Mastering the Art of Apology

“Oops…”
—A less than masterful apology from a New & Improved Partner after rototilling his wife’s flowerbed.

Since you are a human being, you can count on making misteaks and unintentionally doing things that cause others to feel hurt, frustrated and/or attacked in some way. Assuming you have developed your sense of connection to them, you’re probably going to feel bad for doing whatever dastardly thing you did.

Good.

But feeling guilty is not enough. The next step is to apologize. It takes maturity to do so, and skill to do so effectively. Apology is a crucial skill for the innovation leader. Effective apologizing is an example of what we respect in the innovation leader. It requires and is a demonstration of humility. It requires and is a demonstration of responsibility taking. Because apology usually occurs when there are emotional tensions, it requires tenacity to get through the common dynamic humans have when they feel offended: The human primitive brain (or “gator brain”) reaction is to want to offend back. The deeper and more complex the offense, the greater the courage required to step up and apologize effectively. Finally, no apology occurs well unless the offender has a deep curiosity that allows them to imagine and experience the offense from the perspective of the person offended.

Apology is an act of integrity with the Way of the Innovation Leader.  So, inside of apologizing is everything you need to practice the human dynamics skills of innovation leadership. Quick! Go out and offend someone so you can improve your skills! Strike that. You’ll get a chance soon enough without even trying…yes, we’re sure.  Did we offend you by saying that? Sorry…

There are effective and ineffective ways to apologize, and the previous sentence was an example of the latter. First, think about why you’re apologizing…you want the other person to really understand that you recognize your mistake, feel crummy about what you said, did, or didn’t do. You want them to understand your desire to get back into relationship with them as soon as possible. While you can never control fully what their reaction to your apology will be, you can increase the odds that you will move beyond this limiting dynamic in your relationship and get back to the joy of synergistic innovation.

The first rule is this: don’t apologize if you don’t really feel a sense of chagrin. A false “I’m sorry” is seen through for what it is – false -- even if the other person doesn’t say so. Generally these “quick sorry’s are cover-ups for a statement that loosely translates to “I did what I did, and you got mad about it.  I’m sorry you got mad about it, but anybody else would have done the same thing in this circumstance and you’re kind of a jerk for getting upset with me about it.” Wow. Powerful. A real relationship builder, wouldn’t you say?  We wouldn’t.

If you are taking responsibility for your offense, then the place to start is with a clear statement of exactly what you did and a description that communicates your understanding of what the other person might feel given their experience of what you did. Put yourself in their shoes for a moment. Then you say that you’re sorry for having caused their experience, and if they need to vent for a bit, you listen and follow their venting with another apology and whatever commitment you honestly feel you can make to prevent the offense from occurring again. For maximum satisfaction, ask the other person if they accept your apology. This will make you both feel better…assuming they accept your apology! And if they don’t, it’s time to either listen again or give them some time to accept the truth of your remorse.

Oprah Winfrey, clearly an innovation leader in her own way, recently published nicely on the issue of apology. You can read Martha Beck’s take on apology here

The truth is that the deepest relationships are those in which there has been conflict of some sort.  Yet the participants in that relationship value the other enough to still want to be in connection. Enough so, that they’ll expend the effort to build and receive an apology bridge.

So now, you know how to apologize – Get to it!

What! You want a magic formula to make life easy? Sorry. Not here. Call us if you find it.

We wish you many great, productive, innovative relationships!