Lencioni’s message is based on his excellent book The Three Signs of a Miserable Job. This was the first Lencioni book I read and which got me interested in his work. Here are my notes from his message. (You might also be interested in a blog series I wrote on Lenionci’s book a few years ago.)
“The content of this book is the reason I started my career. My dad would come home from work every day and complain every night because his company drove him crazy. It was really a pain. I was only 8-9 and I felt really bad for my dad. I thought ‘wouldn’t it be great to do something about that.'”
Not about a good job or bad job, but a fulfilling job or a miserable job.
There are three things that cause misery in a job:
- Anonymity.
- Irrelevance
- Immeasurement
Anonymity
It doesn’t matter if you are head of marketing or a professional sports player, if your manager doesn’t care about you, your job easily becomes miserable. Good people don’t want to leave jobs where they’re known.
Irrelevance
“I think we are called to love the people who work for us.”
What if your manager doesn’t take interest in you—do you leave? Minister upward to your manager. Take an interest in them. It will change their perspective and they will probably reflect it back to you.
God made us with an innate desire to love others. If there is nothing of that in our job, we feel irrelevant.
Immeasurement
People need to be able to assess for themselves if they are doing a good job.
Money is a satisfier. These things are drivers—you can never have too much of them.
“I can’t imagine being a Christ-like leader without getting to know the people who work for us and showing how what they do connects to others.”
“Management is a ministry. It’s great to be at a place where I can say that out loud.”