The Curse of Victimhood

The week before last I visited the Guggenheim museum in New York. That is always a wonderful experience. The main exhibition this time was about futurist Italian art of the first half of the twentieth century. This was excellent, but the show that has lingered in my mind is a smaller piece of contemporary art from Latin America.

Much of this exhibition was too modern for me, and few individual pieces resonated. What did come through was a theme. Almost all the pieces were inspired as a protest against the legacy in Latin America of the USA.

It was almost as if these artists could not release themselves from a feeling of victimhood. Rather than expressing anything at all about their own cultures, they chose instead to rebel against another one.

It is possible, of course, that the location for the exhibition had led the curators to choose works of a particular theme. But I doubt it. I have seen earlier examples of the same thing, for example in a documentary I saw a couple of years ago. And it clear from the politics of the region that only recently have a few countries started to escape from the politics of protest to those of development.

To their credit, all people from the USA that I have spoken to about the exhibition expressed the same sentiment. None are surprised, and all are ashamed of the legacy of their own country. We should not forget that this negative legacy still persists, for example in the outdated embargo of Cuba, the perverse effects of US drug policy, and failed coups as recently as the last decade in Venezuela. But for me it offers some hope that US citizens, at least in my biased sample, can see their bullying for what it is. For that is an important precursor to change. It will be a while before similar sentiments occur as widely in regard to other places, such as Iraq or China.

Why might it be that such a victim mentality becomes so pervasive? Thinking about it, it might be because the mentality is so seductive.

What can be easier than assuming a victim role? In almost everything we do, there is some justification, for life is never fair. Once we position ourselves as victim, nothing can ever be our fault, as there is always someone else to blame for any outcome. We don’t even need to solve much, as we can dwell in the past and mentally expect our bully to solve our problems for us.

Further, as a politician, stirring up victim status is a sure-fire vote winner. We all have grudges. Emphasising them creates empathy, as well as absolving the politician from any need to promote any positive policies.

Examples are everywhere. In the political world, start with any ex-colony, which of course covers pretty well everyone. Then look at any minority – riots in Ferguson are rooted in a sense of victimhood dated back to slavery and the civil rights movement.

This week, an excellent essay in the Economist tried to establish a winning foreign policy towards China based on trying to get inside the Chinese mind. It will be no surprise to learn that a sense of victimhood may the biggest driver. Chinese feel victims of perceived injustice from Japan and others from the nineteenth century. They also struggle to see why they should act responsibly themselves in global affairs, while the US chooses to have airbases in neighbouring countries, to defend (in Taiwan) what they see as a historical anachronism, and to invade anywhere it likes on the flimsiest of pretexts. It is so much easier to focus on the perceived guilt of others rather than on our own responsibilities. Russia and Ukraine is not so different a story.

Then there is the Middle East. Hamas will cut off its own nose to spite its face over the injustices of Israel. It is very hard for Iran to reach any nuclear deal appearing to let the perceived root cause of its victimhood off the hook. Now we have IS. If ever there is a group grounded on victimhood, this is it, and it is a mistake to assume that few will follow such an extreme ideology.

Sadly, commentary in the West shows that there is little intelligent thinking about such matters. People consider only military or economic options to weaken them – options which of course will only strengthen the victimhood and widen the appeal. You would have thought we would have learned this lesson by now. Instead, we have to understand root causes and work painstakingly to remove justifiable grievances.

So we can conclude that most of us can feel victims about our national or religious history. But that is just the start. At work, we all have bosses or former bosses who have turned us into victims. We can resent the lot of our gender, race or sexual orientation. We can curse former lovers or even current ones. And, perhaps most of all, come our parents. Nearly all of us have slipped into blame mode about our parents at some stage.

Individual victimhood is just as damaging as collective victimhood. Take depression or addiction. We know that guilt and shame are usually root causes. Denial stops us addressing these. And behind the denial lies victimhood – why we can moan that the world isn’t fair, we can avoid facing up to our problems. It is not a coincidence that twelve step programmes start with denial and its causes, or that religions emphasise the benefits of counting our blessings.

So victimhood is everywhere, it is seductive and it is completely debilitating. The other issue is that it sticks around for generations, finding ways to feed itself. Any slight can feed the victim’s grievance. I lived in Northern Ireland so witnessed at first hand how entrenched victimhood can become.

So I started thinking about possible lessons and discovered two.

The first lesson is obvious. It is about what to do if we find ourselves slipping into a victim mentality. It is not difficult to see the signs, and it is clear that we have to fight them. Counting our blessings is a great start. Getting honest feedback is good too. Distrusting politicians and others who lure us into victimhood can only do good. Seductive it may be, but victimhood only does us damage.

But the more interesting lesson is to look at the issue from the other side. What if I am the bully in this relationship, the one that induces victimhood in others?

