Above and Below the line Part 1

Blame, Denial, Excuses and Reasons are concepts that we use with a lot of our coaching clients in a tool called above and below the line. It’s also a very important framework whenever we do live or online events. And in Part 1 we are going to cover Blame, Denial, Excuses and Reasons.
Now this is an interesting topic because no matter how many times we go over this, we ourselves find that there's another level of learning. And yet it is such a simple concept.
It's not complicated, but there's so much in it. So we're going to go through it step-by-step.
Above and below the line is a tool that you can use for yourself and a tool that you can use when you're supporting others in a team. It can be summed by asking, “where are you at any given moment?” That's the fundamental question. Are you above the line or below the line?
It's a very common management principle that's used however a lot of people miss the power of it, just by virtue of the simplicity. There are so many layers of learning that happened as a result of this concept.
So let's get started and unpack this powerful tool.
So let's start with below the line, because it's the challenging area.
It's the part that often people don't want to look at.
So et's start by looking at that first!
Beginning with our question of where am I right now? When things are going, not as well, or when things aren't going to plan. The default setting for a lot of people may be to revert to going under or below the line. And one of the first areas that they'll go to is blame.
Something doesn't go well. And the first instinct for most people is, who can I blame? Telling themselves things like; It’s not my fault. It's that person's fault. They should have done this! They should have done that! The blame is shifted as a means of finding a reason or an excuse in that scenario.
The other thing that can happen is that that they can also do blame themselves. This is actually true of every element we're going to talk about in this tool. There's the outside version and then there's the internal, which sometimes is that sneaky one that you don't realise is happening.

The next thing we observe is something that it's really easy to see in other people, but not so much in yourself. And that is denial.
This is when you don't want to see. It's when you don't want to admit, it's like, okay, that's not really happening. So you tend to push away the experience. It's like you are saying, well, if I pretend that's not there, then it just isn't there. But what that means though, if you're there, you've slipped down below the line and it means that you can't deal with something that you're in denial about.
If you're pretending that it's not raining, you're still going to get wet.
What happens when you're denying?
Well, you're really not acknowledging where you are and what your responsibilities are.
You are pretending that it's really somebody else's problem.
This is really important because at the access of any change you have to get to truth. You have to get to core truth and understanding. And if you are shifting blame or denying that what's really going on, it doesn't allow you to make empowered decisions to transform and change.

Next up is the close cousin of denial, excuses.
A lot of the time, one of the most disempowering things that people do that stops them moving forward is to come up with excuses. Excuses for why things didn't work out that way. Not necessarily taking responsibility in and of themselves, and finding a way to deflect that from themselves to somewhere or someone else.
Excuses can be legitimate. You may have had something that had a deadline and it stopped you doing something. However excuses can’t be used indefinitely.
So an excuse is also a below the line example of something that's disempowering. It's not going to serve you to move forward.

Then we go to reasons, which is slightly different.
So lets think about that person who doesn't meet the targets set, hasn't done what they said they would do. And they've always got the shopping list of reasons why. It's like, oh, because this happened and that happened. They end up in this enormous story about why it is that they haven't been able to do what they said they would do. These reasons may be legitimate. There may be legitimate reasons why they haven't been able to do the task they committed to.
There could be, but it's how long do you stay in those reasons?
A powerful way of thinking about this is to think about that reason you're explaining. Is it something that was really intrusive or completely out of your control? Because often people talk about things like they were way out of their control.
A great example is in downtown Melbourne the reason for being late is often, the traffic was really bad. Now is the traffic sometimes bad in Melbourne? Yes. That can be a legitimate reason. Maybe there's an accident or a breakdown on a bridge has something going on or whatever. Or there's something that went on- legitimate reason, but not every time that you drive. Because if that's a reason that you're falling back on, you're falling below the line. Because if you know it takes a certain amount of time, allow that time. And so stay above the line and don't dip down in there.

Evaluate yourself this week and check in on Blame, Denial, Excuses and Reasons and see where you are at?