Category Archives: Hands-On Management

The Three Signs of a Miserable Job

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We searched our archives for this book review on a topic that is just as relevant today as when the book was written in 2007. You can also watch our webinar with Patrick Lencioni to gain more insight into this topic.

SEEING THE SIGNS

Great pay. Interesting work. A fancy title and an assistant. These are the elements that make for a truly great job, right? One where the person lucky enough to have it is happy, content and eager to go into work each day. Meanwhile, those people unlucky enough to be stuck in low-paying, less glamorous jobs, like waitresses, garbage men and editorial assistants, are bound to be miserable and plagued by those “Sunday Blues,” even on a Wednesday.

Not so, according to Patrick Lencioni, author of The Three Signs of a Miserable Job: A Fable for Managers (And Their Employees). Fascinated with why people stay in demoralizing, unfulfilling positions since watching his father trudge off to his own miserable job day after day, Lencioni has paid close attention to the work world, continually refining his theories about job satisfaction.

At first, he too fell for the misconception that well-paying, interesting work is all that is necessary for job satisfaction. He even changed his own career based on this theory. But then, Lencioni says, “… I met more and more people with supposedly great jobs who, like me, dreaded going to work… The theory crumbled completely when I came across other people with less obviously attractive jobs who seemed to find fulfillment in their work… And so it became apparent to me that there must be more to job fulfillment than I had thought.”

In The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, Lencioni explores the overlooked, and actually simple and obvious, causes of job misery in the hope that addressing these causes will not only minimize high turnover rates affecting many businesses, but, more importantly, end the suffering that job misery causes for many.

Once Upon a Time…

The author frames his theories as a fable, telling the story of Brian Bailey, a man who “love[s] being a manager.” Bailey, a recently retired CEO, begins the tale thinking that he and his wife will be moving to Lake Tahoe to enjoy a life of leisure; but only weeks into his retirement, his managerial instincts are challenged by a less-than-stellar experience ordering takeout from a neighborhood pizzeria. Bailey wonders why the pizzeria’s employees seem so miserable, particularly in comparison to their counterparts at other area restaurants, and soon seizes the opportunity to become the pizzeria’s weekend manager in order to investigate the cause of the staff’s misery and how to alleviate it. The reader journeys with Bailey as he works to increase the staff’s job fulfillment, discovering along the way a no-nonsense method for transforming a miserable job into a great one.

Defeating Immeasurability, Anonymity and Irrelevance

Lencioni’s fable utilizes the microcosm of the pizzeria, with its small staff and stakes, to illustrate the three elements that can make any job miserable: immeasurability, anonymity and irrelevance. In order to experience true job fulfillment, employees must be able to measure their progress and level of contribution in a way that does not depend on the whims or subjective views of their managers. According to Lencioni, they must also feel “understood and appreciated for their unique qualities by someone in a position of authority… People who see themselves as invisible, generic or anonymous cannot love their jobs, no matter what they are doing.”

Finally, employees must have a clear idea that their work matters, that it has relevance for others. Lencioni provides vivid, relatable examples of each of these misery-causing factors in his depiction of the pizzeria’s employees and their situation when Brian Bailey enters their lives.

The story of how Bailey then turns this miserable situation around provides a blueprint for any organization — regardless of size or industry — to increase job fulfillment for its staff. The reader watches Bailey develop his theory of job fulfillment and combat feelings of immeasurability, anonymity and irrelevance among his staff. Lencioni presents his readers with a simple, straightforward cure that depends upon effective, empathetic management, and offers hope for everyone affected by job misery. Ultimately, Lencioni’s business-fiction format keeps his work from being relegated to the dry, academic realm of the textbook, but still provides readers with valuable theories.

Communication Week is Coming

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Next week we will be hosting two excellent Soundview Live webinars around the topic of communication and influence. This topic has become critical with changes in the business environment, including a new digital generation entering the workforce, the advent of social media, more people tele-commuting, and companies becoming more culturally and ethnically diverse.

May 13th: How to Hold REAL Conversations with John Stoker

In this Soundview Live webinar, How to Hold REAL Conversations, John Stoker offers clear explanations of the theoretical aspects of conversation along with practical application of real skills that will help you to connect with others in a deep and meaningful way.

