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The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (And Their Employees)
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Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 658.3128
EAN: 9780787995317
ISBN: 0787995312
Label: Jossey-Bass
Manufacturer: Jossey-Bass
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 272
Publication Date: 2007-08-17
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Studio: Jossey-Bass
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Editorial Reviews:
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A bestselling author and business guru tells how to improve your job satisfaction and performance. In his sixth fable, bestselling author Patrick Lencioni takes on a topic that almost everyone can relate to: the causes of a miserable job. Millions of workers, even those who have carefully chosen careers based on true passions and interests, dread going to work, suffering each day as they trudge to jobs that make them cynical, weary, and frustrated. It is a simple fact of business life that any job, from investment banker to dishwasher, can become miserable. Through the story of a CEO turned pizzeria manager, Lencioni reveals the three elements that make work miserable -- irrelevance, immeasurability, and anonymity -- and gives managers and their employees the keys to make any job more fulfilling. As with all of Lencionis books, this one is filled with actionable advice you can put into effect immediately. In addition to the fable, the book includes a detailed model examining the three signs of job misery and how they can be remedied. It covers the benefits of managing for job fulfillment within organizations -- increased productivity, greater retention, and competitive advantage -- and offers examples of how managers can use the applications in the book to deal with specific jobs and situations. Patrick Lencioni (San Francisco, CA) is President of The Table Group, a management consulting firm specializing in executive team development and organizational health. As a consultant and keynote speaker, he has worked with thousands of senior executives and executive teams in organizations ranging from Fortune 500 companies to high-tech startups to universities and nonprofits. His clients include AT&T, Bechtel, Boeing, Cisco, Sams Club, Microsoft, Mitsubishi, Allstate, Visa, FedEx, New York Life, Sprint, Novell, Sybase, The Make-A-Wish Foundation, and the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. Lencioni is the author of six bestselling books, including The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. He previously worked for Oracle, Sybase, and the management consulting firm Bain & Company.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Job dissatisfaction - erodes lives and hurts productivity. But, something can be done.
Comment: A common theory to job satisfaction says that it is all about finding the "right job" that consists of interesting work and pays well. But, Lencioni elaborates: "My theory about job satisfaction was eroding quickly, especially as I met more and more people with supposedly great jobs who, like me, dreaded going to work. These were engineers and executives and teachers, highly educated people who carefully chose their careers based on their true passions and interests. And yet they were undoubtedly miserable. The theory crumbled completely when I came across other people with less obviously attractive jobs who seemed to find fulfillment in their work - gardeners and waitresses and hotel housekeepers." (pg. ix). Job dissatisfaction causes lots of human misery (from being more cynical, unhappy, and frustrated, to eroding passion, and affecting spouses and whole families. But, also it can have more drastic effects such as leading to serious depression, drug and alcohol abuse, and even violence at work or home. Beyond the human misery, the impact on the organization is undeniably huge. Although difficult to quantify, employee dissatisfaction has deep impact on productivity, turnover, and morale, all of which hit the company's bottom line (pg. x). Lencioni is confident that the remedy is available, it is barely being used, perhaps because it is simple and obvious. Quoting Samuel Johnson: "People need to be reminded more often than they need to be instructed." (pg. x).
The story begins with Brian who was a successful CEO of a large company, and now just going into retirement. Being better off financially than ever in his life, he is considering how to fill his days. We hear about Brian's humble beginnings, modest educational background (college drop-out), but having a strong work ethic and desire to learn, slowly advancing and getting promoted, to eventually become the CEO of the company. Not atypical for America, I personally know people like that! While at a first site, retiring at a nice little mountain home may seem wonderful, it can also be aimless and unfulfilling. So, Brian finds something to do and along the way teaches the reader something about job satisfaction (something that he had also dealt with at his old company). So, the story goes on.
The 3 signs are: (1) anonymity - cannot be fulfilled at your work if you are not known and appreciated for your unique qualities (or gifts) by someone in authority; (2) irrelevance - people need to know that their job matters to someone; (3) immeasurement - everyone needs to be able to gauge their progress and level of contribution, rather than relying on the opinions or whims of another person, tangible means for assessing success or failure. Maybe you see these as obvious, but how they play out in regular day work environment, and how to correct the situation is not necessarily obvious. At the end of the book, Lencioni has few chapters directed at analyzing in more depth the causes of misery and how to address them, the obstacles that employees face, the ones that managers face, as well as adding few additional and small case studies. Easy to read and highly rewarding for anybody who works in any environment.
If you work in a Christian ministry or you are a Christian, you can consider this story as a modern day parable. Though secular, the principles are Biblically sound: anonymity = we all want to be recognized as uniquely created by God, irrelevance = we want to have meaning to our life and work, immeasurement = we will not be satisfied if we cannot show fruits to our labor, fruits of our repentance from our sins (precondition to being saved). The Bible says that we ought to work in everything as working for the Lord, very consistent with the message of this book, both for managers and employees.
If you liked this book, you may also like: The Five Dysfunctions of a Team: A Leadership Fable, The Richest Man Who Ever Lived: King Solomon's Secrets to Success, Wealth, and Happiness.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Make sure the job you get doesn't include these signs!
Comment: `The Three Signs of a Miserable Job' tells the intriguing fable of Brian Bailey. Brian is a successful manager and CEO, without a college degree, who converts his miserable employees into happy ones. We follow his struggles and highs and learn how humanity can lead to great business success.
Anyone who can relate to being miserably employed will benefit from the inspired solutions within this book. Patrick M. Lencioni shares his approach to making work rewarding and meaningful. Irrelevance, immeasurability, and anonymity are the three key characteristics of a miserable job and Lencioni gives us the key to turning things around.
He inspires us to actually want to get out of bed and head to work in the morning! For anyone stuck in a miserable workplace with no hope we learn that there is hope, that happy workplaces exist and just how to recognize them.
This is a useful read for both managers seeking to make their employees jobs more fulfilling and job seekers looking to recognize the kind of work place they should be seeking out.
Danny Iny
Author of the free eBook "Forget Everything You Know About Looking For a Job... And Actually Find One!"
HuntingToHired, www.HuntingToHired.com
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Three Signs of a Miserable Job
Comment: This book was a great reminder for me as a manager on what I should be focusing on to keep my staff engaged in the business. Teaching these lessons fable style makes it easier to see the how and why.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Three Signs of a Miserable Job
Comment: Author uses a compelling short story to illustrate his ideas. The three "signs", anonymity, irrelevance,and immeasurement speak volumes about the negative impact each can have on our engagement, and gives a simple and powerfull message to all leaders as to where they should be focusing their efforts when leading their teams.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Enjoyed Three Signs
Comment: I really enjoyed reading The Three Signs of A Miserable Job and it helped put a lot of things in focus that you might not realize are critical to success as a leader. I felt it was so valuable that I purchased two more copies and shared them with my management team.
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