Monkeys are the problems that arise in every organization every day. The trouble comes when subordinates don’t take sufficient initiative in handling their own monkeys and simply shift them to the shoulders of their managers. At the end of the day, the manager is walking around with a whole troop of monkeys on his back.

The authors outlined five degrees of initiative managers might expect their subordinates to exhibit in dealing with “monkeys”:

1. Wait until told what to do (lowest initiative)
2. Ask what to do
3. Recommend action; take action after discussion
4. Take action; then report at once
5. Act on own, then routinely report (highest initiative).

Managers who use this technique have found considerable success. David Songco, CIO of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health, has been employing it for years.

“Who’s Got the Monkey?” is one of the two best-selling Harvard Business Review articles ever. It’s available for $7 at www.hbr.com.