I must admit that one of my pet peeves is when someone offers excuse after excuse for their actions, (or inactions).

My advice to you is don’t deal with excuses – yours or anyone else’s.

 There’s one thing that’s common to every excuse: the Denial of responsibility. I simply have no patience for people who won’t be responsible or accountable. If I haven’t completed a project that I should have, it’s because I haven’t blocked out the time necessary to get it done. If I haven’t achieved a certain level of success it’s because I haven’t done the work necessary to reach that goal. If I am not in the physical shape that I would like to be, it’s because I need to eat less and move around more. Sure, I can blame it on my metabolism, the alignment or mis-alignment of the stars, my workload, or the Democrat – or Republican – Party, but the bottom line is that it comes down to me doing what I need to do

Lame excuses. Believe me, I have heard lots! But once you become concerned with the validity of an excuse, you fall into a trap whereby all you’re doing is teaching the other person to be more creative in coming up with excuses!  In Games People Play, by Eric Bernie, he describes the vicious cycle that develops.

When you get caught up in the validity of the excuse, you can also get caught up in the “Yeah, but… Game”. Let’s say you’re the supervisor talking to a team member about the need to be at work on time every day. The employee starts making excuses and you, without realizing it, fall into the trap of trying to be helpful and give some good advice:

You:   Sue, you’ve got to be here on time every day.

Sue:   Yeah, but … with 13 kids to get up in the morning, it’s kind of tough to get to work on time.

You:   Well, Sue maybe if you got your kids up a little earlier in the morning you could get them off to school earlier and then get to work on time.

Sue:   Yeah, but … the kids stay up late so it sure is tough to get them up in the morning.

You:   Well, Sue, maybe if you put the kids to bed earlier at night, you could get them up earlier in the morning.

Sue:   Yeah, but … my husband works late and the kids like to stay up and see him when he comes in.

You:   Well, sue, maybe if…

Sue:   Yeah, but…

Do you see the vicious cycle that develops when you start to get involved in the validity of excuses? There’s only one way to deal with excuses, and that is to AGREE with them! Whatever the excuse is, agree with it, acknowledge that it may be a problem for the employee and then put the responsibility back on the employee for doing the job properly. 

EXAMPLE:  I agree, Sue. It sure must be tough to have 13 kids to raise. How are you planning to deal with the situation so that you can get to work on time every day?

Don’t deal with excuses. Hold people accountable. Hold yourself accountable.

No “Yeah but…” about it.

Action Time! What will you:

• start doing,
• stop doing, or
• do differently

to hold others and yourself accountable? Use the comment box below and share your action plan with us!