Apologies
4 parts of an apology
I’ve been thinking recently about apologies. In both personal and professional relationships, I’ve found that the best apologies have the following 4 parts:
- “I was wrong.”
- “I was wrong when I …”
- “I understand how that made you feel …”
- “In the future, what I learned is … so what I’ll do differently is …”
This format has a few subtle points in it:
- I explicity admit guilt by saying “I was wrong.” This admission forces me to be sincere and makes the apology much more effective.
- I use active voice to clearly take responsibilityThe classic non-apology is “mistakes were made.”
. - I am specific about what behavior was wrong. This specificity allows me to demonstrate that I listened by describing my behavior from their perspective.
- I reflect the person’s emotion back to them. Again, reflecting emotions is an opportunity to demonstrate listening.Reflecting emotions also shows that I think their emotions are valid.
- I take responsibility for my behavior by providing an unconditional commitment to a specific concrete change for the future.
- I keep it short to keep it easy to remember and to avoid prolong a probably negative emotional experience.
Some sample apologies
Put all together, an apology might sound like this:
- “I’m sorry, I was wrong to shout at you in that fight. I understand how that made your feel scared. In the future, I learned that I need to pay attention to my mental state to act the way I want, so I’m going to take a few deep breaths to calm down.”
- “I’m sorry about that meeting. I was wrong to report your status as red in front of your boss without discussing you first; I bet it made you feel frustrated. In the future, I’ve learned about”dropping dimes“[^dropping dimes] so I’ll make sure to sync up with you about the status beforehand.”
How to screw up an apology
But there are a lot of ways I have previously screwed up apologies:
I explained ‘why’ I acted that way.
- Saying “the reason why,” “what I was thinking,” “my intent was,” or “because” is the fastest way to ruin the apology by making it about me, not them. Worse, it can make it seem like I am attempting to absolve myself of my mistake. Instead, I find its better to say “It doesn’t matter why I did that, I know it still made you feel …”
I mentioned the other’s behavior in my apology.
- Saying “I was wrong to raise my voice when you …” is too close to offering an excuse (see the previous point).
I waited for them to be ready to apologize.
- I let a few important relationships sour because I knew I was “right” and waited for the other person to apologize first. Instead, I try to apologize as soon as I am ready for my part: the actions that I genuinely acknowledge were hurtful, ineffective, etc. Here, being specific about my behavior during the apology helps me be genuine. For example, “I was wrong to raise my voice.”
I apologized for their reaction, not my behavior.
- “I was wrong to make you upset” or “I’m sorry that you got upset” are both missing the description of my actions that provoked that reaction. Instead, I try to explicitly refer to my behavior: “I was wrong to shout” or “I was wrong to use a high pitched tone of voice.”
I qualifed the apology.
- Saying “I’m sorry if …” or “in the future, I will … if …” indicate only conditional acceptance of responsibility.
I apologized in writing.
- This is a conversation where emotions matter; I now do it in the most personal channel I have available (in person > video call > phone call) See Escalate the Channel, not the Conflict.
Here are some of my favorite apology resources, that were inspirational for this post: