I recently went through a training session where we talked about mindsets, and the "victim vs. responsibility" mindset in particular. This immediately brought MMM to mind, as it seems like a lot of people stuck in financial holes have the "victim" mindset -- i.e. things happen TO them, they have no control over the situation, etc. Whereas people who make the choice to dig themselves out of their holes have chosen to see their situation through the responsibility mindset.
We were challenged to first tell a story through the victim mindset, trying to engender sympathy in our listeners. This was pretty easy to do. We then had to tell the same story, but with a responsibility mindset, and this was much harder. I thought this was a great exercise and something that would be interesting to do with friends and family. It really makes you think about your choices and how they have impacted your situation.
I'd really be interested to read some stories from people on this forum.
As an example, here is mine.
VICTIM:
At the last company I worked at, at one point in our development phase, we had a sudden manager change. The previous manager decided to join another team. My new manager, as it turned out, had a completely different set of priorities from the previous one. Unfortunately he didn't make this clear right away, and because we were already far into development, by the time I realized it a couple weeks later, it was too late to change my commitments to align with my new manager's priorities. Needless to say he wasn't very happy about this. The relationship started off on the wrong foot, and went downhill from there. I had been through four managers before him, and had gotten along swimmingly with all of them, so was ill equipped to deal with this kind of situation. He started getting on my case about trivial things, but I didn't actually realize how bad it was.
One of my responsibilities was the response and aggregation of internal user feedback. Before I took this on, this area was pretty neglected. After I took charge we achieved 100% response rate, and I also sent out weekly reports to team leads. One day in the middle of the week, I got a call from relatives on the other side of the world informing me that my grandfather was in the ICU, and the doctors thought he might not make it. I was raised by my grandparents until the age of 7, and spent most summers with them up until the end of high school. I was particularly close with my grandfather, so was pretty devastated. I immediately went online and found a flight leaving in a little over 24 hours. This gave me one day to procure a visa. I also immediately told my boss. He seemed sympathetic, suggesting that another co-worker could take over some of my responsibilities while I was gone. So I went to her and asked if she could cover the feedback and report for the rest of week, which she said she could.
I spent most of that day and the next gathering required documents and driving into the city to get a rush visa. I only had one shot, and fortunately was successful. After traveling over 20 hours (no last minute direct flight) I finally managed to see and talk to my grandfather in the hospital. It was the last time I saw him, as he passed away less than a month later.
When I got back I saw that the feedback response rate had dropped, and that my co-worker also didn't send out the weekly report. I responded to the ones she missed, but the report is not useful days later. My manager didn't say anything at the time, but when it came time for annual reviews he gave me a very bad review, and one of his main points was the fact that I hadn't handed off my responsibilities adequately during "time off". He said that I should have sent an email to the co-worker, copying him and the other leads, formally handing off my responsibilities for a few days. If I had done this it would have been on her, but since there was no formal document it was now on me (note that in the kind of teams I worked in this kind of "covering your ass" documentation is not the norm and very much not a part of the culture). I was pretty shocked, as at that time I was still getting over the grief of my grandfather's death. Thankfully we quickly parted ways after that, and my new manager, after about a month and seeing the great work I was doing, did not hold the negative review against me.
RESPONSIBILITY:
At the last company I worked at, at one point in our development phase, we had a sudden manager change. The previous manager decided to join another team. I had been lucky to have always had managers that were easy to get along with, so probably hadn't developed all the necessary skills of navigating the manager/employee relationship. When it seemed like my new manager didn't agree with all the decisions of the previous ones, I ignored the early warning signs, and when it became more and more obvious, I didn't agree with the new manager's priorities and so did not address them. This formed the basis of a bad relationship, but I totally failed to realize how much it could impact my career, and basically continued along my merry way.
One of my responsibilities was the 100% response rate and weekly aggregation of user feedback. One day in the middle of the week, I got a call from relatives on the other side of the world informing me that my grandfather was in the ICU, and the doctors thought he might not make it. I informed my manager, though I didn't go into personal details, only saying that my grandfather was in critical condition and that I had to take a few days off for family emergency. He said it was fine and asked me to make sure my responsibilities were covered during that time. I went to a co-worker and she agreed to cover me for a few days. However, knowing the tedious nature of feedback response, I knew there was a good chance she wouldn't get to 100%. I didn't think it was big deal, as it was just for a few days.
When I got back I saw that the feedback response rate had indeed dropped, and that my co-worker also didn't send out the weekly report. The latter I hadn't expected, but again I didn't think it was big deal. However my manager was not very happy, and this was reflected during my annual review. He pointed out that instead of just talking to my co-worker, I should have handed off my responsibilities in an email, copying the team leads so that they knew who was responsible that week. This experience has taught me a LOT about how to get along with future managers, and was also an important lesson in covering all the details in the workplace that I hadn't thought about before. I really do feel like the lessons learned contributed greatly to how well I recently pulled off an important role at my current workplace that had a lot of partners and moving parts.
