Tom Musbach,
"Awful," "dreary," and "miserable" are adjectives
that many people use
to describe their jobs at one time or another. Dissatisfaction on the
job is common and often temporary. But not many people take time to
analyze what makes a job miserable, and how to fix it.
Fortunately Patrick Lencioni has done much of that work in his book "The Three Signs of a Miserable Job."
Job Misery Is Universal
The author notes that a "miserable" job differs from a "bad" job,
as
one person's dream job may not appeal to another worker. A miserable
job, however, has some universal traits.
"A miserable job makes a person cynical and frustrated and demoralized
when they go home at night," Lencioni says. "It drains them of their
energy, their enthusiasm, and self-esteem. Miserable jobs can be found
in every industry and at every level."
Lencioni blames much of the problem on managers, who are a key factor
in the job satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) of their employees. A
recent Yahoo! HotJobs survey points to a similar conclusion: 43% of
workers said discontent with their boss was the main reason they
planned to look for a new job in 2008.
The Three Signs
Lencioni identifies the three signs of job misery as anonymity, irrelevance, and "immeasurement."
Anonymity: Employees feel anonymous when their manager has little
interest in them as people with unique lives, aspirations, and
interests.
Irrelevance: This condition occurs when workers cannot see how their
job makes a difference. "Every employee needs to know that the work
they do impacts someone's life -- a customer, a coworker, even a
supervisor -- in one way or another."
Immeasurement: This term describes the inability of employees to assess
for themselves their contributions or success. As a result they often
rely on the opinions of others -- usually the manager -- to measure
their success.
Three Remedies for Job Misery
For workers who may be experiencing the signs of job misery, Lencioni
recommends three steps to improve the boss-employee dynamic and enhance
job satisfaction.
1. Assess your manager. Is the boss interested in and capable of
addressing the three factors mentioned above? "Most managers really do
want to improve, in spite of the fact that they may seem disinterested
or too busy," Lencioni says.
2. Help your manager understand what you need. This could mean
reviewing with your manager what the key measurements for success are
for your job. Lencioni also suggests asking your boss, "Can you help me
understand why this work I'm doing makes a difference to someone?"
3. Act more like the manager you want. "Employees who take a greater
interest in the lives of their managers are bound to infect them with
the same kind of human interest they seek," the author says. Or find
ways to let your manager know how his or her performance makes a
positive difference for you.
Be Realistic
Richard Phillips, founder of Career Advantage Solutions, agrees that
"managing up" is a good way to improve job satisfaction, but he
cautions employees to be realistic in their expectations.
"Managers are not mind readers," he says. "Take the responsibility
to
communicate upon yourself, and remember there has to be an ongoing
dialogue, or change is unlikely to happen."
I'm not quite sure why I have a "blog". I have a web site, a my space account, at least a dozen email addresses, a cell phone, a mail box, every free site that pops up I check out and sign up for... and never use more than once. So why a "blog" now? Who knows. It was a feature on my ISP provided account.
I do understand how they've become so popular. They are very easy to maintain. Although as a designer this "wizard" EasyBlogBuilder is very limited in what I have access to change visually. I guess I need to get a better one like WordPress or eek learn php or something. (note... i've already stopped using EasBlogBuilder. A normal page is way easier to post to.)
If anyone reads this blog I'll be surprised. But I'll try to post more than a weeks' worth of posts. No telling where it might lead.
I have found myself telling people I don't write (songs) much anymore because I don't think anyone wants to hear what I have to say. We'll see....
Woke up way too early today. So I made some changes to my iTunes Store account and found some new stuff to play with. So I (tried) adding some My iTunes rss feeds to this blog. Maybe it will be fun, maybe not? We'll see.
Gave up on this iTunes rss feed inside the EasyBlog Builder. Was working the way it was supposed to and I was too busy to mess with it. I will try again another time. I like the ideas of rss feeds. So I will add it to my list of "Learn how to's"