No Excuses

“Ninety-nine percent of the failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.” ~ George Washington Carver

As leaders, we can and should be reasonable in our expectations for our team members. But we can be role models for “working to make things right” when there is an issue or error. And we can teach our people that everyone makes mistakes, but that successful and responsible people do what they can to fix things when they go wrong. We can deliver feedback in a way that makes the person even more motivated to do it even better next time.

We also can make intelligent choices in our time management and scheduling. If you bid on every RFP and accept every repeat client’s new job, you may end up with more work than your people can handle. Don’t say no, but instead schedule out into the future: “Our schedule is full for the next few months, but we could do a January start on this project.” Pace yourself and don’t burn out your team. Overtime should be a rare necessity, not a way of life, and the team that expects every person to work 60-70 hours every week just to keep up with the workload is a team that is going to mess things up, either because of overwhelmed/exhausted staff or mass resignations.

And then you’d be making excuses for the failure to your boss and your client, which is exactly what this whole post is saying NOT to do. Don’t be that person.

(image source: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/george_washington_carver_158549)