The Three Signs of a Miserable Job

Patrick Lencioni is an author that I truly appreciate. He relates lessons in a "fable" format, taking you through the thought process of the protagonist and how he flushes out ideas to work in a corporate environment. The book I most recently read of his is The Three Signs of a Miserable Job which I finished this past weekend.

The story line is that of a CEO retiring early after the sale of his company, grows bored and wants to prove his theory about people works to improve the bottom line. He becomes a partial owner in a run-down restaurant outside a ski resort and gets to work. In the end he flushes out his system for improving personal involvement at work, increasing the employees engagement and happiness in their job, as well as the bottom line of the company.

I won't share all the secrets here, however, I hinted at one of them on my Monday write-up. Anonymity is one of the major causes of a miserable job. People want to know that the boss knows who they are and what they do, not just at work, but in their outside life as well. If you are interested in learning more, the link is below:

Now, I'll admit when I am coaching someone, I tend to loan them Patrick's books. I like them because they are a quick read (usually slightly more than 200 pages, but the pages are small, font is large-ish, and there is a lot of white space in the books), and bring the reader through the thought process of the main character as he struggles to work out a process or formula to fix a problem he is experiencing. After the story, Patrick goes into details of "The Model" in order to make it easier to apply in a real life setting.

As I stated, this is one of many of his books. I may touch on several others as time goes on, but don't wait for me. This is one of the few times that I actually recommend reading an entire author's library.