chrisbrogan.com - Latest Comments in The Power of Apology

Re: The Power of Apology

Commuteducation — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 23:28:18 -0000

Stymied by apology... Thank you for this inspiring reminder of the power of apology. Your message has inspired me to share an experience that was profoundly telling. I hope by sharing it here it will help others who might stumble upon it to gain a better understanding and appreciation of just how powerful an apology can be.

I was doing an impromptu role play with a fellow Toastmaster on the theme of conflict management. My direction in the role play was to act as a co-worker whose idea had been stolen, with the other character having accepted full credit and accolades from superiors. As we became embroiled in the passion of our role-play exercise, my emotions were quite truly stirred, as though I was really feeling the hurt and betrayal one would sense in a similar real-lief situation. I felt myself taking ownership of the role and of the feelings of resent and anger and hurt that were brewing in me. It became easier and easier for me to strengthen my debate, as I vehemently listed my points in a verbal attack on my opponent.

I wondered how we were ever going to wrap up the impromptu role-play as my resolve and my voice and my anxiety were all mounting in a crescendo toward crisis, as was hers with each attempt she made to refute my retributional verbal assaults on her integrity and moral character having inflicted incalculable torment on the instantly vanished value of our friendship (or at least the value of the friendship of the characters we were role playing.)

As our time was almost up, I wondered really how we were possibly going to have any success with the exercise in which the objective was to manage our conflict and to develop a resolution. Although we were only role playing, our emotions were running high and the fast-approaching deadline by which we had to resolve the matter was adding to our sense of stress. Suddenly, my fellow Toastmaster's character had a stroke of genius. She simply said, "It sounds like I've really upset you and that wasn't what I had set out to do. I apologize for hurting you. Maybe we could go together to our boss and explain this situation so that you can get the credit you deserve."

Honestly, I was dumb-founded. I was utterly speechless. My character's anger melted and my resentment was now vanishing at a rate proportionally inverse to which my respect and hope for fulll recovery of our friendship was now mounting. It was beautiful.

We wrapped up our conflict management impromptu role play with a successful resolution before the deadline. It seemed strikingly easy. It makes me wonder if in real life there were such deadlines by which one or the other of the parties involved in a dispute would have to come up with the stroke of genius to apologize when they have offended somone, there might be alot less mounting of tension and hostility that often results from the snowball effect of what may have begun as a relatively trivial slight. The detrimental and compound negative affects of trivial slights or wounds that are allowed to fester without the treatment they need; i.e. apology, run the risk of becoming incurable with the passage of time.

Ideally, heartfelt apologies expressed at early onset of the hurt that others may be feeling as a result of our actions can readily stave off ailing relations. Under less than ideal circumstances nonetheless, where the ailment of a relationship may have advanced to a terminal diagnosis, there is of course always hope for a miracle cure that could result from a heartfelt apology at any time before whatever the dealine may be.

Re: The Power of Apology

Anna Phills — Tue, 20 Jul 2010 00:38:48 -0000

I would say that the word apology itself has a great power if he/she is feeling guilty than the best way to feel good is just write a note or a letter of apology.

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Re: The Power of Apology

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Re: The Power of Apology

Molly Peters — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 18:53:07 -0000

I am brand new to social media and I am handling all of the marketing for a company in Los Angeles (gasp!). I started this job a month ago and just sent a huge email blast to hundreds of clients, forgetting to BCC anyone!

Within minutes of sending the email I got a phone call from a client who was terribly upset I didn't keep her information private. I apologized to her and did my best to calm her down (of course, without ever saying "calm down")

I didn't know what to do! I scrambled to Google to find answers. Thankfully I found you. Once I read what you said it seemed so simple. Of course, apologize to everybody!

You helped guide my nervous shaking hands to the keyboard to write a simple and honest apology. This was all about fifteen minutes ago. So far, no more angry clients!

Thank you for posting this. I'm glad you know how it feels to want to crawl under a rock for the same reasons I do. I will forever turn to your blog for advise! Thank you!!

Re: The Power of Apology

Ann — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 09:34:19 -0000

I thought this was great. You never hear of apologies any more. I worked with children for many years and it was against the law to make the children apologize to each other when they hurt one another. I was horrified. To see this training from such a young age, no wonder we have such a remorseless society.
A few years ago I had a situation where I was deeply hurt by a friend of mine. I am talking about a major offense. I expressed my concerns several times. Each time she turned the situation back into my lap as if I were in the wrong. And several times, in order to salvage the relationship, I apologized even though I was in the right. In the end I severed the relationship simply because this person's inability to humble herself, and simply apologize for me for her wrongdoing. I HOPED that she would come to her sense and get it. But she didn't. She went her way and I went mine. And even though I've moved on, there is still that little twinge inside sometimes when I think about it. The fact that my pain at her hands was never acknowledged by her and if anything, because she was so prideful, she walked away feeling as though she were wronged and I was the villain. That knowledge really hurts. So I agree with you, an apology, saying "I'm sorry" makes a HUGE difference. The heartfelt apology does miracles. It can cause healing to occur.
Great blog.

