Apologize

© Roald Kvam 2021

People fall. What’s important is how you get back up… And to restart smart you need to own your mistake and acknowledge it to find a way forward. Because what you resist persists, and dwelling doesn’t help. The better way is to proactively repair when things go wrong.

In the book Power Thinking: How the Way You Think Can Change the Way You Lead, John N. Mangieri, Ph.D., and Cathy Collins Block, Ph. D., give us 4 steps to practice repair:

1. Find out what went wrong.
2. Apologize for negative outcomes that your decision or behavior caused.
3. Explain why you made the decision (or took the initial, ineffective action.)
4. State what you want to achieve in the future with a new decision or action.

An important addition could be 5. Empathic listening; listen until the other person feels heard, and don’t get defensive.

The core is acknowledging what went wrong, and co-creating the future. From what I’ve seen, even if you fumble with the words, if it’s from the heart, that’s what matters. 

Apologizing is from my heart to your heart. Don’t make it a head-nodding-thing. In the end, it’s got to come from the right place and head for a better practice.