Today I want to talk about how we each make our own personal commitment to accomplish the mission we have been assigned, how we might act when we do not achieve the mission and what effect those actions might have on our performance as a company.
If you go back through the blogs, you will find me reference integrity fairly frequently. As I wrote, integrity is doing what you’re supposed to do when no one is looking – doing what you said you would do. Part of having integrity is that when you make a commitment, you do everything within your power to keep your commitment and you hold yourself accountable for delivering that commitment.
I believe that most of us take pride in meeting our commitments and maintaining our integrity. Maybe I’m just old school, but I believe my word is my bond.
Somewhere along the way, however, many people have learned that using an excuse often gets a pass from the consequences of not meeting commitments.
So what is an excuse? You know I like to go back to the dictionary. . . so let’s use the definition of excuse from Britannica:
1. a reason that you give to explain a mistake, bad behavior, etc.
2. something (such as a condition or set of conditions) that explains improper behavior and makes it acceptable – usually used in negative statements
3. a reason for doing something.
4. a poor example – + for
That’s a lot of definitions for a six-letter word! For me, the definition is really simple: it’s the reason that you didn’t do what you said you would do.
It appears to me that over the past years, it has become more acceptable to give an excuse for not meeting a commitment. An excuse for not meeting a deadline might be to blame someone else – “they didn’t do their part so I could not do mine.” Or someone could tell their boss they are sorry for not meeting a commitment and expect that their boss will forgive them without any consequences.
However, not meeting our commitments – both large and small, department-wide or individual – has a powerful, negative effect on our company. Our schedule delays, for example, are a result of people not meeting their schedule commitments over and over and over again. Today, it might be because the only person who can do a specific job is out. Tomorrow it might be because a part didn’t come in on time. The day after that it could be because the material that was needed on the hull is lost. These are excuses. Sometimes they are also facts. Facts can be used as excuses.
What could we have done to make sure we met our commitment? Could we have worked to find a person who could also do the job? Could we have followed up sooner to make sure the part would be on time or was in the location we needed it? In my experience, there are usually actions we can take to try to avoid or minimize bad outcomes (like not meeting our commitments).
Giving someone a pass on not meeting their commitment makes it just a little easier to not meet a commitment the next time. This is a slippery slope. If we give people one pass after another, before we know it, it becomes the way our team is operating. This is not the path to improve the performance of our company.
Giving people a pass is much easier than holding people accountable. I am not saying that holding yourself or your team accountable is easy. It isn’t, but it is the right thing to do if we, collectively as a company, are going to meet our schedule commitment to our customer.
Also – and this is important for all of us to think about – it is much easier to find the reason that we couldn’t perform rather than finding the way to make it happen. The way to perform might require a lot more asking questions, a lot more following up and a lot more planning ahead. An excuse is the easy way out. Following up and doing the work is hard, but it is what we have to do to turn our company around.
Making excuses is not the way to improve performance. Winning is all about finding a way to a successful outcome whether it’s over, under, around or through the obstacle in our way.
Winning sports teams don’t make excuses. Victors in war don’t make excuses. Someone with a can-do attitude doesn’t use excuses.
Excuses are what people use to make themselves feel better for not accomplishing their mission, meeting the goal or finishing their task.
We have an awesome responsibility here at BIW to build a highly complex warship that is incredibly capable. Its sophisticated capabilities are so vital that our Navy needs the ships faster than we are building them today. That ship has to be right, be ready and must perform at 100% when it leaves our yard. We don’t achieve our commitment to making Bath Built Best Built with excuses – we only make Bath Built Best Built through our execution as a team.
Personally, I don’t ever want to be the reason that our ship doesn’t perform because I didn’t meet my commitment. I’m fairly certain that you don’t want to be, either!
Ask yourself, are you making excuses for your performance or the performance of your team? If so, what can you do to perform better? You might be surprised that you have more control over the outcome than you think.
See you on the deckplates!
Safely Execute High-Quality Work