We visited the AMS Group of Companies located at F. Torres St., Davao City for an interview regarding to our subject MIS2 assignment, include the question which is “What are the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan?”. To answer the question, we approached Mr. Gemrald R. Glibara, the M.I.S Department Head of AMS Group of Companies.
FRUSTRATION
Frustration a common emotional response to opposition. Related to anger and disappointment, it arises from the perceived resistance to the fulfillment of individual will. The greater the obstruction, and the greater the will, the more the frustration is likely to be. Causes of frustration may be internal or external. In people, internal frustration may arise from challenges in fulfilling personal goals and desires, instinctual drives and needs, or dealing with perceived deficiencies, such as a lack of confidence or fear of social situations. Conflict can also be an internal source of frustration; when one has competing goals that interfere with one another, it can create cognitive dissonance. External causes of frustration involve conditions outside an individual, such as a blocked road or a difficult task. While coping with frustration, some individuals may engage in passive-aggressive behavior, making it difficult to identify the original cause(s) of their frustration, as the responses are indirect. A more direct, and common response, is a propensity towards aggression.
This is the point where a lot of people will just say, “I Quit” and give up. Before you do though, here’s 8 ways you can blast through any frustration:
1. Ask Yourself, “What Is Working in This Situation?”
Even if feels like nothing is working, look closely and you will probably find at least something that is going right. So, that’s good. You’ve found something that’s working. Now, how do you improve it? By asking this question, you’ve taken yourself out of the negative mindset of “it’s hopeless” and are back to focusing on the positive.
There's something that’s working and that will give you a clue of what direction to focus on. You may find that even if your previous issues come up you’ll be able to resolve them in the process of concentrating on your improvements.
2. Keep an Accomplishments Log
Write down everything you accomplish in a log. If you do it in a monthly format you will be able to see all that you have accomplished in just one month. You may be surprised by how much you have done. If you realize there’s not much on the list, it may open your eyes to the fact that you may be procrastinating more than working or that you are using too much of your energy going in too many directions and that you need to focus more. Hopefully, you will have lots of items on your list then you can see that even though it may not feel like it, you are moving forwards. The log will also help to highlight where you were the most effective and where you need to work harder.
3. Focus On What You Want to Happen
Go back to the big picture. What is the desired outcome? Sometimes, we get so wrapped up in one problem and trying to solve it that we forget what we were originally trying to accomplish. Try not to ask yourself, “Why did this happen?” Asking questions like that will keep you rooted in the past. It doesn’t offer a solution to the problem. The important thing is knowing the answer to the following two questions:
- What do you want to happen differently this time?”
- What do you need to do in order to get there?
4. Remove the “Noise” and Simplify
When you’re trying to solve a problem, you can get so wrapped up in trying to find a solution that you add unnecessary clutter, noise, and tasks to a project because you thought they “might” be a solution.
Working on this website, I get bombarded by offer after offer of “easy ways to run your website”, “get more traffic”, “make more money” etc. They’re just noise though and usually a waste of my time even reading them. These people are just trying to make money off of me. They have no interest in whether I succeed or not. When people are frustrated by how slow the hard work process is taking, they get tempted by these “here’s what you’ve been missing” and “I’ll make it easy for you” offers. Usually, it ends up that if you do get tempted by the offers you discover 6 months down the road that if you had just stuck with your first plan and just kept working at it, you’d be a lot further ahead by now. Not to mention richer from not having spent money on the Get Rich Quick schemes. Believe in yourself. Simplify and go back to the basics. Determine what is really necessary and remove everything else. Anything that takes your time and effort that isn’t adding value, should be eliminated.
5. Multiple Solutions
You always have options. You just need to brainstorm and figure them out. Tell yourself you need to come up with 8 possible options to what you’re dealing with. Just knowing that you have lots of options will help to make you feel better. You won’t feel like you are trapped in one negative situation. From your list, figure out the best direction and go for it.
6. Take Action
When you get into serious frustration with a problem, you tend not to want to work on it anymore. It’s hard, it’s frustrating, and you’re not getting anywhere. So, anything to avoid having to be in that situation may be far more attractive. Procrastination may start to set in. If you can keep taking steps forwards, you will probably make it past this temporary hump. As Thomas Edison said, “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up” and “Surprises and reverses can serve as an incentive for great accomplishment.”
The other thing that can happen is that you start to spend a lot of time worrying. Worrying is a definite way of energy and does not move you in a forwards direction. Only taking action will. Once you start moving forwards again, you will most likely find that you worried for no reason.
