Reason > Excuse
Excuses slam the door; reasons help us grow.
In business, not a day goes by that something doesn’t go right. Mistakes happen. Things don’t go as planned. Best intensions fall short. It’s how one deals with those situations that separates the great from everyone else.
Paul Smith, noted author and speaker on the topic of storytelling, recently posted an article profiling a CEO who used his own past experience in the military to highlight that, “No excuse. It won’t happen again,” is the most appropriate response when one falls short. The central theme is that, regardless of whether or not the shortfall was your fault, it’s still your responsibility and great leaders don’t make excuses; they take responsibility and work to ensure it won’t happen again. (By the way, for some extra reading we did a great Q&A with Paul Smith over on our Dialsmith blog — check it out.)
I think that notion is partially right. Leaders, or anyone with any responsibility whatsoever, should be accountable for that responsibility being fulfilled. When they fall short, whether due to something of their own doing or not, making excuses and blaming others is counterproductive. However, the reason something went wrong and an excuse for why it went wrong are two very different things. An excuse is passing the buck whereas a reason is a learning opportunity.
When something goes wrong at my company, I certainly don’t want excuses. “I was late because of traffic.” “The report isn’t done because so and so didn’t get me the charts in time.” “We couldn’t run the session as planned because I wasn’t given the right equipment by the facility.” Excuse, excuse, excuse. It was traffic’s fault, or so and so’s fault, or the facility’s fault. But, wait a minute, maybe you should have left earlier because there’s always a risk of traffic. And, maybe you should have set an earlier due date for the charts. And, maybe you should have double checked the equipment order with the facility.
Now, sure, even if one does all those things something can still go wrong. You can leave extra early and a twenty-car pileup can snarl you for hours. You can set an earlier deadline and someone can still not get you the stuff you need. You can triple-confirm the equipment order and someone can still not deliver what was agreed.
The difference is, an excuses passes blame and puts a hard stop on it. “It was their fault, period, end of story.” Whereas, a reason leaves the door open to improve next time. “I was late because of traffic and I should have left earlier. I will next time and I’m sorry.” “The report isn’t done because the charts deadline was too tight. Next time I’ll build in more time. I’m sorry.” “The session didn’t go off as planned because I didn’t have the equipment I needed. A number of factors contributed to that and I’m on top of it for next time. I’m sorry.”
You see the difference? In each case the reason I didn’t pass the buck, made clear what can be done better next time, and simply apologized for falling short. Nine out of ten times, that will be the end of it. Whereas with excuses, it will almost always lead to an argument and create a clusterfudge of he said — she said — no I didn’t — yes, you did — how dare you — etc!
Here’s an example. A few years ago we adapted one of our core products to be used in a new industry. It was a huge undertaking and we spent months working on it. Finally, the time came for the first big event where the new tool would used. We had tested and tested and tested, trying to account for every possible unknown. But, they are called unknowns for a reason. Sure enough, we got to the event, things got underway, and right off the bat something went wrong. The tool wasn’t quite nimble enough to quickly handle something that happened and things went sideways fast. All eyes were on us and we had people angry in all directions. It was bad!
After the event we went to a debrief with event with event leadership. Right out of the gate the head of the event looked at us and asked what happed. I said, “We messed up. We weren’t ready for what happened and the software crashed. We know how to fix it and have already started working on it. It won’t happen again and we’re sorry.” And, guess what…that was the end of it. They literally didn’t say another word about it and moved on. Had I made excuses, or blamed someone else for doing something unexpected that caused the software crash, or blamed our software programmer for not making the software resilient enough, it most certainly would have led to an argument and made us look terrible.
And, by the way, two of the most powerful words in your arsenal for situations like these are, “I’m sorry.” Seriously, I can’t stress enough how much those two words can disarm a situation.
So, next time something doesn’t go right (which will not be very long from now, I’m afraid), take a beat, think of how to accept responsibility without blaming anyone else, clearly state how you can do it better next time, and say you’re sorry. When it works, and it will, please come back and share you experience in the responses below. That’s how we all learn and can help each other.
Thanks for reading! If you liked it, please hit the heart below and share the love. I’d also really like to hear your feedback in the responses on how this story relates to you, or hit me up at david[at]dialsmith[dot]com. Thanks, again : )
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