What You’ll Learn:

  • The four conversation skills that make for effective communication.
  • The eight principles for conducting REAL conversations.
  • The effectiveness model of conversation involving Respect, Results and Relationship.

May 15th: The New Science of Leading Change with David Maxfield

In this Soundview Live webinar, The New Science of Leading Change, you’ll be the first to hear from author David Maxfield about the new research, case studies, and content featured in the latest edition of Influencer. David will teach influence strategies for achieving  profoundly better results by changing bad and entrenched human habits. And he will examine, in detail, why people do what they do and what it takes as a leader to help them act differently.

What You’ll Learn:

  • How to use three keys of influence to become a true leader.
  • How to identify a handful of high-leverage behaviors that lead to rapid and profound change.
  • How to apply strategies for changing both thoughts and actions.
  • How to marshall six sources of influence to make change inevitable.

Please consider joining us for one or both of these important webinars. As always Soundview subscribers attend free of charge. You can fill a conference room with colleagues on one registration, and submit questions to the authors throughout the presentations.

Unleashing Potential through Secure Base Leadership

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Whether you’re out in the woods camping, hiking the Long Trail, or climbing a mountain, you generally set up a base camp, and place you can return to for supplies, to rest, or to seek safety from the storm. This base camp is your security, a safe place to return to.

People can also be a secure base. A mother is a place of safety for a child to return to when he or she needs reassurance or when something scares them. In the workplace, a leader can be a secure base for their employees.

George Kohlrieser, in his book Care to Dare, defines a secure base as “a person, place, goal or object that provides a sense of protection, safety and caring and offers a source of inspiration and energy for daring, exploration, risk taking and seeking challenge.”

Through his research, Kohlrieser discovered nine characteristics of a secure base leader:

  1.  Stays Calm – a secure base leader remains composed and dependable, especially when under pressure.
  2. Accepts the Individual – the leader shows caring for the human being before focusing on the issue or problem,
  3. Sees the Potential – secure base leaders see the employee’s potential talent versus his current functioning or state.
  4. Uses Listening and Inquiry – this leader has a preference for listening and inquiry rather than “telling” and advocacy.
  5. Delivers a Powerful Message – secure base leaders are masters at coming up with pithy sentences, or what is called “bull’s-eye transactions.”
  6. Focuses on the Positive – this leader is good at directing the Mind’s Eye of other people to focus on the positive rather than the negative.
  7. Encourages Risk-Taking – this characteristic goes beyond acceptance to taking direct action.
  8. Inspires Through Intrinsic Motivation – the secure base leader talks about what is inherently interesting and enjoyable, instead of just focusing on money and financial reward.
  9. Signals Accessibility – people believe that secure base leaders are always accessible and available.

If you would like to become this secure base leader, then you’ll want to join us on May 10th for our Soundview Live webinar with George Kohlrieser called Unleashing Potential through Secure Base Leadership. Register today and bring your questions for George to answer during the session.

The Underlying Logic of the Office

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THE ORG

THE OFFICE GOES UNDER THE MICROSCOPE

Bureaucracy that hampers productivity, outrageous salaries for those at the top, cutthroat office politics, endless meetings that everyone knows are useless — there must be a better way to get things done than through today’s dysfunctional organizations. Isn’t there?
The short answer, from Columbia Business School professor Ray Fisman and his co-author, Harvard Business Review Press editorial director Tim Sullivan, is: there isn’t. Of course not all organizations are perfectly designed and managed — no doubt, there is always room for improvement — but as Fisman and Sullivan demonstrate in their book The Org: The Underlying Logic of the Office, today’s organization is still the structural unit for our world. Yes, too much time is spent in meetings, and the politics of the workplace will always create roadblocks to success. But for Fisman and Sullivan, much of the frustration and concern that our organizations inspire are the result of give-and-take that is not only inherent but unavoidable in our economic system. Through scores of in-depth case studies of organizations ranging from the Baltimore Police Department to the island nation of Samoa, the authors explain why organizations are structured and managed as they are — in other words, the “underlying logic” to it all.

How Much Can the Org Do?

