Monkeys disgust me, and they have Ebola.

(Maybe they don’t have Ebola. But I’m willing to continue believing that they do.)

However, we all have to make a decision to feed or shoot the monkeys in our lives.

The second most requested article from the Harvard Business Review is one entitled “Management Time: Who’s Got the Monkey?“, according to an article written by Bill Giovannetti in the February 2008 Focus on the Family magazine. Upon reading the management article, my initial reaction was that of knowing why it is I have no desire to work in an office setting or be in a management position.

That, of course, is not the real message to be gleaned.

Giovannetti’s article, “Love Management”, took a different approach to the concept of monkeys. In referencing the HBR article, he said that

“…in every business, participants carry monkeys on their backs. The key to organizational health is proper management of monkeys.”

He went on to relate the concept to relationships and love.

“Monkeys represent our responsibilities — such as those involved in love.”

If you read the HBR article, the story that is used to show the reader the concept of a manager with subordinates who have monkeys on their backs gives examples of ways these subordinates finagle a method of getting the monkey off their own backs and onto the manager. The manager becomes over-burdened while the subordinates have it easy: they put the responsibility for their problem onto the manager and don’t have to worry about it any more.

Giovannetti’s point in his article is that too often we do something similar with love.

Who is responsible for nurturing and sustaining love? Our culture routinely places this burden on the person we are trying to love.

The opening story of Giovannetti’s article was a good example. It told of a woman whose husband wanted a divorce because she had put on weight. In that situation, the husband had shifted his responsibility for loving her onto her back, essentially saying “I can’t love you because you are fat.” As long as the wife remained physically acceptable to the husband, he would love her.

Giovannetti postulates that there are two kinds of love.

The first — prevalent in today’s culture — is attraction love. You must attract me, or else I’ll stop loving you. The monkey is on your back.

The second kind is virtue love, which fully embraces the love monkey and its responsibilities. I love you because I possess the inner virtue and integrity to do so, no matter what you do or don’t do.

Admittedly, the use of the phrase “love monkey” made me snicker.

I really need to grow up.

But, all that aside, the point he is making (particularly if you read the original HBR article and get a handle on the original concept) is a good one. I think I’ve hinted at it before (in some of my other posts) the idea that, by choice we love people. We don’t always feel love for others, romantic or otherwise. Sometimes we have to choose to show the love (do the action) and the feeling will follow.

Though we are talking about monkeys here (which distresses me a lot, since I really do hate monkeys), I often thought of this latter concept in terms of the cart/horse analogy. The action (and doing) of love is the horse, and it must come in front of the cart, which is the feeling of love. Sure, when things are going well the cart might be able to coast. But a cart only coasts downhill, and that certainly isn’t where you want your end result to be. With the horse doing the leading and all the work, the cart can go up and down and on flat ground. Don’t put the cart in front of the horse; it will never work.

I prefer horses to monkeys.