The Three Signs of a Miserable Job

A Fable for Managers (And Their Employees) by Patrick Lencioni Jossey-Bass 2007 272 pages

Focus
Leadership & Management Strategy Sales & Marketing Finance Human Resources IT, Production & Logistics Career Development Small Business Economics & Politics Industries Intercultural Management Concepts & Trends

Take-Aways
To keep good employees, help them be happy and fulfilled. Your success depends more on satisfied employees than on your business tactics. An employee who feels frustrated and cynical will spread misery in your office. As a manager, try to erase three symptoms of a miserable job for each person. These symptoms are: feeling anonymous, thinking that your work does not matter and having no way to assess your own progress. Employees must feel recognized as individuals. They must believe that their work makes a meaningful contribution. People hunger to know how they are doing. Give them tangible ways to measure their accomplishments. If you help your employees fulfill these needs, you will improve productivity, boost morale and reduce turnover. Boosting salaries does not automatically make employees more contented. You can perform immense good by showing consideration, empathy and respect for your staff. Management is a special ministry.

Rating (10 is best)

Overall 7 Applicability 8 Innovation 7 Style 8

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Relevance
What You Will Learn In this Abstract, you will learn: 1) What are the three primary reasons employees are miserable at work; and 2) What you as a manager can do to make them happy about their jobs. Recommendation Business books take many forms, but seldom are they fables. Patrick Lencioni breaks the mold with this charming book about a manager who turns his workers miserable jobs into fulfilling ones. He presents the fictional story of Brian Bailey, a big-hearted CEO who gets bought out, finds retirement dull and tries managing a seedy pizza parlor where the employees hate their jobs. Bailey quickly changes everything by the way he treats the shops people. Later he works his magic as the new CEO of a failing retail sportinggoods company with a ruinously high turnover rate, where his humane techniques turn things around again. Lencionis book is fun to read; its fable is touching yet credible. He reinforces important lessons all managers should know about getting the best from the people who work for them by providing empathy and recognizing the meaning of their work. If you are up for a parable, getAbstract recommends this engaging book. It spotlights a clear axiom: Treat people humanely and they will do as you wish a valuable lesson for any manager or, indeed, anyone at all.

Abstract
Its difcult to accurately estimate the magnitude of the problems caused by miserable jobs.

The Fable Brian Bailey never had enough money to attend a full four years of college. Instead, he went to work in a San Francisco factory that manufactured automobiles. He married young. He and his wife Leslie had three children. Bailey was a smart, hard worker. The car companys COO made him the plant manager when he turned 35. She liked him, his work ethic and his desire to get ahead. Later, she recommended Bailey for a CEO position at a nearby exercise equipment manufacturer. He got the job. Board members liked his friendly demeanor and his ability to communicate. In 17 years at the firm, he moved it to the top of its field and made it a great place to work. Employee satisfaction ratings were the highest in the industry. Then one day a larger company bought the firm. As is typical, CEO Bailey was asked to leave. With the kids grown, Brian and Leslie retired on his buy-out money, and moved to Lake Tahoe, Nevada, a wonderful retirement site. Yet Bailey quickly got bored. He loved being a CEO, managing people and events. He wanted a new challenge. He soon got one, but nothing that he had ever expected. The Pizza Parlor It all started when Brian and Leslie ordered Italian food to pick up. They drove to the restaurant, a tacky, shabby place called Gene and Joes. They pulled up to the window, and waited and waited. Finally, a man with a big tattoo stuck his head out of the window. He wore a dirty white T-shirt that showed two men smiling. In large red and green letters it read, Gene and Joes Pizza and Pasta. Here, There, Everywhere.
Yes? the man said disinterestedly. Bailey asked for his order, the man fetched it and took $20, not even smiling when Bailey gave him the change as a tip. At home, the
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Employees hang onto fullling jobs as long as they can, mostly because they know that their chances of nding another are relatively slim.

More people out there are miserable in their jobs than fullled by them.