7. Visualize a Positive Outcome to the Situation
A lot of times you can get stuck on focusing on what you don’t want to happen or fearing the absolute worst thing that could happen. The top athletes of the world will imagine themselves competing flawlessly over and over again. There is no room for failure in their minds. This is what you need to focus on as well. See yourself achieving your desired outcome. What will it look like? What will it feel like? What will you say? How will you feel? Take the time to visualize it and really feel it. It will inspire you to keep moving forwards.
8. Stay Positive
Things are usually not as bad as they first appear. Sometimes, things seem much worse simply because we’re tired or mentally drained. Taking a break and remembering to keep your sense of humour can also help. This time of frustration will pass. A positive mind is far more open to solutions and answers than a negative one that thinks it’s just “hopeless” and thinks “what’s the use?” A closed mind will not be able to see the possible solutions when they do come along. Stay positive.
As with any problem, the solution is to figure out what your options are, decide on a plan, focus, and then take action. By using the above 8 steps, you should find that you’re running into fewer problems and feeling less frustration. Instead, you may find that you’re running into opportunities and you know exactly how to take advantage of them.
According to him, the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan are:
In our company which is the AMS Group of Companies, according to them the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan are:
1. Lack of Support / Resistant to changes
According to Mr. Glibara, in any groups you cannot expect that all are adaptive to changes which he consider that as one of the frustrations as an IT professional. It is really hard to purse IS plans when the users themselves resist for changes, that’s the challenging part of being a project manager. You cannot please everyone, he added.
No matter whether a change is of major proportions or is objectively rather small, the change manager
must anticipate that people in the organization are going to find reasons to resist changes. It is a basic tenet of human behaviour that Any belief or value that has been previously successful in meeting needs will resist change. This applies even if there are better more successful alternatives to meet those needs.
Employee resistance
Participants gave a variety of reasons for resistance by employees and managers. The top-five reasons for employee resistance were:
1. Lack of understanding around the vision and need for change.
Participants indicated that the primary reason for employee resistance was that employees did not understand the vision of this particular change project. Employees did not clearly understand why the change was happening, nor did they have adequate knowledge regarding the change itself. Employees did not have the answer to the question, “what’s in it for me?” – or WIIFM. This could include, "Will I have a job?," "How will it impact my daily work?," "How will I benefit from the change?".
2. Comfort with the status quo and fear of the unknown.
Participants indicated that employees tended to be complacent, or that the current way of doing business had been in place for a long time. The current processes and systems seemed fine to the employees, and they were opposed to the change since it forced them out of their comfort zone. Uncertainty and fear of the new system compounded the desire of employees to continue with the “old way” to which they had grown accustom.
3. Corporate history and culture.
The organization’s past performance with change projects impacted the employees’ support of the current change project. Employees were desensitized to change initiatives, as many had been introduced and failed. The project was seen merely as the “flavor of the month,” and employees expected it go away like those in the past.
4. Opposition to the new technologies, requirements and processes introduced by the change.
Many participants felt that some employees resisted the change because of opposition to the actual change itself. Employees were opposed to changes that increased the performance and process measurement of their work. The change was seen as adding unwanted work, responsibility and accountability. Lastly, some employees opposed the new processes, systems or technologies because they felt the change would not solve the problems.
5. Fear of job loss.
Employees perceived the business change as a threat to their own job security. Some employees felt that the change would eliminate the need for their job, while others were unsure of their own abilities and skills in the new environment.
Manager resistance
The top-six reasons for manager resistance to change were:
1. Loss of power and control.
The leading reason for manager resistance to change was a fear of losing power. Changes often eliminated something the manager had control of or introduced something that the manager would not have control over. Managers perceived the changes as infringements on their autonomy, and some participants indicated that the change was even perceived as a personal attack on the managers. Managers reacted to the change initiative as a "battle for turf."
2. Overload of current tasks, pressures of daily activities and limited resources.
Managers felt that the change was an additional burden. Limited resources compounded the problem. The change initiative seemed like extra work and resource strain at a time when the pressures of daily activities were already high. In many projects, managers were expected to continue all of their current duties in addition to the duties of implementing the change.
3. Lack of skills and experience needed to manage the change effectively.
Managers were fearful of the new demands that would be placed on them by the business change. Several skill areas were identified as areas of concern. First, managers were uncomfortable with their role in managing the change. Some feared recrimination while others did not have the experience or tools to effectively manage their employees’ resistance. Managers also were concerned about the demands and responsibilities placed on them by the new business processes, systems or technologies.
