University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
The Truth About Employee Engagement
A review of

The Truth About Employee Engagement

A Fable About Addressing the Three Root Causes of Job Misery

Patrick Lencioni • Jossey-Bass • 2015

Less Misery, More Reward

by Allan Schweyer

Best-selling author Patrick Lencioni addresses the root causes of employee disengagement and how to combat them.

In his sixth fable, business guru and best-selling author Patrick Lencioni tackles a highly relatable topic: the causes of job misery. Through the story of Brian Bailey, a fictional CEO turned pizzeria manager, he elucidates three elements that make work miserable – anonymity, irrelevance and immeasurability – and how to fix them.

Personal and Economic Damage

Lencioni argues that most people lead awful lives because they toil in miserable jobs. By his calculus, the tragedy of unhappiness and disengagement at work plays out across all industries and jobs, regardless of pay or prestige. Even weekends offer little reprieve because most people so dread the prospect of returning to work on Monday that their anxiety levels begin to rise on Sundays. A miserable job, Lencioni says, drains your life force. 

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