Baileys found that the pizza joint had forgotten their salad. Bailey drove back to get it. He went inside. Only a few customers were eating. The carpet was torn. The paint was peeling. Help wanted cook, delivery driver, weekend manager read a sign beside the cash register. Bailey asked for his salad. You sure you didnt get it? the tattooed man quizzed Bailey. Of course, Im sure, Bailey said. A large balding man ordered the cook to get Bailey his missing salad quickly. He introduced himself as Joe, one of the owners, and gave Bailey a coupon for a free pizza to make amends. Bailey took his salad and coupon, thanked Joe and left. Later, he called the restaurant and asked if he could come talk to the owner again. That call changed Baileys life. The next day, he applied for the job as weekend manager. At first, Joe thought Bailey was kidding. But he knew Bailey was serious when he offered to invest $12,000 in the restaurant. The man quickly hired Bailey, warning him that the restaurants turnover was terrible. Bailey thought he might be able to do something about that. Then he went home and told Leslie what he had done. She asked if hed gone crazy. He told her he would relish the opportunity to make a difference and to manage people again, especially people who seemed so miserable. He thought he might be able to make a difference. He began the next weekend. First, he met the employees: Joaquin, the main cook; Kenny, a prep cook; Tristan, who handled the cash register; Salvador, the dishwasher; Carl, the drive-through window man; Harrison, who handled deliveries; Joleen and Patty, the waitresses; and Migo, a young guy who did a little bit of everything. After his first few days, Bailey told his wife the place was like a morgue. It drew few customers, the employees all seemed unhappy, nobody ever smiled and no one seemed to care about their work. Bailey soon shook things up. One day, he scheduled a meeting with the employees a half hour before the normal starting time. He opened the meeting by asking how many people liked their jobs. No one responded. He then asked how many people felt excited about coming to work. Again, no one said anything, although a few of them snickered. Bailey told them seriously that his job was to make them feel good about their jobs, and he was going to start right away. As a CEO, Bailey had discovered three important rules that applied to managing employees, engaging them and making them feel valued. First, people need to feel appreciated. Second, they need to feel that their work matters. Third, they need some tangible ways to measure their progress. Bailey put these principles to work. He told the employees that he was instituting a two-month test. During that period, he would pay everyone $1 more hourly, if they would all support his new program and give it a fair chance. He explained that anyone who didnt want to try could quit and that all the employees would be in this together. If even one person stopped cooperating, everyones salaries would revert back to the old wage. The workers agreed to try things his way. Later that night, Bailey spent a few minutes with Carl, the pick-up window man. Lets see if we can make your job more measurable, Bailey said. They agreed that Carl could track his progress on cutting down on wrong orders. Getting a customer to smile would be a plus that Carl could measure. A laugh would count as four smiles. Carl was skeptical, but said he would give it a try. Bailey then helped the other employees establish their own individual measurables so they could track their own progress. It didnt happen on the first day, or the second, but after a few days, a new mood became evident. The employees were more excited about what they were doing. They would huddle with each other briefly to compare their measurables. Tips were up for the waitresses and fewer customers complained. The employees were actually smiling at work. Things were beginning to change.
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The Sunday blues are those awful feelings of dread and depression that many people get toward the end of their weekend as they contemplate going back to work the next day.

Scores of people suffer really suffer every day as they trudge off from their families and friends to jobs that only make them more cynical, unhappy and frustrated.

Employees often fail to nd fulllment in their work because they place too much emphasis on maximizing compensation or choosing the right career.

Great employees dont want their success to depend on the subjective views or opinions of another human being.

Bailey called another meeting and asked the employees to consider who depended on them and whom they depended upon. No one understood, so he told them what he had observed. He praised Joleen, the waitress, for playing with a cranky baby so its mom could eat. He told Salvador, the dishwasher, that his work was essential. He made sure the restaurant always had clean dishes and silverware. Salvador glowed with pride. Bailey told Migo that he couldnt function as a manager without the young mans help. Bailey pointed out how important each employee was to the restaurant and to the staff. Clearly touched by Baileys little speech, the employees developed a newfound respect for themselves and for each other. It showed in their work. Business continued to improve. Bailey spent his time learning about what made each employee tick. He discovered that Salvador and Migo played Saturday mornings on an amateur soccer team. He went and watched a few of their games. They were immensely proud that their boss was in the stands. He learned that Pattys daughter had a food allergy, so he and Joaquin found Patty an inexpensive source of allergen-free food. For the first time, the employees felt that someone cared. It made a lot of difference. Joe and the staffers were happy. Receipts and tips were up. Baileys experiment had worked. Shortly thereafter, a foundering retail sporting-goods company recruited Bailey to become its CEO. On his last night at the restaurant, the employees threw him a good-bye party. Afterward, Bailey took Joe aside and suggested Migo for his managerial job; Joe agreed.

To be the kind of leaderwho can help people discover the relevance of their work, a person must have a level of personal condence and emotional vulnerability.

