The Power of the Third Response

Ok, this title is pretty cryptic, so let me explain.?A lifetime ago I was a cadet at West Point; which is, for those who don’t know, the United States Military Academy.?Cadet basic training, or “Beast Barracks” as it is called by the cadets, is a particularly stressful time as new cadets are initiated into the demands of the academy and the broader army.?Those first couple months as we were put through the rigors of seemingly mindless tasks such as making your bed a specific way and spit shining your shoes until they looked like mirrors (and yes, using actual spit works best) there were many detailed rules we had to follow.?One of those rules was that we were only to speak when spoken to, and when we did there were only four acceptable responses:

1.??????Yes sir (or ma’am)

2.??????No sir

3.??????No Excuse sir

4.??????Sir I do not understand

The first 2 and last responses had fairly standard expected usage but the third one was the most interesting.?At first being limited to those 4 responses felt very restrictive; for example, when asked by my squad leader why I was late to formation I really wanted to explain that I was stopped by 3 other upperclassmen and made to report a summary from that day’s newspaper, but I couldn’t.?The first 2 responses would not make sense and the fourth response would just lead to an unhelpful re-stating of the question, so I was left with the third response: “no excuse”.?The reality is that I did have an excuse and maybe even a good one, but I took a brief chewing-out and fell back in line; the squad leader moved on and I went forward about the day as simple as that.?The bottom line is that he didn’t care whether I had a good excuse or not, I simply failed to meet the standard for timeliness.?My fellow new cadets and I quickly learned that simply saying no excuse was far easier and painless than trying to justify our actions (I also learned to leave for formation earlier and to find routes that would take me past fewer upperclassmen).?The “no excuse” response became one of the most powerful tools in defusing conflict.

You see, while seemingly arbitrary and petty, all these rules had a purpose.?Personal appearance and room organization were about learning to adhere to standards; summarizing newspaper articles practiced information retention and critical thinking; and limiting a new cadet’s responses to the 4 listed above developed accountability for one’s actions.

Much like the upper classmen in Beast Barracks, few people in our professional lives care about the reasons we fail to meet a requirement.?Providing a justification rarely does you any favors; even when you have a seemingly reasonable explanation for missing a business objective, such as an unexpected staff turnover, you are less likely to elicit a negative reaction if you simply acknowledge the failure and commit to improve.?They may even retract criticism and provide their own justifications for the failure.

I’d like to say that I’ve always stuck with the lesson that I learned so long ago, but sadly this is not the case.?Like physical exercise, it’s easy to let these behavioral disciplines slip and get out of shape. The good news is that just like exercise it’s never too late to start or return to good habits and to take advantage of the power of the third response.