Tackle issue at workplace

When Nurakbar first joined the palm oil mill in Sarawak as an engineer, he expected machinery problems, maintenance schedules, and production targets to be his main challenges. What he didn’t expect was the troop of invisible monkeys that seemed to follow him everywhere.

These monkeys were not furry creatures swinging from palm trees—they were problems, small and large, that his team brought to him. A leaking pump? Monkey. Misaligned conveyor belt? Monkey. Staff scheduling issue? Monkey. At first, Nurakbar thought being a good leader meant taking every monkey onto his own shoulders.

Within weeks, his desk was buried in reports, his phone never stopped buzzing, and his actual engineering work was piling up. Worse, his team had stopped solving problems themselves—they had learned that handing a monkey to “Boss Nurakbar” was the fastest way to make it disappear from their list.

One day, after another long night at the mill, his manager called him in. Over coffee, his boss shared the Monkey Management principle.

“Nurakbar,” he said, “you’re feeding everyone’s monkeys. That’s why you’re drowning. Your job isn’t to take the monkeys—it’s to teach them how to feed their own.”

It clicked. Nurakbar started making changes.

First, he stopped taking ownership of every problem immediately. When a team member came to him with an issue, he’d ask:

“What have you tried so far?”

“What’s your proposed solution?”

He began coaching and training his crew on problem-solving, maintenance checks, and troubleshooting. Competent team members were given more autonomy. The unproductive ones? He set clear expectations, offered support, and—when they still failed to deliver—took decisive action to reassign or replace them.

He also introduced “monkey-feeding appointments.” Problems were discussed at set times, giving his team time to think through solutions before coming to him. Gradually, the troop of monkeys in his office shrank.

Within months, the mill’s operations became smoother, breakdowns were addressed faster, and morale improved. The monkeys still appeared, but now they were lighter, healthier, and carried mostly by the right people.

Nurakbar had learned that great leadership isn’t about carrying every monkey—it’s about building a team that can manage their own.