For many organisations, 2009 has been the year of the slashed budget. With pressure from the uncertain economic climate bearing upon them, leaders and managers have been forced to trim the fat wherever they can.

When budgets are tight, investing in the wellbeing of staff may seem a non-essential expense that can be easily cut. However, there are some very simple things that leaders and managers can do that cost nothing, but have the power to profoundly affect job satisfaction within your team.

Patrick Lencioni’s wonderful fable for leaders, The Three Signs of a Miserable Job, addresses the mysteries of what it is that makes a job fulfilling.

Lencioni suggests that job satisfaction isn’t as simple as we might think. Some of us may assume that being highly paid, or doing something we love makes job satisfaction a given. Similarly we may think that a miserable job is one in which carries a low salary, or involves apparently menial tasks - such as in a restaurant kitchen, or a mailroom.

Lencioni, however, sees things differently. To start with, he points out that a miserable job is not the same as a bad one.

A bad job is really in the eye of the beholder. Depending on your perspective, it can be a job demanding hard physical labour, working outside or dealing with the public. Or it could be a job that involves managing people, long hours in an office or a long commute. It could, in fact, be any job at all.

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I’ve found some fascinating material covering a range of subjects, including research on the brain and its function in learning and emotional intelligence, coaching and teams.

The continuous learning we experience in our lives is a journey that has no final destination. However, I thought I would highlight a model on teams that is elegantly simple and makes sense. This model is called The Five Dysfunctions of a Team from a book of the same name written by Patrick Lencioni.

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Three Essential Elements of Organising:
For many of us, it would be a rare experience to be involved in a newly-formed organisation. Most of us work in organisations that have been designed (and redesigned) previously, with an established culture and network of relationships. So how does an organisation or team come into existence and what makes it work well? In her book, “Finding Ourselves – Leadership for an Uncertain Time,” Meg Wheatley describes three essential elements: 

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Personal Goals and the Positive Life

The beginning of each year inspires many of us to take time for reflection and goal-setting. For the last twenty-five years, one area of psychological research has focused on understanding how personal goals are related to long-term levels of happiness and life satisfaction. Not surprisingly, it shows that goals and life meaning are inextricably linked. 

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