WASHINGTON DC – While members of Congress ended 2013 congratulating themselves for passing a budget, the media missed the fact that the agreement doesn’t actually avoid a government shutdown. The deal reached by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) provides simply a blueprint for government spending. Congress must still pass legislation detailing specific spending before January 15, when government’s spending authority expires. Government still faces a potential shutdown in a little over a week.
The budget agreement passed by Congress in the closing days of last year provides what is called the “top-Line” number, setting the overall level of discretionary spending. Congress still has to pass appropriations bills authorizing specific spending for thousands of government agencies, departments and programs. While there is agreement on the total amount of discretionary spending, there is far less agreement on how this spending is allocated. These agreements will have to be reached by the 15th, of the government would shut down again. (read more)
I am reminded of a previous conversation point we discussed in 2011.

Obama and the Magic Monkey Routine

The first ingredient to effective delegation is “Priority Assessment”. Before you delegate responsibility, you must first know what you can’t delegate.
The second ingredient is “Team Empowerment”.
Team empowerment is all about identifying what you can delegate and who you can delegate it to.
The final ingredient of effective delegation is Monkey Management, or who owns the action .
President Obama and all the supporters and proponents on Obama’s side seem to ignore the concept of “Priority Assessment”. A reasonable review of the budgetary process would surely support the contention of the President not being allowed to duck his responsibility to Prioritize the national economy and present his budget proposal.
Yet that is exactly what has continued to happen.
President Obama has delegated his responsibility to the House Of Representatives. Who under normal circumstances would be “empowered” to consider and debate his proposals. Not create them.
Yet that is exactly what has happened.
The basic idea of Monkey Management is that anytime you take on responsibility from another person, you are essentially letting the monkey jump from your colleagues back to your own back.
One of the fundamental traits of an effective leader is to take ownership of executive moves that need to take place within organizations and refuse to delegate, or make the subordinate act on moves, that belong squarely on your shoulders.
It is an essential part of effective delegation to own what is yours to own.
This was outlined in a book by Ken Blanchard called “The One Minute Manager Meets The Monkey“. It essentially outlines a few rules:

Rule #1: A boss and a staff member shall not part company until appropriate “next moves” have been described. The “monkey” is not a project or a problem; the monkey is whatever the ‘next move’ is on a project or problem.” How many times have you sat in a meeting where the next steps were never clarified. There may have been great discussion, but an executable plan was never determined. Monkey management begins by determining what should be done with the monkey (the area of responsibility).

Rule #2: The dialogue between boss and staff member must not end until ownership of each monkey is assigned to a person. “All monkeys must be handled at the lowest organizational level consistent with their welfare.” If you spend all of your time working on other people’s monkeys, you’ll have no time to work on your own. You must move from reacting to other people’s monkey’s to proactively keeping their monkeys off your back so you can focus on your own monkeys. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself simply coping.

Rule #3: The dialogue between boss and staff member shall not end until all monkeys have been “insured”. The more freedom you give your people, the more risk there is that a mistake will be made. Monkey insurance is designed to make sure your team only makes affordable mistakes. There are two types of monkey insurance policies: Recommend, then act OR act, then advise. The level of risk determines which approach the leader should take.

Rule #4: The dialogue between boss and staff member shall not end until the monkey has a check-up appointment. There are two purposes of monkey checkups. The first is to catch people doing something right and then offer praise and encouragement. The second is to spot problems and then take necessary action to correct the problem before it turns into a crisis.

