doug smith training

It's a rookie kind of mistake, an inexperienced-hasn't-learned-better error in judgement: making excuses. As one of my former bosses,  Bruce Green once told me, "Nobody cares about your excuses.: Offering an excuses looks unprofessional. It won't work. It won't change the situation. Own your mistakes and move on. After all, you did learn something from it, didn't you? -- doug smith 

Have you ever kept a goal alive for far too long after it's become obvious that you don't really care about it? You've got so MANY great goals, it's OK to drop a dud. Dropping a goal you'll never achieve is better than pretending that you still believe. -- doug smith

What's your reaction if someone on your team makes an excuse for failing to achieve a goal or complete a task? That's what I thought. I don't like it, either. And here's the thing -- no one believes excuses. There is zero payoff to an excuse. We might as well break the habit, face the facts, and tell the truth. We completed the task or we didn't. If we didn't, there is no-one but ourselves responsible. There are no believable excuses. We might as well stop trying to use them. -- doug smith

Permission is a tricky thing. It can be important in an organization. Leadership has its needs, and one of those needs is order. Too much recklessness -- by the leader or the team, can lead to a chaos that spins out of control. Get permission when you need it. Breaking rules will almost always catch up to you, and the price is always higher than expected. But -- and this is an important condition to consider -- don't wait for permission when you don't need it. If you have been empowered to take action, take action! If you have discussed your strategic move with those affected and reached consensus, take action! I've gone so far as to wait silently for permission, as if my boss could read my mind and anticipate the situation. How silly. Instead I've learned to take action. Waiting for permission, when it is neither needed or implied, is wasting time. Let go of the fear and move. Cautiously, perhaps -- but move! Don't let "waiting for permission...

Any excuse will do, but none are true. High performance leaders have no appetite for excuses. Front line supervisors are patient with their people and also need to stay persistent on their insistence for positive results. We all make mistakes, but making excuses is a losing proposition. Own it, learn from it, and move on. No excuses accepted. -- doug smith

Who wants frustration? Not me. You? Didn't think so. We get frustrated when our needs aren't meant or our expectations are denied. That stinks. People misbehave under frustration. People break things under frustration, like promises and lamps. It's a mess. Don't give in to frustration. Instead, keep it at bay. Keep frustration away. Achieving your goals eliminates frustration. What's the next step on your biggest goal? -- Doug Smith

What's your excuse for not achieving that big goal? Can you allow me to speak with a bit of an edge here? Can I be frank with you (and myself!) here? Nobody cares about your excuses. People care about results. People care about people. People care about goals. But absolutely no one cares about your excuses. Why not give them up? Why not take up residence where, as one of my bosses at Whole Foods used to say, "the land of no excuses"? You won't miss them. You don't need permission to fail. You need power to achieve. You need to finish your goals. If you want to achieve your goals, drop all excuses. There. I said it. Thanks for letting me get that out. I promise I'll work to eliminate all excuses from my work. How about you? -- Doug Smith Front Range Leadership:  High performance leadership training doug smith training:  how to achieve your goals

Do you have any walls around you? I do. I've built some walls so skillfully that I can't even see they're there. Maybe you have, too. Walls to protect us from hurt, walls to protect us from deception, walls to keep us strong and impervious. Except we aren't impervious. We're only as strong as we are willing to be vulnerable. And, our walls can seriously impair our ability to lead, to communicate, to solve our problems, and to achieve our goals. The walls that we build to protect us eventually fence us in. Break down those walls -- or at least open up a window. There's a lot of light on the other side. -- Doug Smith Front Range Leadership:  Training Supervisors for Success doug smith training:  how to achieve your goals

What's your favorite excuse for avoiding your goals? We all make them. Little reasons why we can't work on our action plan today. Rationalizations for why we won't be achieving our goals today. Lies we tell ourselves to make us feel better about missing something important. Here are some of mine: I won't have enough time to finish Someone will interrupt me I should really read some of my twitter feed to keep up with what's going on There are more, I'm sure -- but you get the idea. What are some of your favorite excuses? Here's the point: our excuses are not serving us well. They get in the way. They stop us from getting what we want. They slow us down. One of the keys to achieving your goals is to drop your excuses. Just stop it. Just cut it out. Move forward and work through them. Drop your excuses and time wasters. It's so important, it's part of my IDEAL process for achieving your goals: IDENTIFY YOUR MISSION DROP EX...