If You Work with a Victim

The first thing you can do is to role-model agency. Dont be a victim yourself of other peoples victim thinking!

Typically a victims lament will fall into one of two categories: Either the issue is over and the victim is looking back and attributing blame, or the issue is unresolved and the victim is positioning himself to be free of culpability.

In the first case, the key is to move the person into a more future-oriented mode. You could ask, ˜˜What could you do to avoid a recurrence of the problem? You may have to ask the question a couple of times. The idea is to shift the victims attention from blame over a past problem to some aspect of the future, whether related to the problem or not.

In the second case, when the victim is deflecting blame over an unresolved matter, ask, ˜˜But what can you do about that? Typically the reply will be ˜˜Nothing. Ask again. ˜˜Nothing will come back at you. Then try, ˜˜But if you could do something about it, what would it be? At that point youll probably get a description of some small role they could play in its resolution.

Repeating these steps with a victim helps the person to relearn how to respond to misfortune.

The above ideas apply even if you manage a victim. But in that circumstance there is yet another guideline to follow. Typically you will find out about some misfortune after it has occurred. You will ask the person about it and youll hear the victim response. In this case, you can negotiate a new guideline for the victim. Suggest that from then on, when they know something is going awry, you would like them to tell you well in advance of the failure. You can also point out that when they do predict a problem, you would like them to suggest what could be done to preempt the failure.

In all cases, victim behavior can be seen as a reflection of what is going on in the victims minds. The chatter running through their heads is simply being verbalized; you are hearing how their unconscious minds manage misfortune. Helping people become acquainted with these patterned responses (without labeling) can be profoundly helpfulboth to them and to your team.