Miserable Jobs

This post relates again to the most recent ASTD International Conference. (Seems I got a lot out of this year’s program!) One of the keynote speakers was Patrick Lencioni. He gave an impressive talk on dysfunctional teams and later in the conference another of his colleagues, Jeff Gibson, elaborated further on the theory. It was clear that their work was based on many case studies. I was impressed enough to buy Patrick’s book, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job. The book is written as a fable and I highly recommend it. It is a relatively quick read. I finished it on a cross country plane trip. But, the material presented kept me contemplating for much longer than the plane trip. The theory is that an employee will be miserable in a job unless they have a measureable way of seeing that they give value, that they feel understood and appreciated by someone in authority in their company, and that they can identify someone who is being helped by their work.

One of the key concepts of the book is that most managers don’t know how to manage. They take many training courses but somewhere in all the training the simple skill of knowing and appreciating your employees is not communicated. It is a fascinating idea that extends through business and into the non-profit sector.

Ask the simple question, do you love your job? Or, to make it even clearer, do you get up in the morning eager to get to work? The thesis is that most people, if honest, say ‘no’. It is not a question of salary or job content. Happiness is dependent upon feeling loved and giving value.

There is an interesting parallel in this with Tom Crum’s Three Deep Breaths of which I often write. The Centering Breath allows you to reach a point of calmness where you can consider the question. The Possibility Breath prompts you to consider your ‘authentic’ or highest version of yourself that you can be. The Discovery Breath reminds you to let go of judement and be open to learning.

These Three Breaths, if done regularly, allow you to be the manager who does take an interest in those he/she manages and continues to seek new ways to assure that neither his/her job or that of those around him fits the criteria of a miserable job.

And, of course, no surprise. When organizations and companies follow these models there is normally improvement in the bottom line.

Judy Warner