As I thought back to my years working as an administrative assistant, I couldn’t help thinking of the support staff I’d worked with 20+ years ago. Put in Carol’s circumstances, they would have asked questions like these: Why do I have to do everything? When are they going to provide me with more help? Why can’t they at least pay for products that would help make my work easier?

It’s understandable why someone would think this way, especially when feeling frustrated, unsupported and overwhelmed. Still, these are lousy questions to be asking. Our society is full of victim thinking. How can we possibly make progress when we’re so busy playing the victim? These negative questions don’t solve any problems! Nothing positive or productive comes from asking them. These questions also imply that someone else is responsible for the problems and the solutions. What ever happened to personal accountability?

Carol generated additional choices by asking better, more personally accountable “I” questions rather than victim-like “they” questions: What can I do to increase my personal productivity? What can I do to develop myself? What can I do to support our organization’s mission?

Curious about what happened with Carol? After she implemented the Paper Tiger software and the tickler file system with her own funds and on her own time, her productivity went way up. Her supervisor could not believe how quickly she could retrieve information and how consistently she was meeting deadlines, despite her additional responsibilities.

Three months after Carol’s initial purchase of these tools, I received a request for multiple network copies of the Paper Tiger software and several more tickler file systems, as well as a request for some of my time to help with implementation of these tools. This time it was paid for by her organization, despite the budget freeze.

About a year after Carol’s employer implemented the software and tickler files, I called to ask how things were going. Someone else answered Carol’s direct line, and I was told she no longer worked at that extension; Carol had been promoted to a management position! When we connected, Carol told me about some incredible transformations that had taken place in her organization since they had implemented the productivity tools that she had started out with on her own.

Instead of blaming, complaining and spending energy trying to deflect additional work, Carol had asked the QBQ: What can I do? Then she designed her own solutions and took action. She took personal accountability rather than becoming a victim. And Carol did what she did because she chose to, not because she had to. Remember to check your self-talk: I should…, I gotta…, and I have to… represent victim language; I choose to… is empowering and builds on personal accountability.

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