Victim Mentality

It’s 2013 or 2014 and I’m participating in a Microsoft people discussion offsite. There are maybe 20 of us there, M1s and M2s. I am a Lead Program Manager. We are having an open discussion on what impacts performance and I ask something like “how does the strength of directs impact a lead’s ability to have impact?”. The three GPMs sitting at the table all turn to me and in what seemed like unison say “that’s victim’s mentality”.

I thought it was a legitimate question and I was crushed by the feedback. I was also crushed by the worst hangover I ever had.

The night before, a Sunday, a friend asked if I wanted to grab a beer. I said sure. I don’t generally drink on work nights but I was in a funny place and could use some company (I guess that is also a kind of victim’s mentality). So, I got on my ten speed and biked to Great Leap. We had a beer and then noticed the daily special. We got to talking and it was one of the most memorable discussions I’ve ever had. If I could only remember it.

While the offsite was my introduction to the victim’s mentality concept, it was far from the last during my time at Microsoft. It kept coming up again and again. I had a conflicted response.

First, I found it was a useful tool for self reflection. Was I playing the role of a victim? At one point, I found myself complaining about the lack of a PM culture in the organization. I recognized this as playing the victim and instead went about trying to establish a PM culture by leading a “talk shop” series of sessions. It was only moderately successful but I felt good about trying to be a force for positive change.

Second, I found motivation in it. Not, the healthy self-reflection motivation but the “I’m going to show you” motivation. Show you how hard I can work. Show you how I can present to 1000s despite my fear of public speaking. Show you how I can produce more artifacts than you. And so on.

Third, whenever it was used by leaders I often found it used to deflect criticism and get complicit buy in. It’s a cousin cliche to “disagree and commit” which makes me wonder without naivete why can’t we just “agree and commit”. Both cliches imply insiders and outsiders. The outsiders feel they are victims. And the insiders feel secure enough in their circle of trust to push out the people who disagree or feel they are victims.

Finally, “victim mentality” doesn’t mean there aren’t victims.