Re: The Power of Apology

edder — Thu, 26 Mar 2009 16:03:07 -0000

I love this and good for you. What spooky timing: just this past weekend I had to sit down and apologize to several people I'd hurt/disappointed. No fun. However, it only reemphasized my faith that people are good and kind and will most likely appreciate the apology when it's heartfelt and sincere.

(If you're interested in reading the steps I took in the article, I titled it "When Life Hands You Lemons Make Lemonade? Uh, no.")

Re: The Power of Apology

John Kador — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 10:13:45 -0000

Well done. Clients and business partners don't expect perfection; they expect professionalism and accountability. This you provided. I appreciate that apology is not easy. Evidence is mounting that apologizing is almost always less costly than the alternatives of denial and defensiveness. I think of apology as giving up our struggle with history. By that I mean, apology allows us to understand the point of view of those we mistreated. That's a powerful place to be, a place from which real humility and learning are possible. Humility is not thinking less of yourself; it's thiking of yourself less often. That's really the main power of paology. It puts the emphasis on the mistreated party.

Re: The Power of Apology

chrisbrogan — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:58:03 -0000

@Skip - as the post above has no mention of the event or the links specifically, I'd say it's more A than B.

Re: The Power of Apology

jaypiddy — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 15:53:19 -0000

I find that brands never want to admit mistakes. The stiff upper lip approach. "We ignore it and it will go away". Well I agree with your approach and think that transparency is important. You are a brand and that mistake could have cost you in trust. By sending the note you were redeemed as a good and responsible brand/citizen. Maybe not by everyone but by most and that's what counts.

Nice work.
@jaypiddy

Re: The Power of Apology

Chris Witt — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 14:34:25 -0000

Chris,

I'm with you -- apologies make all the difference.

What I hate is pseudo-apologies, the kind that starts "I'm sorry if you were offended by what I did." It's really blaming you for being offended, not sincerely owning up to what the person did.

Thanks for starting the discussion.

Re: The Power of Apology

Liz — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 12:56:42 -0000

At the very first PR company I worked as an intern for, they that asked me to send out the same pitch to hundreds of journalists and to just change the name. At the time I had thought that there must be a better way to pitch, but it was my first internship and I so I didn't say anything. In the course of hitting send hundreds of times a day, I missed a one or two emails and forgot to change the name up at the top. The firm said it was fine and that it happens from time to time, but I know better now. No matter what, I will NEVER pitch in that manner ever again. Those are old practices that while they may have worked at some point in time will certainly not work today. I hope the pr firm has changed their practices since then!

Re: The Power of Apology

studio 623 — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 09:23:14 -0000

i was promoting two major events in one weekend. one christian rock concert. the other a gala banquet with a couple thousand people coming. the company we were using for email campaigns sent an email re: the rock concert to the gala list. HORRIFIED! we chose to not send an apology as there wasn't any wording in the email that would imply it wasn't intended for them. to our surprise, we had many people interested in attending the concert and thanked us for the invitation. lucky for us, the gala crowd wasn't as stuffy as we feared. still not sure if i would have wanted to send an apology email or not. but i've done that before to my personal blog followers. good discussion.

Re: The Power of Apology

Skip Bensley — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 07:51:07 -0000

I think sometimes we move so fast trying to do what we need to do that mistakes get made, and yes we are all human. Saying your sorry or oops is appropriate. On the other hand, if calling attention to the mistake in a blog is just another way to keep the original message about the upcoming event floating in cyberspace and tweetland then it falls into the category of things that make you go hmmmm.

Re: The Power of Apology

Bart Jawien — Fri, 20 Mar 2009 02:20:47 -0000

Mate..

We've all done it ... but like a few have already mentioned - you have to have the balls to apologies ... which in turn gains respect rather then .... people thinking "what a F&#K'ing idiot!!"

Re: The Power of Apology

Nada — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:56:48 -0000

Hi Chris,

I may have missed it in responses to the comments, and if so, I *apologise*, but can you include the apology - since it's the subject of your post! It would be great to see the successful apology you sent out.

Many thanks
Nada

Re: The Power of Apology

Lihsa — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:43:00 -0000

Try that same mistake to a bunch of lawyers. Not so fun.

