Good to Great. Creativity, Inc. How to Win Friends and Influence People. Crucial Conversations. Start with Why. The Hard Thing About Hard Things.

All of these are fantastic leadership books — some of my favorites, in fact. But they’re also books that everyone talks about. Popularity doesn’t make them bad, but it means many leaders end up reading these same books and parroting the same things.

“If you only read the books that everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking.” -Haruki Murakami

Twelve years ago, I stumbled across a little-known management book that rocked my world. I’ve still never heard anyone else talk about it even though I swap recommendations with leaders and readers constantly.

The book is The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey by Ken Blanchard, William Oncken Jr., and Hal Burrows.

Blanchard’s earlier book The One Minute Manager was such a mega-bestseller that he cranked out multiple other books under similar branding, and this lesser-known one is even better than the original.

When I read this book as a first-time manager, I had been feeling swamped by all of the work on my plate. It felt like the 1-on-1s, performance reviews, paperwork, meetings, and deliverables never stopped.

But what made my workload even more intense was all of the questions from my direct reports. It felt like every hour or so, someone came to me with a problem they wanted me to solve. And because I wanted to help, I agreed to take on Cynthia’s problem and Leonard’s problem and Kristen’s problem and so on until I had zero time to do my own work.

Blanchard, Oncken, and Burrows refer to this as “taking on other people’s monkeys.” Everyone has a monkey on their back — a problem they’re struggling with. And because carrying that monkey is uncomfortable, they want to give it to someone else.

Unexperienced managers unknowingly become caretakers for dozens of other people’s monkeys. Management quickly turns into zookeeping.

When I read about this monkey concept, I realized that’s exactly what I had been doing. Rather than letting Cynthia’s problem remain hers to solve (with me in a supporting role), I took on her problem as my own: “Cynthia, don’t worry about that. I’ll look into it and figure out what to do, then let you know later what I found out.”

Bobby to the rescue!

But what I didn’t realize was that by taking possession of Cynthia’s monkey, I was depriving her of the chance to problem-solve and develop her skills.

I was also burning myself out. My zookeeping was unsustainable.

“As a manager, to the extent that you can get people to care for and feed their own monkeys, they are really managing the work for themselves.” -Blanchard, Oncken, and Burrows

If you’re struggling with monkey problems like I was, I highly recommend reading The One Minute Manager Meets the Monkey. The authors provide a handful of immediate, practical ideas to avoid taking on other people’s work while still generously helping them achieve their goals.

By simply becoming aware of the monkey trap and tweaking the way you problem-solve with employees, you can avoid extra work and also empower your team to grow.