4. Fear of job loss.
Managers felt that the business change would ultimately impact their own job security. Middle management is often the victim of large-scale business change. One participant reaffirmed this fear:
“They were eliminated in the change, so no resistance was recorded.”
5. Disagreement with the new way.
Some managers disagreed specifically with the change. They did not feel that the solution was the best approach to fixing the problem. Managers who did not play a role or provide input in the design and planning phases tended to resist the solution. Some participants felt that the resistance was due to the solution not being the idea of the manager ("not invented here").
6. Skepticism about the need for change.
Managers were not convinced of the need for change. They did not see the business issues driving the change, or they did not identify the same problems as the design team.
2. Communication Gap
He consider this gap as a cause of frustration for it is apparent in their organization. He experienced communication gap between himself and the office he is working to automate transactions. During the requirements gathering, both the office specified the functionalities to cater on the system that Mr. Gemrald will developed, after passing all the necessary documentations they came up to the development of the system. As he deployed the system, all specified functionalities were made and it is functional. As time goes by, there were functionalities that the office wanted to add which supposed to be addressed during the requirements gathering, in this case it is now cumbersome to the part of the IS professional to do some revisions and recoding when the system was actually delivered already.
Communication gap is a state that occurs when what is being said is not been communicated to the addressee properly and completely. There can be many causes of communication gap depending on where it exists. Actually Communication gap is the biggest hurdle in achieving the organizational goal and does not help at all in achievement of organizational goal. Communication gap in an organization means that the goals and objectives that are set by the top management are either not communicated to the employees of the organization at all levels or if communicated they are not been understood properly by the employees. This can be because of improper communication channels, unrealistic goals, inappropriate language etc.
Communication gap can be a major hurdle for the growth of an organization. Communication gap makes everybody on different pages and mindsets in terms of the information and updates. An organization has to ensure a smooth flow of communication all across the board. Even the duration of the passing the information matters. Information delayed is sometimes equivalent to information denied. The lack of information due to communication gap would make a person to go wrong path when a follow up corporate update happen regarding a project or strategy, since the background of latest information being presented would not have reached this employee at the right time. Communication gap can easily result in inappropriate decisions resulting in loss for the company.
The Bridge the Communication Gap course enables people to get through to others more easily, obtain agreement with less effort, and get things moving quickly. Participants learn how to:
• Recognize other people's most preferred channels of communication.
• Translate their messages so they answer the key questions uppermost in other people's minds.
• Reduce resistance and increase acceptance by using communication strategies tailored to the needs of their audience.
• Create a non-defensive, open atmosphere in which information flows more freely, leading to more effective planning and decision making.
• Resolve differences in values, priorities, and interpretations of information for identifying mutually satisfying solutions
To accomplish these goals, participants learn how to:
• Recognize: Identify other people's preferred ways of communicating by what they do, say, write, and ask.
• Translate: Adjust their requests, proposals, and presentations to match other people's preferred ways of communicating.
There's something that’s working and that will give you a clue of what direction to focus on. You may find that even if your previous issues come up you’ll be able to resolve them in the process of concentrating on your improvements.
2. Keep an Accomplishments Log
Write down everything you accomplish in a log. If you do it in a monthly format you will be able to see all that you have accomplished in just one month. You may be surprised by how much you have done. If you realize there’s not much on the list, it may open your eyes to the fact that you may be procrastinating more than working or that you are using too much of your energy going in too many directions and that you need to focus more. Hopefully, you will have lots of items on your list then you can see that even though it may not feel like it, you are moving forwards. The log will also help to highlight where you were the most effective and where you need to work harder.
3. Focus On What You Want to Happen
Go back to the big picture. What is the desired outcome? Sometimes, we get so wrapped up in one problem and trying to solve it that we forget what we were originally trying to accomplish. Try not to ask yourself, “Why did this happen?” Asking questions like that will keep you rooted in the past. It doesn’t offer a solution to the problem. The important thing is knowing the answer to the following two questions:
- What do you want to happen differently this time?”
- What do you need to do in order to get there?
4. Remove the “Noise” and Simplify
When you’re trying to solve a problem, you can get so wrapped up in trying to find a solution that you add unnecessary clutter, noise, and tasks to a project because you thought they “might” be a solution.
