The Ethics of Apologies
This article originally appeared on Businessweek.com on June 21, 2010. It was reprinted with the expressed permission of Dr. Weinstein. The Dr. Weinstein now offers this article in the greater context of our discussion about Shirley Sherrod’s wrongful termination.
These few simple rules will help you give apologies meaningfully and accept them gracefully
Every day, it seems, we learn of an apology from a prominent executive, celebrity, or political figure in response to an indiscretion of some sort. Those in the public eye have an unfortunate tendency to apologize only after they have been found with a hand in the cookie jar. When this happens, it is only natural for a skeptical (or cynical) public to wonder, “Are they apologizing for their conduct, or simply because they were caught?”
To make matters worse, the wrongdoer will often use the passive voice in his or her apology: “Mistakes were made,” rather than “I made a mistake.” It is more comfortable to use the passive voice here, but doing so relinquishes any sense of personal responsibility. It is a non-apology and is not very meaningful.
Of course, it’s not just those in the public eye who readily offer an insincere “I’m sorry.” You probably have at least one such person in your life. It may be the person working for you who spends too much time making personal phone calls or surfing the Web while at the office. Perhaps it is a friend who consistently cancels lunch dates at the last minute. Maybe you even find yourself offering apologies more than you should. Regardless of the circumstances surrounding the need for the apology, and whether you need to make one or feel you deserve one, the following questions arise:
• What makes an apology meaningful?
• Does apologizing make us look weak?
• How should you respond if you can’t avoid repeating the mistake?
• What may we rightfully expect from someone who apologizes to us?
To answer these questions, it will be helpful to keep two ethical principles in mind: “Be Fair” (what I have called Life Principle No. 4) and “Be Loving” (or Life Principle No. 5). Recall that fairness or justice requires, among other things, that the punishment should fit the crime, and some forms of wrongful conduct are so serious that a mere “I’m sorry” isn’t enough of a response. To be loving and compassionate in our professional and personal lives calls upon a different set of skills: We should do what we can to honor a person’s sincere apology, even though our anger pulls us in the opposite direction.
With these two principles in mind, I propose the following guidelines for giving and accepting apologies:
When You Owe an Apology
• Admit your mistake quickly and take personal responsibility for it. Don’t say “We made a mistake” when you mean “I made a mistake.”
• Apologize first to the person you have wronged. That is the person who matters most.
• Speak from the heart. An insincere apology is as bad as no apology at all. People can tell when you really mean it, even if you think you’re a good actor and can fool everyone.
• Realize that “sorry” is just a word. For that word to be meaningful, you must do your level best to avoid repeating the mistake. This means coming up with a strategy and sticking to it.
• Understand that a meaningful apology is a sign of integrity, not weakness. Anyone can blame others, or deny that he or she did anything wrong, or lie about what really happened. Only a strong, self-possessed person can own up to their mistakes, and only such a person commands true respect.
• Don’t be afraid to ask for help. If you can’t do something well on your own, invite others to work with you on the problem. If the problem is beyond your grasp, consider asking someone else to take it on, if it is appropriate for you to do so.
When You Are Owed an Apology
• If someone has done something wrong and apologizes to you, accept the apology graciously. However…
• You are also justified in expecting the person to avoid repeating the behavior that required an apology in the first place.
• Depending on the situation, you might need to make clear to the other person what the consequences will be if he or she makes the mistake again.
• “Three strikes and you’re out” is fine for baseball, but in other areas, it may take only one strike for someone to be justifiably banished from being a player. Some mistakes are so serious that you should not grant a second chance. For relatively minor slipups, however, or if the task at hand is unusually difficult, it might be unfair not to allow more than three opportunities to get it right.
• If the apologist continues making the same mistake over and over, you may have to say, perhaps regrettably, “I can’t in good conscience give you another opportunity to slip up,” no matter how much that person continues to apologize.
The 1970 film Love Story featured the memorable line “Love means never having to say you’re sorry.” Even if this were true, there are many other areas where we do have to say we’re sorry—and mean it. The challenge for all of us is to admit we’ve made a mistake, to do our best to ensure that we don’t do it again, and to forgive others who sincerely regret their own poor judgment. No one is perfect, but most of us do have the capacity to right our own wrongs and to accept the imperfections in others.
Bruce@TheEthicsGuy.com Bruce Weinstein, Ph.D. is the corporate consultant, author, and public speaker known as The Ethics Guy. He has appeared on numerous national television shows and is the author of several books on ethics. His “Ask the Ethics Guy!” appears every other week on businessweek.com/managing/.
The Slippery Slope of Talking About Race in America
A couple of years ago I took on an assignment to write about racial equity and social justice in the food movement I have to admit, that I didn’t know much about the United States Department of Agriculture or its history of inequity. So I started with what I knew to do… research. I typed in race and farming. It made sense to me. I needed a background, a point of reference. To my surprise there was entry after entry on discrimination against black, Native American and Hispanic farmers. The discrimination resulted in a class action suit filed by black farmers, known as the Pigford Case. I went on to interview a few black farmers to get their take on this. For more information on the Pigford Class Action Suit go to http://www.nationalaglawcenter.org/assets/crs/RS20430.pdf
Fast forward to July 21, 2010. It is the day that the first person to be fired for racist activity. Shirley Sherrod, a 25-year employee of the USDA was asked to submit her resignation because she told her truth. Back in March she made an honest and open speech in front of the NAACP about her personal journey and evolution around race.
