On Apologies: When to Apologize and How to Make it Work

Juanita D. Price and Carolyn Cutler Osborne

Lisa has failed to turn in a progress report to a funding agency on time. Her failure means that funding will be delayed and might be jeopardized altogether. Let's tune in on her conversation with her boss, Mary:

Mary: This report didn't get handed in on time.
Lisa: Yeah, I know. I'm sorry. It's just that I had a lot to do this week.
Mary: But Lisa, we can't afford to lose this money.
Lisa: I said, I'm sorry.
Mary: "I'm sorry" isn't enough.

Lisa is in real trouble. If the funding doesn't come through, guess whose job is going to go first--despite the fact that Lisa is intelligent and creative and normally a good worker.
Mistakes do happen, yet even major mistakes do not need to jeopardize your job or your personal relationships--if you know how to apologize and how to take responsibility for your actions. We'll show you how.
Let's do a re-run with Lisa and Mary:

Lisa: I need to let you know that I have really screwed up. The progress report is going to be late. I am terribly sorry.
Mary: How did that happen?
Lisa: I made some mistakes with how I organized my time. I didn't leave enough time to get all the figures that need to be in the report. I am really sorry about that.
Mary: When will the report get in?
Lisa: I can express mail most of it today and I'll assemble the rest of the figures tonight so I can fax them tomorrow and express mail the originals. I also plan to call them to let them know what is coming when and that it is my fault that it is late. I am sorry.
Mary: I think that'll work. I wish you had gotten the whole thing in on time. I'm worried about the funding.
Lisa: I wish I had, too. I'm sorry I screwed up. Next time I'll allot a week instead of three days to get it done.
Mary: But it sounds like you've done pretty well with dealing with it.

What a difference! Despite the fact that she made a serious mistake, Lisa got a compliment in the end. Her job isn't in jeopardy. What differences do you notice between the two conversations? Here are some:

1. Who started it. In the first conversation, you can imagine that Mary found out about the late report and came to Lisa. Lisa told on herself in the second one--as soon as she knew there was going to be a problem.
2. Responsibility. Lisa took responsibility for her own failures in the second conversation.
3. Focus of conversation: The focus of the first conversation was on blame--Lisa was trying to avoid blame and Mary was trying to lay it. In the second conversation, however, the focus was on problem solving.

Starting It
Remember when you were a kid and you did something wrong? There was always some do-gooder in the gang whose first words were, "I'm gonna tell." And you knew by the sinking feeling in your stomach that you were in for it.
It's no different at work--or at home with your personal relationships. When people find out you've made a mistake that affects them, they are hurt and angry.
There's no way to avoid dealing with the hurt and anger that comes from mistakes--even if the mistakes were not intentional. But you can do something that helps the situation, and that is to tell on yourself as soon as you know there is a problem.
To understand why telling on yourself is important, think about times people have made mistakes that have hurt you. The hurt and anger increases if you have to chase the other person down in order to find out what happened and why. You may feel lied to and disrespected.
Telling on yourself when you make a mistake shows respect to the other person, a respect that is sorely needed when your mistake has caused difficulty. The message you send when you tell on yourself is that you respect and care enough for the other person that you will be honest about your own shortcomings.

Responsibility
Then, too, did you notice that in the second conversation, Lisa explained exactly what she had done wrong. She took responsibility for her failure.
Supposing that the other things that Lisa had to do were also assignments from Mary. Should she still take responsibility for failing to get the report done? In other words, is there some way in which Lisa's failure is Mary's fault?
Mary might have assigned too much work to Lisa for her to complete. Yet, if that were the situation, Lisa needed to have come to Mary to explain what the deadline situation was and to get Mary to prioritize what needed to get done. As soon as she became aware of a time crunch problem, she needed to have apprized Mary of it. [Juanita--I'm not explaining this very well; maybe you can find a better way of explaining it]
It's so easy to search for ways of blaming others. Yet we have responsibility for our part of every interaction. For right now, we'll assume that Mary is a reasonable boss and not a tyrant. Yet taking responsibilities for our own actions is important no matter who the other person is--we'll explore that possibility in the next article.

Focus of Conversation
Why taking responsibility works is related to the focus of the conversation. If we have been hurt by something or someone, we want to have some kind of way of knowing that the other person knows that their behavior was a problem--and the significance of that problem--and we want to know that the other person has some way of figuring out how to avoid making the same mistake.
In the first conversation, Lisa fails to take responsibility for her actions. She makes an excuse instead. Mary has no way of knowing that Lisa will try to alleviate the problem or that she will change her actions so that she gets the report in on time in the future.
The focus of the second conversation, in contrast, is a result of Lisa taking responsibility. Mary knows that Lisa understands the significance of the problem. She also knows that Lisa is going to do what she can to alleviate the problem now and to prevent the problem in the future.
The issue here is trust. Lisa has shown respect for Mary by admitting her failure to Mary. She earns Mary's trust by taking responsibility--by showing Mary how she is going to solve the problem. Considering the significance of the problem--the possibility of losing a funding source--this trust is all the more poignant. It's important, too. You can imagine the Lisa of the second conversation explaining to the funding source why the report is going to be late--Mary can trust that Lisa will do a good job on this and that the impact of the mistake will be less than what it could have been.

I'm Sorry. I'm Sorry
Perhaps you also noticed some differences between the "I'm sorry" aspect of these two conversations. The first conversation is technically an apology because it has the words "I'm sorry" in it. But is it really an apology? Let's look at the second conversation to find out.
Lisa sounds like a stuck record, doesn't she? She says what she failed to do and she says "I'm sorry" in almost every sentence. She offers no excuses on her own behalf.
It's natural for another person to get angry or frustrated with us when we have made mistakes. Yet when the person who has made a mistake apologizes--without making excuses--that apology, abject and honest, removes some of the hurt and anger. Each repetition can scrape away just a little more of that pain.
Sometimes when we have messed up and we know it, we fear the reaction of the other person, particularly if we have messed up on something really important. Yet, the technique of repeating the abject apology works especially well when the other person is upset.
The degree of the upset and anger determines how much you apologize. In fact, your abject apology should be inserted every time the other person takes a breath in the tyrade about your mistake. For really big mistakes, you can expect to repeat "I'm sorry" or some other variation (without excuses, remember) many, many times, until the other person has expressed all of their hurt and anger about the situation.
This sounds horrible! But here's what is happening. When you listen to the other person's hurt and anger and you respond by making an apology as often as is needed, you are putting the other person in control of the conversation. They control the subject matter--and the length of it. They control what you are listening to.
This control is very necessary for them. After all, you had control in something and you messed up. They need to have some control--almost by way of compensation. To the degree that you are able to hand over the control to the other person during an apology, that is the degree to which the apology will be effective. Thatis, the apology will contribute to healing the hurt you have caused.
Good apologies, then, consist of your taking responsibility for your actions, of letting the other person take control of the conversation, followed by sincere and ongoing efforts to rectify the sitaution--or, where possible, to improve the situation altogether.