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Midlife Crisis at work - who's to blame?

There are many causes of midlife crisis. 

But if the workplace is the main trigger, it could very well the fault of the manager. 

At least that's what Lencioni suggests in his book: 

3 Signs of a Miserable Job

Using a long fable to illustrate his triangle of job misery, Lencioni has kept me on edge for a good 2+ hours as I followed the journey of Brian and his adventures to revitalize a small single owner restaurant and a chain of sports stores using:

The Triangle of Job Misery


Lencioni busts the myth about the role of a manager, which is often assumed to be to strategize and push profitability or pushing papers and reporting on financials. 

Rather than the above, a manager should...manage. 

And the Triangle of Job Misery gives managers a simple framework to manage their team. They should aim to reduce the following.
  • Irrelevance: This is when a member feels as though their work isn't important or relevant. People need to be needed, and they need to be told so often. [Quote from book: "the feeling that what you do has no impact on the lives of others."]
  • Immeasurement: When there are no clear measurement of how well a person is performing, they lose motivation. And when the measurement of how well they are doing is dependent on the subjective view of another, politics and posturing often takes center stage. Either way, productivity suffers. [Quote from book: " if you couldn't measure what you're doing, then you'd lose interest in it."]
  • Anonymity: It is emotionally more difficult to call it quits in a team where you've made friends and know everyone well, and vis versa. There's little wonder why employee turnover tend to happen in waves. Having a closed knit culture can provide emotional support and reduce job misery, often time such a culture has to be lead by the manager. [Quote from book: " How can a person really feel good about going to work when they don't feel like anyone there knows who they are? Or cares?"]

Thoughts

The Triangle of Job Misery provides a framework that managers can work off. And we are all managers in some sense - even a freelancer has to manage their own emotions (and often times, their clients). 

That said, managing people leans towards grey areas laden with emotions and tack, often times calling for high EQ. Trying to force fit the complications of management into a triangle can feel as though we've oversimplified the problems. 

However, the framework has its uses and serves as a new angle from which to look at employee turnover and in turn business efficiency issues.

It could also come in handy for employees who are facing their midlife crisis and to judge if it is caused by a 'miserable' job.

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