Working on this website, I get bombarded by offer after offer of “easy ways to run your website”, “get more traffic”, “make more money” etc. They’re just noise though and usually a waste of my time even reading them. These people are just trying to make money off of me. They have no interest in whether I succeed or not. When people are frustrated by how slow the hard work process is taking, they get tempted by these “here’s what you’ve been missing” and “I’ll make it easy for you” offers. Usually, it ends up that if you do get tempted by the offers you discover 6 months down the road that if you had just stuck with your first plan and just kept working at it, you’d be a lot further ahead by now. Not to mention richer from not having spent money on the Get Rich Quick schemes. Believe in yourself. Simplify and go back to the basics. Determine what is really necessary and remove everything else. Anything that takes your time and effort that isn’t adding value, should be eliminated.
5. Multiple Solutions
You always have options. You just need to brainstorm and figure them out. Tell yourself you need to come up with 8 possible options to what you’re dealing with. Just knowing that you have lots of options will help to make you feel better. You won’t feel like you are trapped in one negative situation. From your list, figure out the best direction and go for it.
6. Take Action
When you get into serious frustration with a problem, you tend not to want to work on it anymore. It’s hard, it’s frustrating, and you’re not getting anywhere. So, anything to avoid having to be in that situation may be far more attractive. Procrastination may start to set in. If you can keep taking steps forwards, you will probably make it past this temporary hump. As Thomas Edison said, “Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up” and “Surprises and reverses can serve as an incentive for great accomplishment.”
The other thing that can happen is that you start to spend a lot of time worrying. Worrying is a definite way of energy and does not move you in a forwards direction. Only taking action will. Once you start moving forwards again, you will most likely find that you worried for no reason.
7. Visualize a Positive Outcome to the Situation
A lot of times you can get stuck on focusing on what you don’t want to happen or fearing the absolute worst thing that could happen. The top athletes of the world will imagine themselves competing flawlessly over and over again. There is no room for failure in their minds. This is what you need to focus on as well. See yourself achieving your desired outcome. What will it look like? What will it feel like? What will you say? How will you feel? Take the time to visualize it and really feel it. It will inspire you to keep moving forwards.
8. Stay Positive
Things are usually not as bad as they first appear. Sometimes, things seem much worse simply because we’re tired or mentally drained. Taking a break and remembering to keep your sense of humour can also help. This time of frustration will pass. A positive mind is far more open to solutions and answers than a negative one that thinks it’s just “hopeless” and thinks “what’s the use?” A closed mind will not be able to see the possible solutions when they do come along. Stay positive.
As with any problem, the solution is to figure out what your options are, decide on a plan, focus, and then take action. By using the above 8 steps, you should find that you’re running into fewer problems and feeling less frustration. Instead, you may find that you’re running into opportunities and you know exactly how to take advantage of them.
According to him, the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan are:
In our company which is the AMS Group of Companies, according to them the two most frequently experienced causes of frustration of IS professionals and users while working on an IS plan are:
1. Lack of Support / Resistant to changes
According to Mr. Glibara, in any groups you cannot expect that all are adaptive to changes which he consider that as one of the frustrations as an IT professional. It is really hard to purse IS plans when the users themselves resist for changes, that’s the challenging part of being a project manager. You cannot please everyone, he added.
No matter whether a change is of major proportions or is objectively rather small, the change manager
must anticipate that people in the organization are going to find reasons to resist changes. It is a basic tenet of human behaviour that Any belief or value that has been previously successful in meeting needs will resist change. This applies even if there are better more successful alternatives to meet those needs.
Employee resistance
Participants gave a variety of reasons for resistance by employees and managers. The top-five reasons for employee resistance were:
1. Lack of understanding around the vision and need for change.
Participants indicated that the primary reason for employee resistance was that employees did not understand the vision of this particular change project. Employees did not clearly understand why the change was happening, nor did they have adequate knowledge regarding the change itself. Employees did not have the answer to the question, “what’s in it for me?” – or WIIFM. This could include, "Will I have a job?," "How will it impact my daily work?," "How will I benefit from the change?".
2. Comfort with the status quo and fear of the unknown.
Participants indicated that employees tended to be complacent, or that the current way of doing business had been in place for a long time. The current processes and systems seemed fine to the employees, and they were opposed to the change since it forced them out of their comfort zone. Uncertainty and fear of the new system compounded the desire of employees to continue with the “old way” to which they had grown accustom.
3. Corporate history and culture.
The organization’s past performance with change projects impacted the employees’ support of the current change project. Employees were desensitized to change initiatives, as many had been introduced and failed. The project was seen merely as the “flavor of the month,” and employees expected it go away like those in the past.
4. Opposition to the new technologies, requirements and processes introduced by the change.
Many participants felt that some employees resisted the change because of opposition to the actual change itself. Employees were opposed to changes that increased the performance and process measurement of their work. The change was seen as adding unwanted work, responsibility and accountability. Lastly, some employees opposed the new processes, systems or technologies because they felt the change would not solve the problems.
