Thursday, March 17, 2016
So for no particular reason, I've decided to take on Frustration as my topic this time. It rolls out of the previous discussions in that, although while "being" frustrated is anti-depressional, the tendency to "well screw it all then" that follows, totally feeds into it.
Frustration has nothing at all to do with any particular piece of work or situation that happening now any more than usual, so even if you recognize yourself in any of this, it wasn't you…all names and situations are changed to protect the guilty and are total acts of fancy, and while realistic and perhaps similar to real events…it probably wasn't that one…really…
In order to set the stage for a positive discussion on this topic, it necessarily involves a bunch of whining…or whinging, (how can whinge not be in the dictionary of an international company…) or words that go through 4 and five letter roots, that I'm trying to minimize somewhat. We'll get to the more positive stuff later, so let yourself go for a swim in the lake of AARRGGGGG, and let your "yeah, I hate it when that happens!" of agreement ring throughout the walls…
We'll start with one of the dozens of useful ways of framing thought. This one is particularly useful as a way to think about "the channels" that motivate people. The way the brain works can be viewed as a collection of "Focus" - the "amount" of thinking a person is capable of - and a number of Interests – the things that you want to be thinking about. Common examples of interest are family, sports teams, hobbies, parts of your job - stuff like that. If you are ever forced to "spend" some of your precious "Focus" on things that aren't "Interests", it's a "Hassle" [and sorry about all the scare quotes, but the words I'm looking for only kind of exist, in English anyway, so I have to signal that it's a word sort of like that, but not quite, somehow…] We all really, really, really want to minimize the Hassle in our lives. – keep that in mind during the following ramble.
There is a One Way moment somewhere – probably where we store things like One Way moments - on Frustration that was presented (no idea if they developed it, but whatev) by our HR department prior to a sensitivity training module at some past time (things are kinda past, present, future in my world, and I don't differentiate much on the future or past parts, so could have been six months ago or five years). It was excellent. I hope it's wherever excellent One Ways go to hang out and not lost in the mists of networks, but whatev. It gave a great definition of Frustration that I'll paraphrase and probably mangle a bit below (and certainly present more colourfully), so I actually kinda have a source for this like a real scientist and stuff…
Frustration – The emotional maelstrom kicked up when a situation effects your life that you do not have influence over or information about. It's all about ignorance and powerlessness…ignorance in the "don't know stuff" meaning, not the insult context…
So let's call it Agency and Information, cus it rolls off the tongue nicely. Agency is this context is "an ability to influence". If something craps on your life and you don't know the why, where or how of it, or have no ability to alter the volume of crap, it's Frustration. Even if it's not crap, but a good thing, it manifests as "but who left me the unannounced present?" and you go nuts trying to find out who left your favorite imported chocolate on your desk (a totally made up example that I would be perfectly willing to be a bit frustrated on…http://phillipashleychocolates.com/…this stuff looks fantastic).
It tends to be more destructive when the effect is negative but I've seen people drive themselves to great extents to figure out the "who" on a small anonymous gift – alright, maybe I've initiated the people driving themselves to great extents with small anonymous gifts, but they were older sisters and stuff so it's permitted under the whole younger brother/acting out/expected actions stuff…don't show this to my sisters please…
Corporations are a special home of Frustration – even worse than family, cus you can always cry to "mom" or "dad" or "big brother" or whatev, but the C-suite guys don't have time or resources to answer everybody's concerns. Some of them are a lot more willing than you might think, but it can only work in a focused way. There are a number of changes that fall into legally grey areas so, CAN'T be discussed - and a number of changes that have gone through enough intermediaries that the person implementing the change has no idea of any nuance in the decision itself so limited Information to share.
I mean, in the poll last week they were talking about CEO-4 positions – we have enough positions that CEO-4 is a category? Is my line manager a CEO-10? (disruptive observation - No wonder we have trouble with overheads… - end disruptive obs) If the decision implementer wasn't in the room with the decision makers during the process, they only know the decision – not the things that were considered. It's guaranteed to be Frustrating…which isn't all bad, as being Frustrated isn't boring - but the typical human reaction of giving up and not caring enough to assist in positive change (once the Frustration level hits some individual specific level of "too much") is terribly boring and makes even people without any visitations by black dogs disengage - at best.
