These are my “book notes” from reading THE THREE SIGNS OF A MISERABLE JOB, by Patrick Lencioni.

1) Immeasurement

• The first part is that a job is bound to be miserable if it doesn’t involve measurement.
• Imagine playing a football game and not knowing the score. Or being a broker and not knowing if the price went up or down after you bought a stock.
• People who aren’t good with their jobs don’t want to be measured, because then they have to be accountable for something. Great employees love that kind of accountability.
• The key is to measure the right things.

2) Irrelevance

• The second cause of misery at work is irrelevance, the feeling that what you do has no impact on the lives of others.
• Every human being that works has to know that what they do matters to another human being.
• It’s so obvious but almost none of the managers take the time to help their people understand that their jobs matter to someone.
• If a manager has any responsibility in the world, it’s to help people understand why their work matters. 
• To connect the two, people ought to think about measuring those things that make a difference to the person or the people they serve.
• Most managers don’t understand how they’re relevant.

3) Anonymity

• The feeling that no one is interested in who you are.
• People deserve to like their jobs, and that it’s up to managers to make that possible. A company deserves to have its employees care about the business and do their best to make it successful.
• Treat people humanely and they will do as you wish – a valuable lesson for any manager or, indeed, anyone at all.