The Power of Apology

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

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!!”

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.

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.

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!

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.

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

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

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.

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.”)

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!!

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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.

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.