{"id":2991,"date":"2009-08-22T17:31:49","date_gmt":"2009-08-23T00:31:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=2991"},"modified":"2019-08-07T14:30:48","modified_gmt":"2019-08-07T21:30:48","slug":"dont-play-the-victim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/?p=2991","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Play the Victim"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"ThreeThis is an extension of my last blog about “Don’t Blame Others”.\u00a0 Today I am not only urging you not to blame other people – don’t play the victim by blaming anything at all for your problems and failures.\u00a0 For many years I thought that my troubles were caused by external forces.\u00a0 My career didn’t progress the way I’d hoped, I didn’t get that promotion I thought I deserved, or my success in leading a project wasn’t rewarded the way I thought it would be.\u00a0 I honestly believed that I was a victim of bad treatment, bad timing, or at the very least, bad luck.\u00a0 As a result I was not motivated to take any action on my own behalf.\u00a0 Rather I nursed my wounds and waited for things to get better.\u00a0 And I repeated my victim story for anyone who would listen.\u00a0 (Honestly, it bores even me to tears now.)<\/p>\n

Human beings always seem to come up with “reasons”, “stories”, “explanations”, or “excuses” when we ourselves fall short in some way.\u00a0 This tends to become a habit when we give up the belief that we are responsible for what happens in our projects, our work, and our lives. For example, I frequently have a repeated argument with a dear friend about whether his positive intention balances out his negative impact.\u00a0 He’s not responsible for his impact as long as he’s got good intentions.\u00a0 Business leaders often bemoan the economic situation or exchange rate issues as causes of their business failures.\u00a0 How can they be held accountable for things so far outside of their control?\u00a0 And project managers sometimes make a habit of attributing setbacks to difficult customers, vendors, team members, or bad luck.\u00a0 After all, we were doing our best.\u00a0 It’s not our fault.<\/p>\n

Key success behavior #4:\u00a0 Don’t play the victim!\u00a0 When you do you give up your power.\u00a0 We all make up stories to understand and explain what happens to us.\u00a0 But see them for what they are, a story, not the truth.\u00a0 Even when they are “true” . . . don’t give up your power by dwelling on these “stories”.\u00a0 If there’s something you can do about, get busy and do it!<\/p>\n

No doubt there’s an element of truth to any explanation that blames external forces when we get bad results on a project, or in our lives in general.\u00a0 But I suggest that you operate under the illusion that you have the power to make a difference in what is happening, even if only by changing your attitude.\u00a0 I’m not saying to ignore cause and effect or “lessons learned”.\u00a0 Sure, ask “why” five times”, and do a root cause analysis until the cows come home, but don’t indulge in repeatedly telling the story about how your problems are due to something or someone else.\u00a0 Even if it is true that you are not responsible AT ALL for what happens, that’s a very dangerous story to buy in to.<\/p>\n

The illusion that we can make a positive difference is the biggest source of power we have as project leaders.\u00a0 Once you lose the illusion that you can make a difference it’s not long before you’ll join the ranks of eye-rolling cynics who are doomed before they start.<\/p>\n

Don’t believe me.\u00a0 Just play the victim for a couple of decades and let me know how it works out.\u00a0 In fact, there’s a perfect opportunity for every American to do this right now.\u00a0 In spite of the fact that we bath in water clean enough to drink, and, as a society, enjoy a quality of life unheard of for a good chunk of the world’s population, there are still plenty of people telling the victim’s story within earshot.\u00a0 Personally, I prefer the illusion that I can make a positive difference, if only by changing my attitude.\u00a0 And when you catch me whining on and on with some victim-hood rant, please tell me to stuff it!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an extension of my last blog about “Don’t Blame Others”.\u00a0 Today I am not only urging you not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"give_campaign_id":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,6,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2991","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership","category-communications","category-miscellaneous"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2991","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2991"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2991\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14270,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2991\/revisions\/14270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/svapm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}