Four Reasons Why Rationalizing is Irrelevant

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By Bryan Orr

I wanted to write a better article, but I’m currently on vacation and my kids are arguing in the other room—I’ll have to take care of that. I would have written it earlier, but I was recovering from kidney stone surgery, and before that, we moved into our new house that we had been building for 8 months. Just before the move, my wife had a baby. With all this going on, I didn’t have much time to focus on writing. I’ll try to do better next time.

An excuse is when you break a promise or fail to meet an expectation and then provide a reason for it. For instance, not handing in your homework and blaming it on the dog is an excuse. Showing up 10 minutes late to a meeting and blaming traffic is another example. Bringing home plastic flowers for an anniversary because you were too busy at work isn’t just a bad excuse; it’s a poor effort overall. But since I’m on vacation, that’s my excuse for the poor example.

Excuses can be valid reasons, but they still reflect a failure to meet an expectation or promise. When you fail to deliver on a promise, you end up in one of two categories:
1. You frequently fail to deliver.
2. You rarely fail to deliver.

If you often fail to deliver, people will notice, and your excuses won’t matter. Focus on improving and becoming someone who rarely fails to deliver. If you rarely fail, you don’t need excuses. Just find a way to keep your promises and apologize if you don’t.

People usually don’t care much about your reasons or excuses. They’ll tune out quickly and think about other things.

Business revolves around two main pillars: Results and Relationships. Business relationships are built on agreements, which are based on achieving results. If you don’t deliver results, reasons won’t matter. You can apologize and suggest new actions or create new agreements, but the focus should be on achieving results, not making excuses. Look forward, not backward.

Giving a reason for failure is mostly about you and your situation. Most people won’t care unless your story directly relates to their interests or fears. There are exceptions, like if you were attacked by a great white shark or chased by cannibals, or barely escaped a volcano. In such extreme cases, people might be interested in hearing your story.

We’ve all worked with someone who always has “crazy” things happening to them, according to their stories. They believe these events are out of their control. However, in the professional world, seeming out of control doesn’t lead to success. Over time, these drama-filled stories make people cautious.

Instead of giving reasons, offer a quick apology and a clear plan of action: “I’m sorry for being late, but from now on, everyone gets free donuts for life.”