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Forgive me right off the bat -- that's both an apology and a plea -- but the recent glut of articles and columns about apologies have it all wrong!
The media's focus has been on the symbolism of saying the words "I'm sorry," as if that single utterance means everything and is the only thing. In today's soundbite world that clamors to satisfy the hunger of news consumers, the media pushes the meme that the words "I'm sorry" alone are the end of the story.
Some examples:
Lisa Belkin in articles on both her Motherlode blog and in the New York Times Magazine focuses on how to apologize and explores "how well" someone apologizes.
This post by Lauren Frayer is about a BP gaffe that was made during an apology for the oil spill. The BP executive then had to apologize for the blown apology about being sorry ... for the oil spill. Again -- what was the focus? It was on just spitting out the apology.
And even with sincere, appreciated words of contrition, such as UK Prime Minister David Cameron's words about Bloody Sunday, the obsession is with how to say an apology and that not enough people give apologies.
I'm going to be a complete contrarian here: we have to stop focusing on who is asking for apologies and who is giving (or not giving) apologies. Instead, we need to focus on what people are doing after they give their apology. Because it is that behavior that matters. Period.
Anyone who has been wronged and desired an apology knows this: we want change. We want people to not do what they did. We didn't want them to do it in the first place and we don't want them to do it again. (People who have been in intimate relationships or are parents know this as well.) As Paul Vitello wrote earlier this year in the op-ed, The Art of the Public Apology,
A trenchant analysis of the issue appeared in The New Yorker last year. It was a cartoon: The woman stands over her shoulder-drooped husband. “I don’t want your apology,” she says. “I want you to be sorry.”
So the real issue in being sorry is, do we hold people to the promise of what it means to have been contrite? Do you? What exactly do we expect of people who express contrition, and what actions would show us that they are sorry?
The way in which we demand the utterance of an apology completely overshadows encouraging the wrongdoers to take action that would show how sorry they are. We let it go at “I’m sorry” and pretend that the ballot box or the television ratings or the ticket booth will do the rest when it comes to accountability.
But that’s not enough. We should be expecting more from people who say they are sorry, and we should be teaching more about how to show that we are sorry. The cliché that action speaks louder than words needs to be rescued from clichedom and pressed into use.
Showing your sorry goes beyond BP's Tony Hayward sitting in Congress and taking it for 90 minutes. It takes more than not getting defensive or making excuses. It takes more than implicitly and explicitly taking responsibility for events that have unfolded, whether or not you were directly in charge simply because you are part of the chain of command.
Even though I believe that apologies do more for the listener, or the one asking for the apology, than they do for the overall healing, in some situations, perhaps, when we insist, "I just want you to say you’re sorry," that is all there is to it. The Freakonimics folks make this argument when they review Kathryn Schulz's new book, Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error.
An excerpt from Schultz's book nails why I want to stop the focus on the words "I'm sorry." Rather than give the person who is contrite a chance to change, we beat up on them after they say they're sorry:
Regardless of the issue at hand – whether it’s an oil spill, an economic meltdown, or something far more trivial – when people blow it, we want to hear them say it.
Or so we claim. But how do we really feel when people admit their mistakes? When
