take employees monkeys, or it turns into a zoo
Employees need to keep their own monkeys
Leaders and managers are not necessarily the same
It’s exhausting and unsustainable for a manager to take everyone’s monkeys
It’s natural for managers to take things off people’s plates. They think it’s their job.
How are we supporting people’s transition from individual contributor to management?
What is the role of a manager?
The shift from owning your work, to overseeing the work of the individual contributors work, without taking it on
Role of the manager is to make obstacles go away (organization, finances, resources, team dynamics, psychological safety, recruiting, etc)
Manager to focus on the conditions - preparing the space by removing obstacles, and putting things in
Creating the conditions for competencies to be built
Should we let employees fail?
The relationship between failure and trust.
Creating the culture and context for failure is important
Not taking on the failures of individual contributors as our own failures - accountability infection
Fail fast, fail early, fail often
People are already failing. Are they doing something with it?
As leaders, help them through the failure.
The emotional response to the words we use, including fail
How are leaders talking about failure?
Naming emotions and experiences so that we can have power over it
Looking at our fail points ahead of time, so we can pivot sooner
How we keep persisting on to avoid failure even when it’s the wrong path
Looking at our fail points allows us to know whether the risk is worth it
Doing more of the same strategy doesn’t work if it’s the wrong strategy
Test, Assess, Act
Agile working, sprints, and retrospectives
Using the scientific method and testing hypotheses
What have I done? What will I do? What are my obstacles?
Agile working - product management and scrum master

References:

The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Ken Blanchard
The Leadership Pipeline by Ram Charan
Atlas of the Heart by Brené Brown
Taking Smart Risks by Doug Sundheim
Trust Matters by Ken Blanchard