June 18, 2003	Volume 3, Issue 25
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Demanding Forgiveness

by Rick Brenner

Working together under stress, we do sometimes hurt each other. Delivering apologies is a skill critical to repairing those hurts and maintaining our relationships.

he elevator doors opened, and to his great discomfort, Tim found himself face-to-face with Trish. He boarded, gave her a slight nod, and she returned a polite smile. Standing beside her watching the number count down from 37 to L, he realized that he would eventually have to apologize for what he'd said in the meeting earlier. Otherwise, the discomfort between them would make collaborating impossible.

Working together under pressure,
transgressions are inevitable"I'd like to apologize for this afternoon, Trish. Can I come by after lunch?"

"OK," she replied. "But let's meet in the Canyon." The Canyon — the Grand Canyon was its full name — was one of Marketing's conference rooms. They named their conference rooms after parks.

Tim has just taken two steps that will help him and Trish repair their working relationship. He has realized the need for an apology, and he has asked her for permission to deliver it. Working together as we often do, under pressure, transgressions are inevitable. At times, we hurt each other, sometimes by accident, and sometimes by intention.

Delivering apologies is a skill critical to maintaining our relationships and to repairing these hurts, yet we often bungle the delivery. Here are some tips for making effective professional apologies.

Ask for permission

It's possible that your intended recipient isn't willing or ready to receive an apology. Ask for permission. Realize that you really are asking for a gift — the gift of receiving your apology.

Expect nothing

Apologies must be unconditional. Expectations of reciprocity, mutual concession, or forgiveness undermine your apology. Often expectations are experienced as demands.

Apologize for mistakes, not intentions

Apologizing for accidents of execution or plan can help; apologizing for something done intentionally, and which you'd likely do again in similar circumstances, isn't likely to work. Such apologies seem insincere, and often are. "I'm sorry I had to lay you off" won't help.

Offer no excuses

When we consider ourselves responsible for the pain of others, we sometimes say, "I didn't mean to," or, "That was not my intention." Any assurances that their pain wasn't a primary objective of your actions are in vain. Instead, apologize for your negligence, or your thoughtlessness, or your failure to find an alternative.

Acknowledge pain

Acknowledge their pain, and your inability to grasp it fully. And acknowledge your own pain. Of course, sincerity is required.

Take full responsibility

Acknowledge that you are 100% responsible for your own actions, which you now regret. Allocating responsibility to others defeats the purpose of the apology, especially when you allocate some of it to the person you're apologizing to.

Tell what you've learned

If you've learned something from the incident, consider revealing it. Knowing that you're less likely to repeat your transgression can be a comfort.

Whatever the form of your apology, think carefully before asking for forgiveness. Asking for forgiveness can seem like a demand, and that compounds your offense. Only forgiveness freely given has true meaning.  Top    Next Issue

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More articles on Emotions at Work:

Dealing with Your Own Anger

However perceptive we become about what can anger us, we still do get angry once in a while. Here are four steps to help you deal with your own anger.

Stay in Your Own Hula Hoop

Do you tend to commit to too many tasks? Are you one who spends too much energy meeting the needs of others — so much that your own needs go unmet? Here's how a hula-hoop can help.

Email Happens

Email is a wonderful medium for some communications, and extremely dangerous for others. What are its limitations? How can we use email safely?

Think in Living Color

Feeling trapped, with no clear way out, often leads to anger. One way to defuse your anger is to notice false traps, particularly the false dichotomy. When you notice that you're the target of a false dichotomy, you can control your anger more easily — and then the trap often disappears.

Cellf Esteem

When a cell phone goes off in a movie theater, some of us get irritated or even angry. Why has the cell phone become so prominent in public? And why do we have such strong reactions to its use?

See also Emotions at Work and Critical Thinking for more related articles.

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Public seminars

Organizational Politics for People Who Hate Politics

Have you ever felt powerless to implement an important new idea? Have you ever been "blind-sided" at a meeting? Have you ever lost two good employees because you could find no way to keep them from attacking each other? These are some of the issues of organizational politics. Many of us have become enmeshed in them from time to time, but we've also known some people who seem to be able to engage and prosper. How is that done? We'll inventory the challenges of organizational politics, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees learn concrete techniques for dealing with the problems that arise in workplace politics, while keeping their integrity intact. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

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  your calendarRichmond, VA (South Side): March 17, Southside Dinner Meeting, Central Virginia Chapter of The Project Management Institute.
   
