In our struggling economy, consultants have had to adjust how they do business, with fewer employees to whom they can delegate work. I find this provides individuals with a convenient excuse to not follow through on their commitments or to not follow through in a timely manner. Either way, their actions are unacceptable. This issue takes me back to my January, 2007 column, “Will You Please Listen to Yourself,” and, unfortunately, many are still self-absorbed in their daily agenda and forget they have a client to serve.
On one occasion, when a client was unhappy with the design engineer’s follow up on several outstanding project tasks, the client contacted me to seek assistance since she wasn’t getting anywhere with the engineer. I asked the engineer why he was not following up on the outstanding items, and I heard a few empty excuses. Here are some common excuses and my suggestions to counter them.