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 Sounds Good -- But Is It Really This Simple? Nov 13, 2009
I'm not usually a reader of business or management books, but since I was just promoted to be the branch manager of a public library, I figured I should start dipping into some of the more accessible literature out there. This "fable" (ie. business lesson dressed up in fiction) by a well-known management "guru" (for lack of a better term), seeks to address the fact that most people aren't happy with their jobs. The idea is that even those with seemingly perfect jobs (high-paid athletes, actors, models, etc.) can often express just as much job dissatisfaction as the lowliest burger-flipper. The author seeks to get to the bottom of this workplace problem by outlining the causes and possible solution in the breezy fictionalized story of a retired manufacturing CEO who decides to get involved in running a small Italian restaurant.
This likeable CEO-turned-restaurant-manager refines his beliefs of employee job satisfaction into three principles:
Anonymity: Employees who aren't known and individually appreciated by their managers will not be fulfilled in their jobs.
Irrelevance: Employees who don't know how their work impacts the lives of others will not be fulfilled in their jobs.
Immeasurement: Employees who can't assess their own level of performance and success will not be fulfilled in their jobs.
He then tests these principles at the restaurant, trying to improve the highly ineffective staff (and yes, not everyone will be left standing at the end). It's all handled at a pretty basic, simplistic level, but it's hard not to feel like he's on to something. (As an aside, an interesting novel to read in conjunction with this is Stuart O'Nan's excellent Last Night at the Lobster, which is about the mostly disaffected staff at a Red Lobster franchise.) Lest anyone be skeptical of the theory's application to the world of "real" business, following his success with the restaurant, the semi-retiree is headhunted to be the turnaround CEO of a sporting goods retail chain. There, after assessing the situation on the ground, he rolls out his job satisfaction solution and demonstrates the kind bottom-line results that make true believers out of everyone.
In the end, I'm torn. While I am a big believer in some of the importance of some of the "touchy-feely" aspects of management, and appreciate this high-profile attempt to delve into one of those areas, I'm also suspicious of any simple fix. I can actually see how I could apply this to my new staff and try it out, but at the same time, I instinctively feel that the issue of job dissatisfaction is much more complex than this fable makes it out to be. Still, there's something here to chew on, and the presentation is reasonably well done, so I guess if this is a topic that interests you, check it out.
Readable, But Not Helpful Oct 08, 2009
As a non-supervisory employee, I thought I might find some insight into trying to make a miserable job not so miserable, or to find affirmation that I do need to move on to a different job. The book is highly readable; I finished it in two days. However, the three items that the author highlights as being the reason people are miserable in any job, regardless of its glamour (or lack thereof) or pay rate, are certainly not reasons that I have found for making me miserable at a job, and I find it hard to believe that these would be reasons for other people to be miserable in spite of all the other characteristics of their job: irrelevance, immeasurement, and anonymity. If I were writing this book, I would tell managers and employees these three reasons that make people miserable (and it's not just me; this seems to be a repeating complaint of other people I have known who are either co-workers at my miserable jobs or people at other jobs who complain of being miserable): inconsistency, dishonesty, and unreasonable expectations. If you are a manager, there is no point in your reading this book because even if you implement what the author suggests, you won't make any difference to the misery level of your employees. If you're an employee, there's no helpful advice here either. You will probably think of how you can write a better book about what actually constitutes a "miserable" job and what managers should do to amend it.
 Sound ideas, but hard to apply to real world Oct 05, 2009
I know that it's the nature of management fables that they greatly simplify situations to make easy to tell stories, but this one goes a little too far. I've read several of Lencioni's books and have enjoyed them all. This is the first one that I finished and could not see immediate ways to apply what I had learned. The key argument of the book, which I completely agree with, is that you need to be able to measure your performance, in order to derive satisfaction from doing a good job and improving. In all the examples in the book, coming up with the right measurements is easy. Unfortunately, in my line of work, good clean measurements are not easy. What's worse (and not at all addressed in the book), using the wrong measurements can actually lead to more problems and more dissatisfaction. I know it does not fit with this genre of book, but I would have really benefited from more discussion of how to apply this to many different job situations. The book is definitely worth reading and there are still great take-aways, but it's not the immediate help that Lencioni's other books have been for me.
 Prove it! Oct 03, 2009
While the concepts presented in this book seem to make common sense, glaringly absent is any evidence to support their efficacy. It's a very nice story about three companies that turn around by following a few simple principles; but without any real-life case studies to back it up, that's all it is -- a fairy tale where all of the players act in exactly the way that the storyteller needs in order to make his point. I don't have any reason to believe that any company has tried these strategies with any success. Very disappointing indeed.
 quick solutions for any manager Sep 15, 2009
fun, fast read that gets the point across, how to enjoy your job and the people in it. Great for managers or those who want to be a manager
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