The Land of No Excuses

Are you ever tempted to give a reason for a disappointment? If you miss a goal or turn up late for a task, does it occur to you to back up why that happened? If not you, are there people on your team who do that, who manage to come up with excuses?

There really are no valid excuses. We either achieve our goals or we don't. We either fulfill our responsibilities or we don't. We either keep our promises or we don't.

Breaking promises doesn't make someone a bad person, but as a leader you want to be very careful to staff your team with people who keep promises. People without excuses because an excuses can't even get you a cup of coffee.

High performance leaders drop excuses and look for possibilities.

If a goal has been missed, what are the new possibilities? What exists now, right at this moment, that did not present itself before?

Centered, high performance leaders live in the land of no excuses but when excuses appear they know exactly what to do with them: create a new (tougher) level of accountability and move on to the next goal, the next possibility, the next opportunity. There is no excuse worth stopping for.

ACTION SUGGESTIONS:

- For the rest of this week, make no excuses for anything. Nothing. Move on to the next possibility, accept your consequences, move on.

- For the rest of this week (and after that if you want to make a real impact) accept no excuses from anyone else. Ask them what they will do now that they have dropped the ball. Ask them what they will do now to make it right. Ask them what their opportunity -- and intention on that opportunity, is now.

As awkward as it may feel at first, you are a leading your team to accomplish something, aren't you?

-- Douglas Brent Smith

Comments

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