There is a wonderful current example of this, in the form of the upcoming Scottish referendum. The hypocrisy of most of us English is stunning. At the same time that we cast ourselves as victims of the EU, we fail to note the parallel to our own role vis a vis Scotland. When considering the EU, we only think with our hearts. But for Scotland, we only think with our heads. In one case emotion trumps logic, in the other logic trumps emotion.

One lesson is to be aware of this. Logic can help us from failing into a victim mentality. But logic is pretty useless when trying to persuade a victim to change, especially when we are seen as the bully. Our logic only makes things worse.

Hence Cameron or Osborne or the “English” press lecturing or threatening Scots about such matters as sharing the pound is totally counter-productive. The reaction is to dig in further. The whole No campaign has been hopelessly misguided.

Luckily, we have Alaistair Darling. It is conceivable that this rather modest and geeky man could go down as the leading British hero of the last ten years. His performance as chancellor during the financial crash was superb, despite utter chaos going on around him in the form of a deranged boss. Now he may have kept the union together with his classy defeat of Alex Salmond in the TV referendum debate.

So the lessons are clear. If you might be bully, lay off, don’t try to coax the victim with logic, you will only make things worse. Leave it to others, preferably wise voices from the victim camp itself, to make your arguments. Further, be aware that anything you do or say will probably be misinterpreted and used to feed the victimhood. So say and do little. If you have to do something, use third parties, inordinate care, and complete transparency. Ferguson police department take note. Finally, always try to understand and acknowledge the justifiable grievances, with humility and context. Only that way can we painstakingly work at reducing those grievances.

So as usual a museum trip paid a great dividend, in a surprising way. Thank you Guggenheim creators and suffering Latin American artists, though I hope you are not reading this since my logic will probably only deepen your anger. By the same token, Scots, I’d dearly love you to vote No, but I doubt whether asking you to will do any good.  

That elusive Simplicity

Keeping things simple might just be the hot management topic of the last ten years or so. Complexity hamstrings almost all organisations. Yet there is precious little consensus as to how to achieve simplicity.

That complexity is a crippling problem is clear. I work part time for a company that helps companies engage with their staff. Every client interaction we have tells the same story. People are stressed, overloaded, struggling to stay above water. The more senior they are, the worse it gets. No-one likes it, everyone can see it, all can see how counter-productive it is – yet nothing changes.

Schumpeter in the Economist had another look at simplicity in his or her column last week. He quoted a few interesting practices.

First, it is suggested that complexity needs an occasional bonfire. This makes sense. It is a bit like the clutter around your house or keeping your files up to date. You can do so much each day, but it still tends to expand. So every few months you should have a sort of spring clean.

This is the same with complexity in an organisation. Every year or so we should make a project to remove the clutter. Stop some committees. Simplify some approvals. Eliminate some tasks, or even some jobs. Actively look for things to cut.

This makes sense. I witnessed the same with reorganisations. If there is not a project to cut out waste every five years then the organization gets too fat. It is a human nature thing. We are all ready to get excited about our ideas to grasp new opportunities. That adds to positions and activities. None of us is so willing to reduce our footprint. Who knows, the next step might be demotion or redundancy. So, sadly, someone has to apply the pressure for us, and the best way is for that to happen organization-wide. For a few months, there is uncertainty and some loss of focus on growth or client, but at the end of it we have a slimmed down and fitter company.

Then Schumpeter highlights some smart practices from individual companies. Most try to tackle the hidden costs of people’s time. It is very easy to arrange a meeting or to write an e-mail, so much so that it can seem cost free. But every time we communicate, we impose the cost of time on the other party or parties.

Everyone complains about receiving too many e-mails and attending too many meetings. But we could all do more to help ourselves. In e-mails, the amount received globally has to equal the amount sent, so on average we send as many as we receive. If we can get into the habit of sending fewer, we will probably receive fewer.

So I would go even further than the company quoted by Schumpeter and give people an e-mail budget. It can have its own currency, let’s call it the clog. Sending a mail costs one clog per recipient. Each attachment adds one more clog. It is simple, and the server can keep count and produce automated reports. Then each month, people can be judged against their budget. The worst performers can be publicized. People can be coached on good practices if they are persistent offenders.

It is similar with meetings and phone conferences. In general, I always found that meetings with more than six attendees achieved very little. So set a maximum, say eight. Make the default time 30 minutes instead of an hour. Start at five past and finish at five to, so no-one has an excuse to be late (that they came from their previous meeting or it overran). Then insist on promptness, pre-reading, clear purpose, minutes, and all the other well-known good practices. One company even has meetings standing up, so people don’t get too comfortable. Phone conferences have become even worse than meetings – they have the same failings but are even easier to set up.