What we have witnessed is President Obama abdicating his responsibility to own a budget and chart a course. He failed the basic principle of leadership, owning what is yours to own. Then he skipped the typical congressional review, and instead just handed them his monkey. I am reminded of a quote from a New York Times article about a classmate from Harvard who said Obama appeared to avoid any position and instead tried to position himself on both sides of every argument.
Considering the events with this “Debt Ceiling” “Government Borrowing” issue, it abundantly clear that no-one wants the monkey. Obama is ducking the monkey like some kind of adverse parasite in the form of a hot potato game. Meanwhile Republicans are creating too many monkeys going randomly in all different directions. This is nonsense.
The level of operational risk determines who should own the monkey. I would argue that with all the rhetorical doomsday drum beating the framework for this being a highly important monkey, “the end of the economic world as we know it“, establishes the monkey owner as President Obama.
One of the most important factors in evaluating monkeys is knowing which ones cannot be delegated. The “Debt Ceiling” monkey belongs solidly to Obama, he’s the executive, he owns the necessary action, yet the Republicans are letting him give it to them. There is a reason the President is supposed to present his budget for approval, and then the necessary debate on the proposals are done by congress.
Can’t anyone besides a few almost silent conservative pundits, and Sarah Palin see this? The media are not going to ask Obama why his monkey, now grown into an 800lb gorilla, is attached to John Boehner; and Speaker Boehner is doing a horrible job showing people the attachment he has to something he should not own.
Yet some people say Obama has leadership skills? Seriously? Really?

Call Obama’s Bluff

That is why I believe the recent article written by Charles Krauthammer is almost entirely correct. He writes “Call Obama’s bluff“: President Obama is demanding a big long-term budget deal. He won’t sign anything less, he warns, asking, “If not now, when?”
How about last December [2010], when he ignored his own debt commission’s recommendations? How about February [2011], when he presented a budget that increases debt by $10 trillion over the next decade? How about April [2011], when he sought a debt-ceiling increase with zero debt reduction attached?
All of a sudden he’s a born-again budget balancer prepared to bravely take on his own party by making deep cuts in entitlements. Really? Name one. He’s been saying forever that he’s prepared to discuss, engage, converse about entitlement cuts. But never once has he publicly proposed a single structural change to any entitlement.
Hasn’t the White House leaked that he’s prepared to raise the Medicare age or change the cost-of-living calculation? Anonymous talk is cheap. Leaks are designed to manipulate. Offers are floated and disappear. Say it, Mr. President. Give us one single structural change in entitlements. In public.
As part of the pose as the forward-looking grown-up rising above all the others who play politics, Obama insists upon a long-term deal. And what is Obama’s definition of long-term? Surprise: An agreement that gets him past Nov. 6, 2012.
Nothing could be more political. It’s like his Afghan surge wind-down date. September 2012 has no relation to any military reality on the ground. It is designed solely to position Obama favorably going into the last weeks of his reelection campaign.
Yet the Olympian above-the-fray no-politics-here pose is succeeding. A pliant press swallows the White House story line: the great compromiser (“clearly exasperated,” sympathized a Post news story) being stymied by Republican “intransigence” (the noun actually used in another front-page Post news story to describe the Republican position on taxes).
The meme having been established, Republicans have been neatly set up to take the fall if a deal is not reached by Aug. 2. Obama is already waving the red flag, warning ominously that Social Security, disabled veterans’ benefits, “critical” medical research, food inspection — without which agriculture shuts down — are in jeopardy.
The Republicans are being totally outmaneuvered. The House speaker appears disoriented. It’s time to act. Time to call Obama’s bluff.
A long-term deal or nothing? The Republican House should immediately pass a short-term debt-ceiling hike of $500 billion containing $500 billion in budget cuts. That would give us about five months to work on something larger.
The fat-cat tax breaks (those corporate jets) that Obama’s talking points endlessly recycle? Republicans should call for urgent negotiations on tax reform along the lines of the Simpson-Bowles commission that, in one option, strips out annually $1.1 trillion of deductions, credits and loopholes while lowering tax rates across the board to a top rate of 23 percent. The president says he wants tax reform, doesn’t he? Well, Mr. President, here are five months to do so.
Will the Democratic Senate or the Democratic president refuse this offer and allow the country to default — with all the cataclysmic consequences that the Democrats have been warning about for months — because Obama insists on a deal that is 10 months and seven days longer?
That’s indefensible and transparently self-serving. Dare the president to make that case. Dare him to veto — or the Democratic Senate to block — a short-term debt-limit increase.
This is certainly better than the McConnell plan, which would simply throw debt reduction back to the president. But if the House cannot do Plan A, McConnell is the fallback Plan B.
After all, by what crazy calculation should Republicans allow themselves to be blamed for a debt crisis that could destabilize the economy and even precipitate a double-dip recession? Right now, Obama owns the economy why bail him out by sharing ownership? (read more)