It Was Never Just About the Conflict: The Thinking Behind Not My Monkey Methodology™

I asked myself – What does family law mediation have to do with leadership, accountability and organisational resilience?

More than I initially realised.

For almost two decades, my professional work has placed me in rooms where people are dealing with conflict, difficult decisions, fractured relationships, competing expectations and, often, an enormous amount of emotion.

Through family law mediation, I have worked with people trying to resolve some of the most difficult circumstances of their lives.

And over time, I began noticing something.

• The conflict was not always the real problem.
• Quite often, the deeper problem was ownership.
• People were carrying responsibilities that were not theirs.
• They were trying to fix problems they did not create.
• They were managing other people’s emotions.
• They were making decisions for other people.
• They were taking responsibility for consequences that belonged elsewhere.

And, sometimes, while carrying everyone else’s “monkeys”, they were neglecting the things that were actually theirs to own.

That observation stayed with me:  The “Monkey” was everywhere

The more I observed human behaviour in high-conflict environments, the more I began to recognise the same pattern outside the mediation room.

• It appeared in families.
• It appeared in relationships.
• It appeared in professional environments.
• It appeared in leadership.

The circumstances were different, but the behavioural pattern was remarkably similar:

We take ownership of what is not ours – and fail to take ownership of what is.

That distinction matters.

There is a significant difference between being supportive and taking over.

• Between empathy and emotional responsibility.
• Between helping and rescuing.
• Between accountability and blame.
• Between collaboration and carrying someone else’s workload.
• Between leadership and trying to control everything.

And that is where the idea behind Not My Monkey Methodology™ began to take shape.

From observation to methodology

Not My Monkey Methodology™ was not developed as a conventional wellness programme or a collection of motivational ideas.  It emerged from years of professional observation, practice, research and reflection around human behaviour, conflict, responsibility and decision-making.

The central question became deceptively simple: Whose monkey is this?

Before taking on a problem, a responsibility, an emotion, a decision or a consequence, we need to ask whether it actually belongs to us.

That question sounds simple.  In practice, it can be remarkably difficult.

Because many people have become conditioned to rescue.

• To please.
• To fix.
• To absorb.
• To take over.
• To avoid difficult conversations.
• To protect others from consequences.
• To carry emotional responsibility for people around them.

And organisations can unintentionally reward these behaviours.

The person who always fixes the problem becomes indispensable.

The manager who takes everything back from their team becomes the “reliable” one.

The employee who constantly absorbs additional work becomes the person everyone depends upon.

The leader who avoids difficult conversations may believe they are maintaining harmony – while the underlying problem grows.

Eventually, somebody becomes overloaded.

And then we call it burnout. But sometimes burnout is not simply about having too much to do. Sometimes it is also about carrying too much that was never yours to carry.

From the mediation room to the boardroom

This is where the connection between mediation and organisational behaviour became increasingly clear to me.

Mediation is fundamentally concerned with helping people identify issues, understand responsibility, make informed decisions and take ownership of outcomes.

Those principles do not belong exclusively in the family law environment.

They are equally relevant in organisations.

A workplace is also a human system.

People bring expectations, emotions, histories, assumptions, fears, communication patterns and behavioural habits into the workplace.

And when responsibility becomes blurred, problems follow.

Who owns the decision?

• Who owns the problem?
• Who is responsible for the outcome?
• Who is simply being affected by it?
• Who is rescuing?
• Who is avoiding?
• Who is over-functioning?
• Who is under-functioning?
• And perhaps most importantly:
• What is actually mine to own?

These questions sit at the heart of Not My Monkey Methodology™.

The methodology is about more than saying “not my problem”

There is an important distinction here.

• Not My Monkey does not mean becoming indifferent.
• It does not mean refusing to help.
• It does not mean avoiding responsibility.
• And it certainly does not mean using “not my monkey” as an excuse to disengage.

Quite the opposite.

The methodology is about responsible ownership.

It asks us to distinguish between what belongs to us and what does not – and then to respond appropriately to both.

Sometimes the right response is:

• “This is mine. I need to deal with it.”
• Sometimes it is:
• “This belongs to you. I can support you, but I cannot own it for you.”
• And sometimes it is:
• “This is shared. We need to clarify who is responsible for what.”

That distinction can change the way people communicate, lead, delegate, manage conflict and make decisions.

Why I created Not My Monkey Methodology™

After years of seeing the consequences of blurred responsibility, I wanted to take the underlying behavioural principle beyond the mediation room.

That became the foundation of Not My Monkey Methodology™: an evidence-informed behavioural framework for responsible leadership and organisational resilience.

It is about helping people recognise behavioural patterns that quietly drain individuals and organisations.

• The rescuer.
• The fixer.
• The avoider.
• The over-functioner.
• The person who says yes to everything.
• The leader who cannot delegate.
• The employee who continually absorbs everyone else’s problems.
• And the person who keeps asking: “Why am I so exhausted when I am doing everything I can to help?”

Perhaps the better question is:  “How much of what I am carrying is actually mine?”

That is where the conversation begins.

And that is where Not My Monkey Methodology™ begins.

From here, the conversation moves from the mediation room to the workplace.

Because the question “Whose monkey is this?” is not only a question for families in conflict.

• It is a leadership question.
• A management question.
• A workplace question.

And, ultimately, a question of personal accountability.

Know your monkeys. Own your responsibilities. Stop carrying what isn’t yours.

TPAA mediation gave me the real-world observation. Not My Monkey Methodology™ turns those observations into an evidence-informed behavioural framework that can be applied beyond the mediation room – particularly in leadership and organisations.