I am sure that Ms. Sherrod never set out to be the next Rosa Parks. And I am sure that she never expected to lose her job, because she told her truth. Instead, the head of the USDA reacted to a snippet of a tape of her speech. The NAACP reacted, as well, throwing her from the bus for a speech that Ms. Sherrod made at one of their meetings months before). Working in rural Georgia, I am sure it couldn’t have been easy for her. I bet she has some stories about being called names and threatened by the white farmers she tried to help. Whatever she saw, and felt, she clearly was able to move past it. It is a lesson that we all need to hear. And we could have heard it, if the tape hadn’t been edited.
The rest of the tape addresses lots of things including Sherrod’s story of the death of her father in a racist act. She talks about having crosses burned on her family’s lawn. And she talks about her commitment to stay in the South to change things. Yet, if you read the Tea Party blogs, or watched only Fox News, you would have heard only a couple of lines of her speech, out of context.
When a spokesperson for the Tea Party admitted that it was their intention to embarrass the NAACP by editing and sending this tape out virally, they set in motion a firestorm that made a whole lot of people look bad. The house may be on fire, but remember there was somebody standing there with a gas can and a match. Will we continue to let the flame throwers set the Shirley Sherrods of the world on fire for sport?
If you think that we live in a post-racial society, now that we have the first African American president, then think again. My heart broke a little when I heard Ms. Sherrod say “I can’t believe I am out of a job.” Shirley, I can’t either. I am not surprised that extreme conservatives work tirelessly to stir up the tensions of race. But I am horrified that the NAACP and the USDA were so reactionary. Right now I am sure that Tea Party members all over the country are having a great laugh at the expense of a woman in her 60s who told a story about how she has come to view race and poverty.
As a child of the 60s, I have seen hate around race. I have seen how far we’ve come. But I see how much healing we need to do. As of this writing, Secretary of Agriculture Vilsack has apologized to Ms. Sherrod, and offered her a job. Not her job, but a job. The NAACP also apologized. But when will we stop being a PR machine, reacting to save funding, and chase a few public opinion points? I am sure that the USDA acted to curb any embarrassment to the Administration. How’d that work out USDA? Are you willing to shake the trees and go back to and chase out the hundred or so years of discrimination against black, Native American, Asian and Hispanic farmers?
I also want to thank CNN for doing real journalism. They teach us a lesson. Blogs and twitters are just sources. They are not the story. Real journalists roll up their sleeves and vet stories. They look at real tapes. They give balanced coverage. In fairness to other media outlets, it is true that there is a rush to get the story out there as quickly as you can in the 24-hour news cycle. We feed the beast as fast as we can. Some time we need to slow down and ask some questions, especially when we call for someone to get fired.
The media has a lot of work to do. And so do we, the advocates, the thinkers, the policy makers and the pundits. Race is an uncomfortable conversation. But I am now convinced that we need to have more conversations. We need to address our humanity and our diverse American culture. We need to find our own courage to be Shirley Sherrod in our own right. And then we need to heal. Today I found out how easy it is to be angry in cases like this. It is challenging to take a deep breath and move forward in truth and honesty. Thank you Shirley Sherrod for the lesson.
Reflection: Thoughts Just After the KFLA Race Equity Meeting
My head has been swimming a little since our meetings in Denver in mid-October. Â A group of the Fellows gathered to plan a Call to Action, now titled “Race, Ethnicity & Ancestry: Securing Equity and Justice”
Without referring to J. Seale’s idea of social construction, it is evident that the idea of race and its definition is highly contextual. In some society, the very idea does not even exist. In Japan, non-Japanese people have a long history of being discriminated against. Many are Chinese, Korean, and other Asian people who, according to American idea of race, belong to the same race with the Japanese. In some instances, Europeans did better in Japan because of their white skin. People of a different race faced less discrimination because they did not have a history of Japanese occupation. So in many cases, racism is historically contextual. Additionally, discrimination against African Americans in Japan is something that was brought into Japan during the
occupation period after the war so it is new. It has a different meaning there. Kiuchi has an article to be published in the Journal of Pop Culture that is really interesting.
In France, racism is often related to religion. Whether or not some are allowed to wear religious veils is a big issue. White people who practice certain religion may experience “racism” albeit to some less extent.
In an American context, social, historical, and religions contexts are all significant. But economic issues is also big. When it comes to a contemporary style of racism, maybe_Bell Curve_ was a major turning point. As more and more people blindly believe in the idea of color blind society which in my mind makes absolutely no sense, the class has been a justifiable reason (for some) to sustain status quo. Class and race are highly correlated and in many cases, there is a causal relationship due to the history.
What is useful about this economy based arguments is that it encompasses all racial groups and goes beyond the black and white binary. But the risk is to ignore the historical roots that created racism.
There is no doubt that the black and white binary needs to be changed in this country and probably one of the first steps is what we begin to construct.
The KFLA will be hosting a summit on Race, Ethnicity & Ancestry: Securing Equity & Justice in November 2010. Â Stay informed on the process and how to join us.