What is it about the human condition that makes us excuse-making machines?
When my dog does something wrong, he tucks his tail between his legs and hangs his head in admission of guilt. No excuses. When a wild animal screws up, the result can be fatal. Excuses don’t count in the animal kingdom.
But humans are another story. We’re more evolved than that. Great.
The more varied and creative our excuses get, the more they all start to sound vaguely like “the dog ate my homework.”
Great managers and successful business leaders don’t make excuses. Nothing is more success and career limiting. Nothing. The reason is that top executives intuitively look for people who are willing to take personal responsibility, own a problem, and be held accountable over the long haul, regardless of the risk. Customers look for the same thing.
Willingness to take it on the chin without pointing fingers and wasting time on CYA activity is a sign of maturity, a sign of someone who employees, shareholders, and customers can trust to get the job done right.
The next time you start to make an excuse, think about how it makes you feel when:
- You call a customer service rep to report a problem with a product you bought and, instead of ”I can help you with that,” you get explanations and reasons why it’s not his department, it shouldn’t have happened, and other numbers to call.
- You give an employee a job to do, and hours before you need the results for an important presentation, he shows you half the work with a hopeful look on his face as if to say, “you didn’t really need all that, right?” Only when you ask for the rest do you get a litany of excuses.
Then think about what you could have done differently upfront to avoid putting yourself in a position where you felt like you needed to make excuses. Did you …
- Over-commit to try to appear like a hero?
- Fail to ask enough questions so you understood all that was required of the task or responsibility?
- Overstep your capability?
- Push the problem onto someone else hoping it wouldn’t come back to haunt you, but it did anyway?
Look, don’t get me wrong, I make excuses too. Just ask my wife. It’s human. But I make fewer excuses than I did ten years ago, and way fewer than ten years before that. It’s called personal growth.
If you’re a chronic excuse-maker, admitting it, being honest with yourself, is half the battle. If you can do that, you can grow and mature. Just take it one step at a time. It’s a slow, laborious process, but that’s the way it works. It’s called being human.