Re: The Power of Apology

Travis Van — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 20:11:09 -0000

Sometimes I think the reaction to an apology has more to do with what the recipient thought of you independent of indiscretion (versus the quality of the apology). You probably got that favorable feedback in light of what your audience thought of you overall. If you were a dirtbag, I'm sure the replies to your apology would have had a different tenor.

Re: The Power of Apology

Paul Chaney — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:17:59 -0000

Been there, done that (more than once), and asked for forgiveness every time. Occasionally, there are those who have nothing better to do than take offense and get huffy-puffy, but for the most part, people are willing to let it slide.

Re: The Power of Apology

Tresha Thorsen — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:06:50 -0000

YES YES YES!
3 months ago, my gmail was hijacked and all my contacts (nowhere near as many as 17.500 but still) were emailed a VERY heinous dire emergency plea for money...from me, saying I'd been kidnapped and was being held hostage in Western Africa and in order to 'save' me I needed x funds wired to x account.
Now anyone who's often on email would have detected the spam like symbols. The language was very formal and yet broken English, the intro was a 'dear sir or madame' and I never speak that way. And further, if I'd been desperate for money, most people know I wouldn't have sent a massive email out. I would have contacted a few who'd be able to get the job done within 24 hours. I felt embarrassed that it happened, concerned for all the emails I received inquiring about my safety, and like a web baffoon for screwing up folks' days this way.
Gmail was good in that it restored my inaccessible account (while the spam email went to my contact list, it also froze up my own ability to access my email).
I already had set up a 2nd email account attached to my url. So I emailed as many folks as I could based on memory of their email addresses (duh, another lesson learned, I hadn't saved my contacts to my address book).
I put a message on facebook giving all a heads up.
I dm tweeted all my then contacts on twitter what happened. You actually responded--not sure if you recall--when I inquired if anyone knew how to unfreeze a gmail account.
Further, I asked folks who I knew had access to many of my contacts' emails to email me at my new email address and sent personal apologies to over 200 folks.
I wrote about it on BlogHer.
I posted a post on my blog "What to do if your email is hijacked."
Embarrassed?
You betcha.
But more to the point, I want folks to not make the same mistake.

I'd apologize over and over again if this ever happens again.

Thanks for your post, your admittance on what happened, and the inquiry if this happened to others.

We can all do our best, and then it's comforting to know that when crap happens, there's an understanding community out there with whom we've already established trust.

Be well and til the next fairy meeting! :)

Re: The Power of Apology

Christine Fife — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:28:18 -0000

I wish more people approached mending their errors like this! Well done. Funny, 2 seconds before I saw this post I was reading Jeremiah Owyang's apology for blogging in haste (without all the details) to Mzinga.

We all make mistakes; NOT owning up to them, NOT facing them head on and NOT doing what you can to rectify them is just a series of more mistakes.

Re: The Power of Apology

Oxana Trush — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 14:27:58 -0000

Chris, thank you for sharing.
And thank you for bringing up the topic of apology.
I've done some research on apology and that is what I found.
People usually expect an apology after:
- a reckless action that hurt sombody
- negative consequences of something insensitive that someone said or did
- an innocent error that was promptly corrected
When apologizing for an error, the effectiveness of an apology increases if a person apologizes for an error itself and for a failure to correct it promptly. And, of course, timing matters too. You did the right thing!
There are different ways to measure the effectiveness of an apology. I personally find helpful the following models: 1) http://www.taftsolutions.co... by Lee Taft and 2) http://www.e911.com/expertC... by Jim Lukaszewski
If you interested in apology theory, you can get more info in a blog post I did couple of weeks ago:(http://logosinstitute.net/b....
Once again, thank you for sharing!

Re: The Power of Apology

Cindi S. — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 11:45:37 -0000

I think it's important to apologize when the situation calls for it. We are all human and make mistakes. If someone does not receive your sincere apology with grace, it gives you a good clue into his or her character.

A tip about emails - write your message and subject line, then fill in the to, cc and bcc fields last.

Re: The Power of Apology

kenn krasner — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 10:49:50 -0000

Having learned this lesson the hard way myself, I have found that it's almost always better to get out in front of a problem by by addressing it directly though the communicating of your sincere thoughts and feelings than to hide from the problem and let people draw their own (usually wrong) conclusions.

I'm not talking about just lip service like celebrities, who when caught in some heinous or egregious indiscretion, "accept responsibility" with crocodile tears and then sweep it under the rug by going into "rehab".

The communication of your genuine thoughts and feelings without the follow through of further responsible action is no better than hiding in the first place.

Of course, this is just my opinion and your mileage may vary.