Schumpeter has good examples, but I believe he misses the main point. So matter what you do about good practices and spring cleaning, complexity will still tend to mount. The only antidote is to actually simplify the business. If a company can reduce the activities it carries out, then the result is structural simplicity.

The role models in this are many new companies, like Google and Facebook, who start with simple missions, small staffs and few activities. It is very hard for established companies to strip things away. Outsourcing can help, but can also make things worse, if the result is managing lots of complex external relationships. I am also far from convinced by the recent strategies of Google and Facebook – they have so much cash that they are acquiring rabidly, not just overpaying but also condemning themselves to the same complexity that bedevils others.

In the corporate context, the main opportunity for many lies in going against the perceived wisdom of integrating units, especially geographically separated ones. My least productive time at Shell was spent trying to get companies around Europe to work together. I still doubt the net benefits, considering IT cost, disruption and work life sacrifice. Having smaller, autonomous units makes a lot of sense to me in many situations. Look out for a trend of companies giving power back locally, also de-mergers and de-listings.

Apart from IT, the big disaster in integration is the necessity to travel. When people start work, travel is offered as a benefit, and perhaps for a while it is. As we grow older, it becomes the opposite. Technology may help in some small ways, such as better information and IT connectivity, but it also creates new traps, such as the expectation to maintain e-mail contact 24/7 wherever you are.

I think there is a lesson here in our personal lives as well. I blogged on this before, but I don’t think I mentioned travel. I have come to believe that travelling less is one key to simplicity.

It is amazing how often you meet people who have never been to the main attractions in the cities where they live. Others seem to be collecting countries and landmarks as if it were a competition for who can visit the most.

This is all very well in your twenties, but I think it becomes counter productive later on. As with so many things, we are lured by our peers and also by marketing campaigns. Every advert for a cruise will show a relaxed atmosphere and a beautiful view. Of course it does not mention the cramped cabins, the idle hours or even the effort to get to the start and end points.

My advice with travel is to seek less and to find more. Think about cutting out a venue and spending those extra days at home, especially at the end of a holiday, when you need unwinding time before going back to work. Instead of jumping in the car again next weekend and sitting in queue after queue, instead just walk locally or visit that museum down the road you have never seen, or even just stay at home talking with your family. Notice what there is around you. You can always find something wonderful without travelling at all, if your senses are open.

Further, pace travel through your life. By all means burn the candle at both ends in your twenties. Build in more relaxation to your schedule in your thirties, especially if you have kids. Young kids like routine, not long flights and disturbed sleep patterns. By your forties, go to familiar places and for longer spells. Then, if you have a retirement bucket list, make sure you start in your fifties, with long, sweeping holidays, while you are still fit enough to travel freely, and also be ready to invest a bit more in luxury. Finally, as your body winds down, allow your schedule to wind down with it. Less is more, and less seeking will result in more finding.

Simplicity is elusive. Many trends in modern society work against it, whether the trend is corporate pressure, globalization or simply enticing travel marketing. Yet simplicity has magnificent benefits. Others will not help to make our lives simple, we need to counter some of these trends and fit our own behaviour for our own best interests.    

Shades of Grey

Some things are easy to see as a spectrum. Colour is an example. It is clear to all of us that there are an infinity of grey shades between black and white, or of green between yellow and blue. Light is another area where we can all see gradation. Rory McIlroy won the PGA championship last night in something you could not really call light, but you could not quite call dark either.

In our human urge to simplify, unless we see something clearly as continuous, we model or assume it as discrete. Take sound. Loudness and softness is clearly a spectrum, but what about musical pitch? The piano has a series of discrete notes. But are there notes in between these notes?

Actually, there are, it is another spectrum. Sometimes, in choirs, directors ask us to try a difficult exercise. We all start on one note (difficult enough for some choirs…). Then we have to move up to the next piano note in sixteen pulses, gradually. So we are being asked to sing sixteen notes, all different, all between two notes on a piano. It is a tough test. I can sometimes do it if I concentrate very hard and if I have good singers around me. The first steps are tiny, then after six or eight steps we land somewhere half way, then keep moving on up. The exercise is fun, and revealing.

Actually, the piano only offers an approximation for perfect chords. The inventors chose sensible note increments to produce something playable at almost melodic. But every time the piano plays a major triad (do, mi and so), the so note is a little bit flat and mi a little bit sharp. As singers we are supposed to be aware of this when singing accompanied, and adjust our pitch accordingly. Adding in the tendencies of various vowels to sound flatter or sharper than others, it is no wonder that chamber singing is an art that people can improve upon for a whole lifetime.

That is for me a telling example. In order to simplify, we often see spectra as lines of discrete points or even binary choices. We also see circles or spheres as lines or planes – think of Gallileo. It is just as well that we do, for otherwise everything would be so complicated that we would be mentally paralysed. But we would do well to remember that reality is usually the more complex option.