5. Fear of job loss.
Employees perceived the business change as a threat to their own job security. Some employees felt that the change would eliminate the need for their job, while others were unsure of their own abilities and skills in the new environment.
Manager resistance
The top-six reasons for manager resistance to change were:
1. Loss of power and control.
The leading reason for manager resistance to change was a fear of losing power. Changes often eliminated something the manager had control of or introduced something that the manager would not have control over. Managers perceived the changes as infringements on their autonomy, and some participants indicated that the change was even perceived as a personal attack on the managers. Managers reacted to the change initiative as a "battle for turf."
2. Overload of current tasks, pressures of daily activities and limited resources.
Managers felt that the change was an additional burden. Limited resources compounded the problem. The change initiative seemed like extra work and resource strain at a time when the pressures of daily activities were already high. In many projects, managers were expected to continue all of their current duties in addition to the duties of implementing the change.
3. Lack of skills and experience needed to manage the change effectively.
Managers were fearful of the new demands that would be placed on them by the business change. Several skill areas were identified as areas of concern. First, managers were uncomfortable with their role in managing the change. Some feared recrimination while others did not have the experience or tools to effectively manage their employees’ resistance. Managers also were concerned about the demands and responsibilities placed on them by the new business processes, systems or technologies.
4. Fear of job loss.
Managers felt that the business change would ultimately impact their own job security. Middle management is often the victim of large-scale business change. One participant reaffirmed this fear:
“They were eliminated in the change, so no resistance was recorded.”
5. Disagreement with the new way.
Some managers disagreed specifically with the change. They did not feel that the solution was the best approach to fixing the problem. Managers who did not play a role or provide input in the design and planning phases tended to resist the solution. Some participants felt that the resistance was due to the solution not being the idea of the manager ("not invented here").
6. Skepticism about the need for change.
Managers were not convinced of the need for change. They did not see the business issues driving the change, or they did not identify the same problems as the design team.
2. Communication Gap
He consider this gap as a cause of frustration for it is apparent in their organization. He experienced communication gap between himself and the office he is working to automate transactions. During the requirements gathering, both the office specified the functionalities to cater on the system that Mr. Gemrald will developed, after passing all the necessary documentations they came up to the development of the system. As he deployed the system, all specified functionalities were made and it is functional. As time goes by, there were functionalities that the office wanted to add which supposed to be addressed during the requirements gathering, in this case it is now cumbersome to the part of the IS professional to do some revisions and recoding when the system was actually delivered already.
Communication gap is a state that occurs when what is being said is not been communicated to the addressee properly and completely. There can be many causes of communication gap depending on where it exists. Actually Communication gap is the biggest hurdle in achieving the organizational goal and does not help at all in achievement of organizational goal. Communication gap in an organization means that the goals and objectives that are set by the top management are either not communicated to the employees of the organization at all levels or if communicated they are not been understood properly by the employees. This can be because of improper communication channels, unrealistic goals, inappropriate language etc.
Communication gap can be a major hurdle for the growth of an organization. Communication gap makes everybody on different pages and mindsets in terms of the information and updates. An organization has to ensure a smooth flow of communication all across the board. Even the duration of the passing the information matters. Information delayed is sometimes equivalent to information denied. The lack of information due to communication gap would make a person to go wrong path when a follow up corporate update happen regarding a project or strategy, since the background of latest information being presented would not have reached this employee at the right time. Communication gap can easily result in inappropriate decisions resulting in loss for the company.
The Bridge the Communication Gap course enables people to get through to others more easily, obtain agreement with less effort, and get things moving quickly. Participants learn how to:
• Recognize other people's most preferred channels of communication.
• Translate their messages so they answer the key questions uppermost in other people's minds.
• Reduce resistance and increase acceptance by using communication strategies tailored to the needs of their audience.
• Create a non-defensive, open atmosphere in which information flows more freely, leading to more effective planning and decision making.
• Resolve differences in values, priorities, and interpretations of information for identifying mutually satisfying solutions
To accomplish these goals, participants learn how to:
• Recognize: Identify other people's preferred ways of communicating by what they do, say, write, and ask.
• Translate: Adjust their requests, proposals, and presentations to match other people's preferred ways of communicating.
Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frustration
http://www.life-with-confidence.com/frustration.html
http://www.prosci.com/tutorial-resistance.htm
http://www.bcon-lifo.com/communication/comm_20.htm
0 comments:
Post a Comment