Excuses and Explanations...What's the Difference?

As a manager, you will inevitably be faced with an employee that has not accomplished something that you have established as a goal for him or her. When you sit down with that employee to review the missed goal, you will be expecting an explanation, but may get an excuse instead. The challenge for you as a manager is to be able to tell the difference in order to foster growth and productivity in the employee.
An explanation is an account of what happened without any attempt to avoid responsibility for one’s actions. It is typically followed by an expression of the employee’s desire to make it right.

An excuse is an attempt to avoid responsibility for one’s actions and will often be followed by a stated or implied sentiment of “it’s not my fault”.

For example, let’s say that you have asked two employees to complete a work assignment by a prescribed date, but on that date, neither has completed assignment. You call the first employee into your office and bring the matter to her attention. She responds by saying that she couldn’t complete the work because the computers were down, and she was very busy with patients and the importance of the work had never been clearly communicated to her. ..in other words, she is saying “this failure is not my fault” (it’s the computer’s fault, and the practice’s fault and your fault, because you didn’t explain things more clearly). That is an excuse.

You call the second employee into the office to have the same conversation, but this time the employee listens politely to what you have to say and responds by stating, “I apologize for not getting this done. I did not understand the importance of completing this sooner. I will have it finished this week.” That is an explanation. She has blamed no one and has accepted that the failure was due to her lack of understanding. More importantly, she has of her own free will, offered a time frame for completion. The goal is no longer yours, she has made it hers.

Of the two responses, which one gives you confidence that a similar situation is unlikely to occur with that employee in the near future?

Do your practice (and your sanity) a favor and stop accepting excuses from employees. Excuses are verbal manifestations of immaturity, and employees who default to the “excuses mode” when things don’t go as planned are unlikely to be productive, responsible employees over the long term. Those who make excuses are more concerned with fixing the blame than fixing the problem.

Neither you, the employee nor your patients can benefit from that behavior.