 One of the most dangerous examples is of how we think of each other. “Does he or she really like me?” has been pondered by all of us at some stage in our lives. The presumption is that our acquaintances fall neatly into two boxes, those we like and those we do not. The reality is anything but – we like some things about most people and dislike others. The overall score is usually somewhere in the middle.

It would help us in our search for friends or lovers to remember this. Rather than jump to a binary conclusion, too often a negative one, we could accept a more nuanced picture. Then we could acknowledge the areas of compatibility and work on the areas of potential tension. We could maintain a good self esteem as well as avoiding any arrogance. Our lives would generally be less fraught. Remember this also next time you are tempted to conclude that your boss hates you.

Like many things, our trouble may have started with religion. Though, in blaming religion, I should point out that religion itself is a classic example of something with good and bad points rather than all good or all bad. Many religious teachings are of simple models. We are good or evil. We sin, and can be saved or damned. The world is a battle between good and evil. Taking it a bit further, priests, especially infallible popes, are perfect role models. Our religion is right, so all the others are wrong.

Well, we only have to think a bit to know better, even if we are religious believers. Such simplicity creates destructive relationships, causes wars, and inhibits learning. It also clouds our view of historical figures. Some presidents or kings were good, others bad, we learn. The truth is most had their good and bad points and just did their best in the circumstances they inherited.

We take this over-simplification into our politics. We have allies and enemies, partners or competitors. This applies between countries, companies or between departments or individuals in companies. It is simple. But it does not often work.

The most obvious current example covers the tensions in the Middle East. I have many American commentators supporting Israel in whatever they may choose to do. This is justified by something binary – either religious destiny, or historical retribution, or a separation of the sides into right and wrong, or something so simple as supporting ones allies. Well, I support Israel too. And I support the Palestinians. And I recognize that fair grievances exist on all sides and that mistakes are sometimes made, mistakes which ought to be condemned. Absolute support does not intelligent politics or productive discourse make.

The same false separation into goodies and baddies has harmed our approach to other conflicts. Iraq, Egypt, Libya and Syria have not been success stories for this approach. In these cases, let us also pay some credit to those leaders, like Obama, who acknowledge some of the complexities. Even in Ukraine, there are complexities that partially justify the Russian position, though a lot of it clearly requires condemnation.

My favourite example in corporate life came in the arena of partnerships or alliances between companies. In my experience, these often had massive potential, but usually failed. I often wondered why, and now I think it is because most of us could not get our heads around the nuanced relationship with the other side. We needed to cooperate and share, but within a fixed framework. Both parties had their own goals, and there were also shared goals. There was also the possibility of eventual divorce. For many of us, this complexity was too much, and we retreated to binary positions, usually to the detriment of the cooperation necessary to create value from the partnership.

A different example concerns trade offs, whether in business or our personal lives. We can usually see such choices as a spectrum, with pros and cons. But in practice there can be more than two variables in play. A choice may only hold good while other factors remain unchanged, or we may need to make complex choices between three or more variables. The more the variables, the more messy is the optimization.

In the Guardian weekly, Oliver Burkeman calls these trilemmas. A good example is a project where we have to manage quality, time and cost. Surely, something has to suffer. With their abundant KPI’s, many modern managers struggle to even accept the need for such trade-offs, and put their staff in situations where there is no win.

By the way, this is only one of many wonderful ways of understanding life offered by Oliver Burkeman. I recommend him completely, and intend soon to buy one of his books so I can enjoy him even more. This week he raised the challenge of precrastination, that is wasting time on trivial matters to “clear the decks” before embarking on the important. Don’t most of us do exactly that? I certainly do.

Finally, back to politics, this time party politics. In most democratic systems, we need parties, otherwise there can be no practical order. But a good system encourages new parties to emerge every so often, and somehow creates somewhere between three and six credible parties at any one time. That way we can acknowledge that no party is ever likely to reflect all of our views, and we can look for the one with the highest weighted average, understanding that this is likely to change every few years.

Sadly, many democracies tend to end up with bipolar systems, with only two strong parties, who then corral all the talent and the funds to sustain their duopolies. The result is entrenched and failed thinking and tribal politics, made worse where there is gerrymandering or advantages for incumbents. It would improve US politics at a stroke if a third or fourth force could appear. I am looking forward to the general election in the UK next year, where we can hope for four credible options for the first time. Germany has five, and is the richer for it. I dare to hope that technology and stronger education will improve matters over time – though I confess I see few signs of it so far.

So let us all embrace grey, though maybe not Christian Grey, a unipolar character if ever there was one. We know that sometimes we need black and white to help us create order and make decisions. That is good. But as often as possible, let us acknowledge the many shades of grey, and let them into our thinking. It could help us in so many ways.