Excuses vs. Challenges

When the sales team articulates their target achievement during the sales reviews; one needs to listen to them carefully.  There will be some who explain all kind of excuses as to why they missed their quota- price point, competition, delivery team, brand image, marketing so on and so forth.

And there will be a bunch of folks who explain challenges in meeting their targets…. two different perspectives.

Challenges in real life are accepted. No one expects all the plans to go well all the time; all the to-do lists to be ticked off 100% all the time. In reality, we all face obstacles and we try to overcome them. It is good to hear about the challenges, which means that we do understand the scenario out there and we do have an intention to find answers to them. This is positive, outcome-focused attitude.

The excuses are defensive and show no heart to win over the hindrances. This somehow shows that the folks have given up and they are delegating their accountability upwards. They are expecting you to solve their problems. One needs to be careful about them. These folks will not last long. Even if they continue with the same attitude, they will pull down the morale of the whole team. Either start mentoring or find a way to disassociate with them.