Book Review: The Three Signs of a Miserable Job

Title: The Three Signs of a Miserable Job
Author: Patrick Lencioni
Reviewed Format: Hardcover
Pages: 256
Rating: 3 1/2 Stars

Review: I was asked to read this book as a part of a book club at work.  This is my first review of a book that isn't necessarily designed as entertainment.  As "the plot" isn't really the focus of the book, and it's not likely that I could spoil the experience for a prospective reader by letting the cat out of the proverbial bag.  So get ready, cat's on the way and what not.

The subtext to the title is "A Fable for Managers (and their employees)," and that would indicate the book is most likely about trying to keep your employees happy and effective as they execute their jobs.  As I am currently a non-supervisory management employee, it means that I read it from the "other side" (though it's not like I wouldn't like to be a manager of people one day) and tried to evaluate if I thought Mr. Lencioni's ideas put into practice would improve my opinion of my management or not.

The book starts of with the fictional story of one Brian Bailey, a successful businessman with humble roots.  He started off in operations and climbed the ladder over time before finding himself the CEO of a mid-sized exercise equipment manufacturer.  The industry enters into a consolidation mode and Brian decides to sell the company off and retire.  He and his wife retire to Lake Tahoe and he gets bored and a little depressed without work.  Long story short, he visits an Italian restaurant that's a little down on its luck and he ends up not only thinking through its problems, but meets with the owner and via that discussion ends up invested directly in the business.

The story from that point on serves as a vehicle for Lencioni to deliver his message.  His point is that most people tend to think a job is a happy job when the employee is able to do something they love and get paid enough (or even a lot) money to do it.  He suggests this model is at best flawed as there are numerous examples of famous athletes, actors, models, and musicians getting paid large sums of money to do what they love and still very unhappy.  His theory is that there are three flaws common to jobs, each of which can make a person miserable: immeasurability (the author notes, as I do, that this wasn't a word until he made it so), irrelevance, and anonymity.  This boils down to the idea that an employee needs to be able to measure how he makes people's lives better (immeasurability/irrelevance) and not be just a number in a phone book (anonymity).

The "fable" itself is written well enough.  It's simple, with prose designed for maximum readability.  I feel it'd be disingenuous to criticize Lencioni on his writing as he was absolutely able to deliver his intended message.  There was even one night that the book turned into a little bit of a page-turner for me.  The message itself I feel a little mixed on.  There's no science to the fable... It's all pretty "soft," and Mr. Lencioni certainly wasn't going to write a story that didn't prove his point.  That said, he was convincing enough in his arguments that I've found myself using some of the language in my conversations at work and interested to at least test some of it out.  I'm not sure they're the absolute answer of making your employees happy, but I also very much doubt you'd make people unhappy by getting to know them and helping them understand how they help people get through their lives.  It also points out something that I think is a lesson that should appear in every text for a manager: the job responsibilities of a manager of professionals do include results, but their primary function is to cause their group of professionals to perform effectively and efficiently.

A third of the way through this book, I was ready to put it down and forget about it, but I just got over the hump.  I'm glad I did.  It's an easy read, and it's going to help get a manager's mind focused on managing his people.  From an employee's perspective, it might equip you with some concepts and vocabulary with which to train your boss and make your world a little better.  Mr. Lencioni's written several other books, and I've picked out which I'll be reading next: Silos, Politics and Turf Wars.  (3 1/2 Stars)