doug smith training

Why do people make excuses? It does not dismiss their responsibility. It does not solve any problem. It simply delays the next step in the process. As one of my best leaders from my days with Whole Foods, Bruce Green, once said "Nobody cares about your excuses." An excuse is all price and no payoff. Why not let go of the excuse and get busy with the process? -- doug smith  

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 

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

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

What might stop you from reaching your goal? Every goal has a list of things which stand in the way and must be dropped. Things like... -- excuses -- time wasters -- ambiguities -- mixed priorities -- other people's goals that don't match yours -- recreational activities -- too much facebook, twitter, etc... You name it. Your own goals have their share of roadblocks with one cure: drop them. Get rid of whatever stands in the way of your goal, or watch it stand in the way. Where do you start? Drop them from your conversations, from your presentations, and from your meetings. By dropping excuses you will immediately begin to create better conversations, more productive meetings, more creative writing, and more powerful presentations. Won't that be useful? Won't that be nice? You decide. -- Doug Smith

Where would you be if it weren't for your excuses? Could it be that you would have achieved more? Could it be that some of those elusive goals would not have been so elusive? There's no sense in pointing fingers. I know I've dropped a few excuses when lifting the weight would have been more effective. Let's just agree not to make any more excuses, OK? Goals don't respond to excuses. It takes our actions. It takes our persistence. It takes our courage and creativity. But not excuses. We'll all go farther without those silly things, don't you think? -- Douglas Brent Smith