Excuses… Excuses… Excuses…

We might give all sorts of excuses, but haven’t heard even a single person give us an excuse for living saying, “I live because I get free air to breathe!” 

Many of us indulge in this, just to show we are “smart.”. Some feel guilty after giving an excuse, some couldn’t care, because it’s their style.

What does it take to get ahead in business today?

While the experts may offer such suggestions as having cutting-edge skills and being a good team player, there are other, even more essential, attributes. Clearly separating the average employee from the superior worker are basic--but often lacking--qualities.

The techniques are actually quite simple, but they have one fundamental, common characteristic that makes them so valuable: each one produces positive action.

The quickest way to achieve success is to stop giving excuses and to eliminate the negatives. If we want to be considered a "star" performer, here is what each of us should strive for.

Excuse 1. ".....didn't get back to me" or, " ... getting back to me." These are disastrous excuses. We ought not to wait for anyone to reply to our e-mail or to return our telephone call. There may be genuine reason that one takes a while to reply to our mail or to return a call. Best to be reasonable, but we from our side need to take the initiative.

Excuse 2. " thought …..was taking care of that." This is typically just another excuse that is used as a shield to avoid taking a responsibility getting the job done. To grow in our career doing what we are told isn’t just enough; being in a team we ought to think about what should be happening, if the task doesn’t get done. Best thing would be to ask questions as to who is doing what to keep things moving.

Excuse 3.  "no one ever told me." The easiest way to get your boss furious is to tell this, "No one ever told me." Utterance of this kind may be excused once and that too in the beginning of our career, If it is ever repeated, God forbid if it is very often and we will have made a very clear statement about the way we work, that is to say, we operate in a tunnel, oblivious to everything that is going on around us.

Excuse 4. "just assumed…." Making assumptions is dangerous. It also suggests being obsolete. The one’s who assume are the first on the list when decisions of downsizing are made. 

Excuse 5.  "left a message."  That doesn’t mean anything at all. Leaving the message means we have accomplished nothing, on the contrary it merely suggests that we have passed our responsibility to someone else and in this case to the person we tried to contact.

Excuse 6. "didn't know you wanted me to do that." In days where jobs are competitive and when employees expect their people with an entrepreneurial-mind set, people who keep things moving and explore new paths, employers eschew employees who only do what they’re told.

Excuse 7.  "didn't have time." The most common excuse ever heard on the planet. Suggesting we were too busy, doing so many other things that we didn’t find any time for the one that was expected by your boss, friend, spouse whoever. If we should find ourselves saying things like this at work, we are writing our employment obituary, and the job tombstone could well read, "Couldn't handle the job."

Excuse 8. "didn't think to ask about that." While taking on a task we need to understand everything completely. Anticipating what needs to be done is the job. An inability to see down the road may indicate that we lack the ability to understand and grasp relationships.

Excuse 9.  "but it isn't due until…." Procrastination is the thief of time. And today we find several of them being specialists in postponing things till the very end. Last minute performance is out. Managers know that what's done at the last minute doesn't leave time for proper evaluation, revision and refinement. Going with second-best doesn't get the business.

Excuse 10. "but they said it would be done on time." We are used to taking everything on the face value, without getting to the depths of the work and not knowing the intricacies. There's only one problem -- it is that most are happy being on the surface, not wanting to get into the depths of things. Also as managers it is given that the work is delegated, but, monitoring it on a regular basis, during the process is good project management.

Excuse 11. "as I understand it…." We suggest that we are experts when we really aren’t. We may play games with others, but, it isn’t good to cheat ourselves. Doing this we're hedging and that's trouble. Using words like this indicates that we're just a bystander, a spectator, not an active participant. Spectators don't play the game -- and they don't get the rewards.

Excuse 12. "will do it as soon as I get it from…." Sorry, this is just not good enough for today's competitive work place. If we're just a cog in the process, we're out of a job. Even though it may not be our fault that it's late, we're smart if we make it our responsibility to get the responsibility in our hands on time.

Excuse 13. "am going to get on that right away." Sure we all have to get on with the work right away! Now that someone had to remind us about it. We are communicating the message that we are disorganized and deal only with assignments when they are called to our attention. Either our days are numbered or we will never be promoted.

Excuse 14. “had computer trouble” or “ the internet was down.” Even if this may be true, it sends the message that we’re the type of a person who makes excuses instead of taking responsibility.

Excuse 15. “nobody told me how to do that.” This may be true. When we aare inducted into a job, it becomes our responsibility to see that we get to know what is to be done, need be learn things that are essential to undertake the responsibility of delivering it rightly. Our primary responsibility is to stay relevant in our job –– and to expand it. In fact, our job depends on it.

Excuse 16.  “that’s not my job.”  There’s nothing that lights a fuse to fire our boss who hears us saying this. We can put our future in doubt. If we are guilty of this excuse then we better start updating our resume and our LinkedIn profile.

Excuse 17. “I know and remember sending it to you.” Do Busy people can find it difficult to find what we send because they get many things from many people across the company around the globe. By insisting we have finished what we had to do and saying we have sent it we’ve earned the wrong reputation. Better things or a smart thing to do in such circumstances is to just send it again.

Excuse 18. “was working from home that day and missed that.” In days where people are toying around with allowing work from home on a regular basis or say twice a week, once a week etc., saying things like this is a sure fire way for employers to stop letting people work from home. They could go on to say “too much home and not enough work.”

Excuse 19. “what was that?” (It’s like having ear buds and removing them asking this sort of a question). Like it or not awareness of what’s going on around us is integral to being part of a team. Ear buds or ear plugs on the job suggest, “Leave me alone; don’t bother me.” Not a good way to get ahead.

Excuse 20. “let’s have a meeting.” We need to get smart. Several current studies indicate that “goal-oriented high achievers” feel meetings get in the way of actually doing work, while “more social, not as self-structured” people view meetings as a time to catch up and talk with colleagues.

Excuse 21. “it’s in the works.” Let’s We need to actually show what’s in the pipeline and or what’s the progress. Let’s imagine it’s payday and the company hasn’t yet made a deposit to our bank account. When we question why, our boss says, “It’s in the works.” Now we know why it is good to never to say “it’s in the works.”

Excuse 22. “traffic was awful” or “train was late.” While we can’t deny things like this can happen in the metros and in big cities, which is becoming common these day, yet, it’ll be a good idea to leave home a little earlier so we’ll be there on time.

Excuse 23. “ snake entered my house.” Enough said! But this actually happened. Our Accounts Assistant called to inform that someone called him to inform him that he saw a snake enter my house. “I believe it could be true, am not in a position to leave my family to come to work till the snake is out,” was his terse message to the office. Difficult to believe, equally difficult to ignore because houses are being built in remote areas which are known to be snake infected. One has not other option but to let it go as a one off.  

The message in business today is very clear: performance is the only measure for success. Whatever the roadblocks, it’s our job to get past them. If not, we'll be viewed as one of them.