For instance, take the task of structuring the job so that employees are incentivized to be highly productive. Police departments, for example, might incentivize police officers by rewarding them based on number of arrests. Theoretically, this might seem logical, but on closer examination a number of issues arise. First, is it truly better to arrest 10 loiterers, or even car thieves, as opposed to one murderer?

Even more complex is the fact that the job of a police department is not to make arrests but to keep the city safe. Thus the measure of “success” a police department uses for its officers actually reflects a failure of the department’s mandate. Even more important, the chosen incentive in this case might actually discourage officers from doing their job — keeping the city safe — because the initiatives and work that could help to keep the city safe is not rewarded. This is a very real problem, as the authors found in Baltimore. The answer is that the “org” — as the authors call it — can plan, structure and impose only so much. At some point, the police officers themselves must recognize the job they have to do and must act accordingly. And this is exactly what happens, the authors write. After a period of “cowboy” policing — making lots of showy arrests — many cops settle into a routine of keeping the peace in which arrests are the means and not the end.

The bottom line is that structuring organizations based on high-powered incentives and rational economic principles might seem logical, but real life is different. The best organizations balance incentives with an acknowledgment of intrinsic motivation, which itself can be as high powered as any carrot — just ask any entrepreneur.

Guardians vs. Stars

Organizations do fail, and fail through their own fault. The subprime mortgage meltdown resulted from incentives that pushed loan officers to approve as many loans as possible, regardless of the risk of those loans. The problem, as the authors explain, is that these mortgage companies and banks did not have the guardians watching over the stars. Any organization needs to have stars swinging for the fences — but those stars are not going to worry about the risks; thus, the same organization needs to have guardians to ensure the quality of the quantity being brought in by the stars. The banks had no guardians ensuring the quality of the loans being approved, which was a recipe for disaster. The subprime mortgage experience explains, write the authors, “why we’ll always have oppressive bureaucrats, and free-thinking entrepreneurs oppressed by them. And that’s okay.”

The simple phrase “that’s okay” is the beating heart of this lucid, well-researched book. The organizations that we deal with — and their policies, structures and rules — will no doubt continue to frustrate us, but the fact is that despite the give-and-take, compromises and seeming unfairness, today’s organization is still the best vehicle to get things done. Organizations may not be perfect, but that’s okay.

Differentiating Your Company Through Strategy and Talent

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Are you selling vanilla ice cream? Most likely you aren’t literally selling it, but do you sell a product that’s basically like your competitor’s – a plain, basic commodity?

Book summaries are our vanilla ice cream. Although we have distinguished our summaries from those of our competitors by the selection of titles, quality of writing, and thoroughness of the summary, some people still consider all book summaries alike. This is why we’ve gone further to separate ourselves from the competition.

We have brought together talented staff to help us provide subscribers greater access to the authors and their work through hosting weekly webinars with book authors, interviews with the authors to gain clearer insight into their lives and ideas, and launched our Executive Insights series to also provide video interviews with executives who are putting these new ideas into practice. In addition, we provide a customized library for each subscriber to search and use this content, while providing access through apps as well.

This is the basic concept behind Steve Van Remortel’s book Stop Selling Vanilla ice Cream. In order to differentiate yourself from the competition, you need the right talent and strategy to make it happen. Van Remortel goes so far as to say that “there is no difficulty any viable enterprise can confront that that cannot be surmounted by improving its strategy and optimizing its talent.”

He provides five fundamentals to help define an organization’s route from where they are today all the way to greater prosperity and effectiveness.

  1. Differentiation – deliver a competence that creates a clear differentiation for your organization.
  2. Tangible Value – don’t just say you’re the best – prove it.
  3. Talent Management – implement a talent management system that enables your organization to identify, select, develop and retain talent.
  4. Tactical Department Plans – develop and execute action plans that work “on” the business in each department of your organization.
  5. Plan Execution – institute a plan execution program to insure an organizational culture of discipline that focuses on accountability.

If you’re tired of selling vanilla ice cream and would like to work out a differentiation plan, please join us on April 23rd to hear Steve’s Stop Selling Vanilla Ice Cream process in detail and to ask your questions throughout the presentation. Register now for Differentiating Your Company Through Strategy and Talent.