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  your calendarRichmond, VA (West End): March 18, West End Dinner Meeting, Central Virginia Chapter of The Project Management Institute.
   
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  your calendarThe Conference Center at Bentley in Waltham, MA: May 1, Professional Development Day, Massachusetts Bay Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   

The Race to the South Pole: Ten Lessons for Project Managers

On 14 December 1911, four men led by Roald Amundsen reached the South Pole. Thirty-five days later, Robert F. Scott and four others followed. Amundsen had won the race to the pole. Amundsen's party returned to base on 26 January 1912. Scott's party perished. As historical drama, why this happened is interesting enough, but to project managers, the story is fascinating. Lessons abound. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

• Download to
  your calendarMelbourne, FL: April 12, Monthly Meeting, Space Coast Florida Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
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  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
  your calendarThe Conference Center at Bentley in Waltham, MA: May 1, Professional Development Day, Massachusetts Bay Chapter of the Project Management Institute. Register now.
   
• Fort Wayne, IN: September 22, Monthly Meeting, Northeast Indiana Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Overland Park Convention Center, Overland Park, KS: October 4, Professional Development Day, Kansas City Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
• Download to
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Person-to-Person Communication for Project Managers

When we talk, listen, send or read emails, read or write memos, or when we leave or listen to voice mail messages, we're communicating person-to-person. And whenever we communicate person-to-person, we risk being misunderstood, offending others, feeling hurt, and being confused. There are so many ways for things to go wrong that we could never learn how to fix all the problems. A more effective approach avoids problems altogether, or at least minimizes their occurrence. In this very interactive program you'll learn a model of inter-personal communications that can help you stay out of the ditch. In those moments of intense involvement, when we're most likely to slip, you'll have a new tool to use to keep things constructive. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

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  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

The Politics of Meetings for People Who Hate Politics

There's a lot more to running an effective meeting than having the right room, the right equipment, and the right people. With meetings, the whole really is more than the sum of its parts. How the parts interact with each other and with external elements is as important as the parts themselves. And those interactions are the essence of politics for meetings. This program explores techniques for leading meetings that are based on understanding political interactions, and using that knowledge effectively to meet organizational goals. Read more about this program. Here are some upcoming dates for this program:

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  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   
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  your calendarWherever you are: it's a webinar: August 3, Monthly Meeting Webinar, Memphis Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

Human-Centered Risk Management

Most of us can assess technological risks, but risks related to human behavior tend to resist our best efforts. This session provides a framework for evaluating risks related to the behavior of individuals, teams, organizations and people generally. Human-centered risk differs from technological or market risk, because objective evaluation requires acknowledging personal and organizational limitations and failures. Since some of those limitations and failures might apply to the people assessing the risks, or to their superiors, there's a tendency to deny them or to explain them away. Our approach examines capability, organization, context, risk mitigation, and workplace politics. It has tools for guiding the assessment and management of human-centered risk, and we show how to extend these tools to suit your situation. You'll learn how to identify sources of risk in human behavior; recognize systemic and individual barriers to acknowledging risk; assess the effects of organizational turbulence; determine the risk associated with inappropriate internal risk transfer; estimate the effects of team dysfunction, toxic conflict and turnover; and measure the impact of workplace politics. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

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  your calendarHilton Garden Inn, Idaho Falls, ID: April 15, Professional Development Day, Eastern Idaho Chapter of the Project Management Institute.
   

Managing Virtual Teams for Real Results

Managing global or dispersed teams is challenging — miscommunications, misunderstandings, and interpersonal conflict all thrive in the typical environment of the distributed team. And they're even more common in global teams, because of time-zone offsets and language and cultural differences. We'll inventory the challenges distributed and global teams face, and provide tools for anticipating and addressing them. The focus of this program is practical — attendees will learn concrete techniques for preventing and dealing with the problems that accompany global and distributed teams. Read more about this program. Here's an upcoming date for this program:

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  your calendarKitchener, Ontario: May 19, Dinner Meeting, PMI Canada's Technology Triangle Chapter.