Explaining.
Explaining can be super useful, like when you’re teaching someone how to do something or you need to provide context to solve a problem. Explaining to defend yourself by muddying the water or deflecting responsibility is not useful.
But it happens all the time.
Here are some examples:
Reporting at the standing meeting that you lost two days developing a prototype because Randy’s dog had emergency surgery
Convincing yourself that if it was meant to be, there would have been some kind of sign
Fielding your dad’s question about how you did on the physics test by explaining you got a 65/100 but the class average was 58/100 (this really happened)
Telling a customer you’re delivering late because the plan to hire 13 developers got held up when the head of HR went on maternity leave
Reporting to the leadership team that you had targeted shipping 250 units by Monday but the factory floor flooded over the weekend.
Running into the restaurant to meet your honey saying how sorry you are for being late but… traffic!
Explanations to excuse or rationalize cause trouble for any person, team or organization wanting to accomplish something because, rather than providing clarity on next steps, they stop us in our tracks.
Some explanations—even truthful, well-meaning ones—actually trick us into thinking we have taken action. We believe we’ve set things straight but really, we’ve avoided uncomfortable things: responsibility, feeling embarrassment and shame, or the effort of taking action.
In this way, explanations are a self-protective mechanism. This brings short-term relief but long-term pain because we get stuck in an explaining cycle rather than fulfilling our commitments and achieving important goals. Explanations and personal responsibility can’t co-exist.
But here’s the good news: there are simple things you can do to overcome the mischief caused by unhelpful explaining.
If you’re a serial explainer, try out these rationalization-busters:
Pretend it’s 15 minutes into the future:
Imagine you’ve just finished providing all the explaining you hope will get you off the hook. Now that THAT’s out of way…
Ask yourself, in real-time: “What are the 3 things required to get back on track?”
Then ask yourself (or others who are key to success): “What else has to happen to cross these three action items off my list?”
Now you’ve got a plan and you’re on your way.
Do the old switcheroo: Before you give an explanation, try changing some of the words around:
Instead of saying: “We targeted shipping 250 units by Monday but the factory floor flooded over the weekend…”
…flip it around and replace but with and: “The factory floor flooded over the weekend AND we targeted shipping 250 units by Monday.”
By switching things up, you go from a cause/effect explanation—that stops all progress—into a call to action. Now, you’re thinking, what can we do to ship 250 units by Monday?
Pay attention like a Zen master:
Notice the times you use explanations as your default.
Ask yourself, “Where am I accepting my own explanations instead of taking action to get what I say I want?” “What am I sacrificing in my effort to avoid feeling embarrassed, ashamed or to take responsibility?”
You’ll start to see your patterns and realize feeling the feels won’t destroy you. In fact they’ll be your helpful signal that something needs to be dealt with, head on. And guess what else? You’ll feel a whole lot better because you will be in motion, not stuck in rationalization.
If you are surrounded by serial explainers, here are some tips to keep them on point:
You’re not the FBI. Explanations bubble up when you ask “why?” It’s better to ask, “What can we do to fix this? What action can we take to get back on track?”
Avoid the seduction of a good explanation. When you hear the reasons tumbling out of someone’s mouth you may be tempted to go deep into the whole gooey mess. Thing is, that’s not helpful. Gently interrupt the explainer to say: “Thanks, that may end up being important. I’ll let you know if I need more info. For now, how do you propose we get back in the game? What actions can we take to meet the deadline?”
Jot down the times you accept explanations as reasons for why something is stalled. At the end of every week ask yourself, “When did I accept other people’s explanations instead of action and results?” You’ll quickly see how you may be contributing to the problem.
And you’ll know how to solve it.