The Cranky Middle Manager Show 111 3 Signs of a Miserable Job- Patrick Lencioni
The Cranky Middle Manager #111
Welcome to episode 111- another big shot guest on our little shot show. Don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter, just email me wayne@crankymiddlemanger.com and put Subscribe in the subject line.
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Show Notes
0:00 Welcome all you middle managers. We are the funiculars of the business world…not glamorous or fancy, but try getting anything up the hill without us. How’s THAT for an analogy?
This episode is dedicated to Phoebe Pember, a bit of an expert on nasty jobs. Hmm never trained for the job she had, didn’t mind the job itself, just the niggling details like being in charge of the whiskey… sound like anyone we know?
3:43 The quote of the week is from Samuel Butler. Happiness and misery are both optional…. depends which way you’re headed on a given day.
4:42 Welcome Patrick Lencioni to the show. He’s the author of 3 Signs of a Miserable Job, 5 Temptations of a CEO and many others. Why does he write what he calls “fables” rather than text books?
7:12 What’s the difference between a bad job and a miserable one? A miserable job is miserable regardless of what the job is. Professional athlete is a good job but there are a lot of miserable people doing it…..
9:22 The three signs of a miserable job are
1) anonymity (does your boss or organization know who you really are?)
2) irrelevance (does your job make a difference to anyone?)
3) immeasurement (it’s his book, he can invent words if he wants. It means can you objectively tell you’re doing a good job).
13:00 We have yet another reason to blame HR for our problems- the interview system discourages us from knowing too much personal information about our employees.
17:40 Irrelevance is the one that kills me personally. Have you ever met a happy person in an insurance company? If your job is managing 1020b forms…how connected to the rest of the human race- or your job- can you be?
22:55 We don’t just need measurement - most of us have plenty of numbers to hit- but are we measuring the right things?
26:01 Some of our guests have cited Pat’s work as resources. Who is he reading?
Matthew Kelly: The Dream Manager
Daniel Harkavy: Becoming a Coaching Leader
Finally there’s the whole concept of Servant Leadership.
Don’t let the weasels get you down…
September 18th, 2007 at 7:24 am
[...] Speaking of development, go analyse discover Wayne’s stylish Cranky Middle Manager podcast with Apostle Lencioni (author of Five Dysfunctions of a Team and his stylish work, the Three Signs of a Miserable Job). That’s an overwhelming aggregation title, isn’t it? [...]
September 21st, 2007 at 2:36 pm
Another outstanding interview Wayne! Thanks for sharing Lencioni with us. He’s super interesting.
I’ve got Dream Manager. I’ll let you know how it is.
November 20th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
[...] In an episode of The Cranky Middle Manager that I just listened to, Patrick Lencioni talked about how one of the signs of a bad job is that you can’t tell whether or not you’re doing a good job at it. [...]
December 28th, 2008 at 3:28 am
[...] He hasn’t read but likes Patrick Lencioni’s 3 Signs of a Miserable Job ( and of course you can listen to him talk about it here.… [...]