The 5 Rs of a Really Good Apology
Depending on your age, you might remember the infamous apology given by Tony Hayward, Chief Executive of BP, back in 2010. Fronting up to the media after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the worst in US history, he said the following in an interview on 30th May (over a month after the explosion and subsequent spill): "The first thing to say is I'm sorry."
"We're sorry for the massive disruption it's caused their lives. There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I would like my life back."
Given that eleven people had died in the explosion, and the environmental impact was potentially huge, this did not go down well. The announcement that he was stepping down from his role came a few weeks after…
Whilst we can all tell that his apology was flawed, how many of us actually know the best way to apologise? How to apologise in a way that helps to keep trust on track and ultimately leads to better outcomes.
This question was discussed on a recent episode of Adam Grant’s excellent Rethinking Podcast. Grant is an organisational psychologist and bestselling author of many books including one of my favourites, Think Again. The podcast episode involved conversations with pre-K (pre reception) teacher Kath Konecky, Management Professor Beth Polin, and Formula One executive Mark Gallagher.
With Polin, who studies apologies in the context of trust, Grant examines the 5 R model that she has developed, setting out the stages for a successful apology. Trust is vital to our work and our wellbeing, and so is repairing it when we mess up. As Grant highlights, a bad apology can disrupt a project, sideline a career or even undermine a whole company. A good apology can do the opposite.
So what are the steps that ensure an effective apology? According to Polin’s research, these five components are critical:
Regret - being sincere and authentic in the fact that you are sorry for the harm you have caused.
Rationale - explaining why it happened. This is really important in giving information on how to repair the trust that was broken. It’s important that this isn’t given as an excuse.
Responsibility - key here is the taking of ownership, and saying ‘this is on me’. Saying sorry, without taking responsibility, is just an empty statement. ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’ is not an apology! Grant highlights that research shows that when leaders take personal responsibility for things negative events, they’re viewed more favourably and their company’s stock prices go up the following year. Not just because it shows that they care, but because it also shows that they are in control.
Repentance - promising to do better.
Repair - taking action to restore trust.
Polin’s research showed that the best apologies contained all five Rs. But some elements are more important than others, with one in particular being the standout. Can you guess what it is…?
Responsibility is no. 1. And if we only include three components in our apology, these should be Rationale, Responsibility and Repair (meaning the word ‘sorry’ is not in the top three!).
Focusing on the Repair element, Mark Gallagher provides a brilliant example from the world of Formula 1. He tells the story of the calamitous pit stop carried out by Red Bull in the 2016 Monaco Grand Prix that cost Daniel Ricciardo the race. Pit stops usually take 2 seconds or less (a highly streamlined and practised process); this one took 10 seconds. That failure was the opposite of what Formula 1 teams want to be known for. It was wrong at every level. After that event, apologies were made all round to Ricciardo (who ended up coming second by around 7 seconds). But sorry wasn’t enough - what was needed was a debrief to work out what actually went wrong and how to make sure it didn’t happen again. Time for the Repair. And often part of this will involve changing your processes and procedures.
For this F1 team it meant getting all the key stakeholders together - not just the leadership team but every single member of the pit crew. This was vital as there is usually more than one thing that goes wrong, leading to a cascading of events. In this instance, problems came from mis-communication, driven by the fact that the track is the shortest track on the F1 circuit, and that there is so little garage room for each team that the space Red Bull had was on two floors, rather than one (meaning that race strategists were in a different place from the mechanics), something for which their process was not set up. This led to a change in process for that race, and sure enough, two years later, Ricciardo got his win. As Gallagher says, in F1 it’s accepted that things go wrong from time to time, but what is not accepted is if the same error reoccurs.
As the saying goes, the best apology is changed behaviour.
For those of you interested in different types of errors, Amy Edmondson’s latest book The Right Kind of Wrong categorises these in a very helpful way. Her earlier work on psychological safety is also relevant here, particularly around ensuring an environment where mistakes can be admitted (and apologised for), and then better outcomes secured off the back of them. One of the key drivers of a psychologically safe culture and environment is replacing blame with curiosity. Replacing blame with curiosity. Think about that statement, and the impact it can have on the outcomes when things go wrong. An entirely different trajectory, leading to an entirely better outcome. Grant ends his podcast with a famous story from the Williams F1 team. A driver had a big accident after his steering went out during a test lap. It was one of those accidents where the driver genuinely felt frightened. Afterwards he was invited to the Williams factory by Sir Frank Williams, asked into the Board room, and met the mechanic who had not bolted the suspension together properly. This mechanic apologised, and gave the rationale.
What happened next is extraordinary. Frank Williams promoted that mechanic to Head of Steering Systems. When asked why, he said it was on the basis that said mechanic would never let another Williams car out of the garage without the perfect steering. The diametric opposite of the blame culture.
So next time something goes wrong in your professional life, or even your personal life, think hard about how to give your apology. It matters to getting the best outcomes.
For more on this or any aspect of leadership and performance, with a healthy dose of mindset, sport, and I hope usefulness thrown in, do feel free to browse through all the articles in the Huddle, or get in touch with me directly on catherine@sportandbeyond.co.uk. To order a copy of my book - Staying the Distance: The Lessons From Sport That Business Leaders Have Been Missing – click here . And to listen to the podcast episode referred to (it also covers young children and their apologies around the 19 minute mark) listen here