The Sporting Goods Store Bailey found that the sporting-goods firm had the same basic problems as Gene and Joes unhappy employees. He quickly taught his regional and store managers how to get employees to feel good about their jobs. Things turned around just as quickly as they had at the restaurant. After six months, profits were up and turnover was down. The business was moving ahead.
One weekend about a year later, a small package came for Brian Bailey. Inside was a brand-new white T-shirt. It showed two smiling men shaking hands. Underneath, in red and green letters, it read, Migo and Joes Pizza and Pasta. Here, There, Everywhere.

To manage another human being effectively requires some degree of empathy and curiosity about why that person gets out of bed in the morning, what is on their mind and how you can contribute to them becoming a better person.

Lessons Learned People can be unhappy at their jobs, no matter how great the job sounds, from highly paid CEOs and big-time entertainers to famous professional athletesor the waitress or dishwasher at the corner bistro. Miserable jobs often share these three characteristics.
1. Anonymity You cant feel good about your job if you feel unknown to management. Employees need to believe that the company cares about them. Otherwise, they feel anonymous and invisible. When they do, invariably they are unhappy at work. 2. Irrelevance Believing that your work matters is a giant step toward feeling happy at work. Employees need to feel that they make a significant contribution. This could be on behalf of their customers and colleagues, or some greater good. 3. Lack of measurement People need a tangible way to quantify their work. Without that, they will feel nervous, uneasy and ultimately unsatisfied. For salespersons, this could be the dollar amount of their sales. For a major-league baseball pitcher, it could be the number of strikeouts he achieves. For a CEO, it can be an increase in shareholder value. The inability to quantify and measure their achievements is a primary reason that many people hate their jobs. The reward for full participation should be substantive and measurable. If employees feel that they have no material
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People want to be managed as people, not as mere workers.

way to gauge their work achievement that any assessment depends instead on some supervisors arbitrary benevolence or malevolence they will feel demotivated.

Great managers and companies dont let the initial appearance of silliness prevent them from doing what is ultimately meaningful and differentiating.

Miserable Employees Equal Miserable Performance Unhappy, unfulfilled, demotivated employees are not productive. People who are miserable in their jobs tend to cut corners and to do as little as possible to achieve the companys goals. Indeed, they may be secretly pleased if the firm does not attain its objectives. This bad attitude will infect other employees and destroy morale. Many managers do little to make their people feel valued at work. Managers often keep their workers guessing as to whether they are doing a good job. Instead, they should treat their employees like individuals, take an interest in them and show that someone at works cares about them.
Do these simple things and your employees will crawl through broken glass for you. Dont do them and your employees will be miserable, with all the negative implications that portends. Unfortunately, many managers find it difficult to treat their workers as human beings. The reason is simple: They become nervous, embarrassed and uneasy when they try to act like caring people in the work environment. That sounds silly but it is, nevertheless, a fact. You cannot act humanely toward others without first acting human yourself. This requires self-confidence, humility and a willingness to open yourself up to others. Unfortunately, some managers have a hard time living up to those standards. As a result, their staff feels unappreciated, unimportant and ignored, and thus grows discontented and disaffected. In short, their people become miserable. Many managers and their companies dont recognize that they have a serious problem with unhappy employees until people start to quit. Thats when management quickly adopts short-term solutions, such as better salaries and benefits. The HR department begins to conduct increased training for managers. Everyone becomes more proficient at filling out work evaluations, establishing performance goals and so on. Despite all this effort, however, the underlying problem remains: The employees are miserable at work. Management doesnt do anything to meet their bedrock human needs. Fortunately, management can turn things around quickly. It just takes willingness. The payoff is happier employees, which translates to increased production and stronger profits. In todays marketplace, with its ubiquitous technology and speedy spread of information, standing out is increasingly difficult. The best way is to have a satisfied workforce.

Employees can smell a false attempt at employee bonding from a mile away.

All managers can and really should view their work as a ministry.

A Special Ministry Management is like a ministry. You can help your employees feel good about themselves and the work they do. See that they feel important and know that they are contributing. Give them some tangible means for marking their own progress. If you do these things, you will have an immeasurably profound positive impact on your employees lives. They will feel better about themselves, which will make everyone around them feel better. To create this happy, productive environment just treat the people who work for you like human beings. Its really that simple.

About the Author

Patrick Lencioni is the author of numerous business books, including the bestselling The Five Dysfunctions of a Team. Lencioni is the founder and president of a businessconsulting firm that helps organizations function efficiently through superior leadership.
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