— 1974 —

CHAPTER TWENTY

Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?

by William Oncken, Jr., and Donald L. Wass

EDITOR’S NOTE: This article was originally published in the November–December 1974 issue of HBR and has been one of the publication’s best-selling reprints ever. The practical advice it shares about empowering employees in problem-solving are just as relevant now as they were when it was originally printed. But in these almost 50 years, we’ve realized the metaphor used in the article can be read as offensive. While this is not the intent of the article, we want to acknowledge this concern, and note that it is meant solely as an example of someone carrying the weight of decision-making, nothing more.

Why is it that managers are typically ...

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