Frustration Causes:
The biggest inducer of Frustration in corporations is change…any change. If someone has a particular Interest in the realm the change is made (and agrees with the change in that context), you only have to mention it would be nice if it was done and you're good. But changing the way people are doing things…even if to a clearly better way, is usually a "Hassle". If you want people to accomplish "Hassles", they need to be encouraged or threatened (E|T)…the strength of necessary Encouragement or Threat is proportional to the "Hassle". Managers need to weigh the importance of the change against the "Hassle" the staff will deal with in the change.
If someone has a way of working that "works for them" they will tend to rationalize a way to make the change line up with that "works for them" method, especially when busy - and us people things are intergalactic grand champions of rationalization. We can rationalize just about anything, I mean even a vote for Trump! People will tend to work around the new procedure/policy/method/whatever other names for how we do stuff. This often goes directly against the spirit of the change but it's the base case. We often don't get past this, cus providing Encouragement or Threat is a "Hassle" for the manager!!! - so we end up with people doing things the same way and making it look like they are doing it the "right" way!
If the need for the change isn't obvious or well explained; or if enforcement effectiveness doesn't come with easy "metrics"; or the implementer of the change doesn't have the ability to apply adequate E|T - it's the Information/Agency problem on almost all channels and WHAM frustration for everybody on both sides of the change. [I can't believe I just used "metrics" in a sentence…almost as bad as synergise - as a verb…twice…and it wasn't me and we still won the job, but…amazing…]. Luckily other people are paid to worry about that stuff and I just keep doing stuff in the same way and finding ways to make it look like I'm complying with stuff J…
Solutions – simple, but not, at all, easy:
Think through any change you want to accomplish and be prepared to implement E|T in the required doses, or it ain't going to work…regardless of whether it "should" or not. But if there is enough Information or Agency at the receiving end, the E|T will be a lot less as the "Hassle" won't be armoured in Frustration. Required E|T for successful implementation equals "Hassle" to the power of the Frustration Quotient or R(E|T)si = H^FQ
Anecdote:
Example anecdote on Frustration from sources other than change follows. (with alterations to all sorts of stuff, so no-one can identify anything and any coincidental part is TOTALLY coincidental - so it's not really a personal anecdote...really)
Setting the Stage:
There is A Guy (AG) involved in a number of projects under the umbrella of a somewhat successful Doer Seller (DS) connected to a different unit. A strategic decision is made that the unit the AG lives in, is going to stop chasing the type of work AG is specialized in. AG gets laid off, as he no longer fits the strategic model of his management structure. DS has no idea any of this is happening until AG gives him a call to let him know he won't be making that afternoon's meeting. DS now gets a big whack of Frustration – decision is done, a guy he was relying on is elsewhere, DS has a client in need of a service with a big vacuum around the "doing the actual labour" part.
No one has done anything that isn't within their roles and responsibilities in the company structure, but DS has a mess to clean up (cleaning up messes is always a Hassle, or it's not a mess) and had no information about, or power over the action that caused it. AARRRGGGGG
Getting to Good Outcomes:
So the deed is done and there is no going back. The managers are a little taken aback by the vehement ranting of a crazed DS wandering the halls calling his employers idiots and worse, so how do they respond?
Setting up a meeting with the DS quickly and letting him vent his Frustration and Anger down a little in private is a good start. (Anger and Frustration are buddies, and Frustration often calls Anger over when it goes out on the town). Providing the DS with the how and why (Information) of the decision in DS speak, not Business-ish speak is a good follow-up (less "synergy" and more "solutions" in DS speak). Providing the DS with resources to help fix the hole (empowerment=Agency) is a further improvement.
Telling the hypothetical DS that his criticisms have been taken on board and there is a working group being set up to evaluate these type of situations is helpful (the working group won't actually accomplish much, but the DS knows it will keep the "pointy haired bosses" (probably a Dilbert Trademark, but this is clearly fair use) too distracted to get in the way of his projects for a while.
Result, this totally hypothetical DS doesn't quit, cus the imagined Frustration quotient (FQ) of moving to new company isn't worth the now lowered Frustration quotient of staying. He half expects that the correct moves were made by managers largely by accident, but they still made the correct moves and kept the FQ down. The FQ is a scale where quitting is usually 2-3 and actually having one's head explode runs from 4-5. It can be calculated as Hassle/(Information + Agency) for any given situation. There is an advanced text for how to quantify the three variables and the correct units of measure but it is out of the scope of this missive, but you really want to keep FQ < 1 – see solutions section where R(E|T)si = H^FQ. What, there are engineers all over this company, they only get stuff that's presented as equations...
AND DONE!!