A Feeling of Incompetence

Today I was talking with my daughter Cori, who is an ER nurse in San Diego. She had told me before about the new computer system their hospital had gotten, and her experience with the training and beginning to use it. I was especially interested to hear about it since we will be experiencing change of the same sort here at Pivot.

Several weeks ago she'd told me about having to go in for extra hours to train on the new system, then she talked about how it seemed harder to use and more complicated. She tried to think positively about it and remind herself that it would be better in the long run and after a while she'd become familiar with it, but still it was frustrating not to know how to do her usual tasks in it.

When the new system was rolled out the software company had techs on site to help with the implementation. Cori told me about one day when she was extremely busy, and stressed about the patients she had to take care of, and when she tried to write up her chart in the new system she couldn't get it to work and she almost lost it. One of the technicians saw her struggling and helped her out, but she told me it was a pretty emotional few minutes there.

Today, looking back on it, Cori said that she thinks one of the main reasons she was so upset was because the new system made her feel incompetent at her job. She said she feels like she works hard to be a good nurse and the new system made her feel like she couldn't do her job well.

Interesting. No one wants to feel incompetent, especially when they are good workers, who care about their jobs and want to excel. Pivot is full of people who care about their jobs and excel at them. Our new systems, ServiceMax and Salesforce, may make some of us experience the same kinds of feelings Cori told me about. I hope not, but it was good to think about it.

As we move forward with these changes, I hope we can all help each other remember that our co-workers are trying to do their jobs excellently, and may need a little extra patience as they learn new processes and ways of working. We may need to tell each other that we know how competent they are, even if they may be experiencing a feeling of incompetence.