Effective apologies
Three mistakes to avoid and the two crucial ingredients to include
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Renée wrote to ask,
Could you help me with the right language for an apology? I just expressed a sincere apology to a colleague, and her response was, “If you're going to apologize, do it right.” That stung a bit!
Let’s start with three classic apology mistakes to avoid:
1. Failing to take meaningful responsibility for the impact of words or actions. This is painfully illustrated by a university in this real-life incident.
2. Focusing on good intentions instead of bad impact. Benign intentions don’t cancel out lousy impact.
3. Using "`if" or "but," as in "I’m sorry if you were offended" and "I'm sorry, but you took it the wrong way." That’s not an apology, it’s sidestepping. This clip from television’s The Big Bang Theory demonstrates this one with humor.
A stiff apology is a second insult…The injured party does not want to be compensated because he has been wronged; he wants to be healed because he has been hurt.
G.K. Chesterton, English author
Now let’s consider what to include in an effective apology.