In the world of management and leadership, there are more than a few books and resources available that claim to have the quick cure for management woes. Many of these books come highly recommended and many also come with the pretext of research and “empirical findings”. Most of these books however fail to effectively convey a message when they lack the clarity or simplicity needed to reach the masses. Convoluted and overly-difficult models are presented and the message is lost with useless semantics. The Three Signs of a Miserable Job (Lencioni, 2007) and Influencer (Grenny, Patterson, Maxfield, McMillan, & Switzler, 2013) stand apart however. This is due to their simple, common sense approach, that leaves the audience with a very easy to
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Both speak strongly towards the concept of helping the person, who in turn will help the organization. This concept is lost on most people and although it makes perfectly good sense to be heard, it’s rarely every applied. This concept can be most easily phrased as such: you can take care of the job first, and people second, but the job and people will suffer; but if you take care of the people first, they will take care of the job and both will prosper. This is the main goal of both books, one by establishing a means of influence, and the other by eliminating the root causes of a miserable job
The Three Signs of a Miserable Job is by far one of the best sources of material for leadership today. It is laid out in an incredibly easy-to-read format that leaves the reader wanting to get to the next page to find out what happens to our protagonist, Brian. It actually gets to the three signs somewhere around halfway through the book. Until then, it is a compelling story that has you comparing and contrasting the experience of Brian with your own. Once revealed, it seems so obvious that those were the three issues he had identified and you found yourself rooting for his …show more content…
The Influencer on the other hand, has a significantly more involved and convoluted process that involves breaking down a process into six areas and analyzing intrinsic and extrinsic variables in order to determine optimal influence opportunities. While this may seem like a lot, it is put forth largely in storytelling and easily conveys its meaning with many examples of the same concepts.
The Influencer shares many of the same concepts of The Three Signs. For starters, it focuses on creating measures. Something that is repeated over and over again in The Three Signs. This is a critical similarity as in both books, it serves the same overall purpose; to provide meaning to the employee while providing a means of tracking progress and productivity to the employee and the manager. Measures in both books are called out as both being possibly good or bad. This is discussed more in depth in the Influencer but more easily understood in The Three
Both speak strongly towards the concept of helping the person, who in turn will help the organization. This concept is lost on most people and although it makes perfectly good sense to be heard, it’s rarely every applied. This concept can be most easily phrased as such: you can take care of the job first, and people second, but the job and people will suffer; but if you take care of the people first, they will take care of the job and both will prosper. This is the main goal of both books, one by establishing a means of influence, and the other by eliminating the root causes of a miserable job
The Three Signs of a Miserable Job is by far one of the best sources of material for leadership today. It is laid out in an incredibly easy-to-read format that leaves the reader wanting to get to the next page to find out what happens to our protagonist, Brian. It actually gets to the three signs somewhere around halfway through the book. Until then, it is a compelling story that has you comparing and contrasting the experience of Brian with your own. Once revealed, it seems so obvious that those were the three issues he had identified and you found yourself rooting for his …show more content…
The Influencer on the other hand, has a significantly more involved and convoluted process that involves breaking down a process into six areas and analyzing intrinsic and extrinsic variables in order to determine optimal influence opportunities. While this may seem like a lot, it is put forth largely in storytelling and easily conveys its meaning with many examples of the same concepts.
The Influencer shares many of the same concepts of The Three Signs. For starters, it focuses on creating measures. Something that is repeated over and over again in The Three Signs. This is a critical similarity as in both books, it serves the same overall purpose; to provide meaning to the employee while providing a means of tracking progress and productivity to the employee and the manager. Measures in both books are called out as both being possibly good or bad. This is discussed more in depth in the Influencer but more easily understood in The Three