Listen up, Ryan Lochte: One Wharton professor has some advice on how to deliver an effective apology — and he’s got the research to back him up.
Time Magazine recently published an op-ed by Wharton professor Maurice Schweitzer and Columbia Business School professor Adam Galinskyin which they identified essential elements for a good apology — and how Lochte’s initial apology missed almost all of them.
“I thought Lochte was an interesting case because he’s a familiar face, there’s an interesting story and his first apology was just horrendous,” Schweitzer said in an interview with The Daily Pennsylvanian.
According to Schweitzer and Galinsky, a good apology must be candid, accept responsibility, express remorse and commit to change.
“Let them know that you’re really sorry,” Schweitzer explained. “You can give something up, you can take some action to demonstrate that you really regret what happened. And the second piece is a commitment to change — demonstrate that things will be different going forward, and think of things that might bind you to that commitment.”
While those ideas might seem like simple common sense, Schweitzer said, they can sometimes be surprisingly hard to follow. Following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, former BP CEO Tony Hayward infamously stated that “there’s no one who wants this thing over more than I do. You know, I’d like my life back,” inspiring backlash against his perceived lack of remorse.
“When things are going badly, we naturally focus in on ourselves,” Schweitzer said. “As the head of BP ... [Hayward]’s had some really bad days. And yet, when we apologize, we need to really be outward focused — we need to think about other people.”
Others might find it hard to apologize well for another reason: It makes us feel better when we don’t say we’re sorry.
“When people refuse to apologize, they actually feel more powerful,” Schweitzer said. “And what I’m extrapolating to is that people perceive others who don’t apologize as more powerful because it makes their actions seem intentional, it makes them seem more confident.”
One Wharton alumnus is notorious for such refusals to apologize — Wharton ’68 graduate and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
“Donald Trump exudes high confidence as if he’s sure about himself, and that confidence makes him look more powerful,” Schweitzer said.
But while his supporters may view him as powerful, trust in Trump is not particularly high, a problem he shares with Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton. CNN/ORC polling indicates that while Clinton far outstrips Trump in perceptions of experience, the two are nearly tied in truthfulness and honesty, with neither seen as particularly trustworthy.
“I think in Hillary’s case her actions in a couple of respects — [mostly] the email issue and the foundation issue — have degraded trust,” Schweitzer said.
While Clinton has been criticized for a lack of transparency and candor, rectifying this may not be high on her agenda.
“Hillary Clinton is running a very careful campaign. She’s really working extremely hard to not get tripped up or sidetracked, not to get off message,” Schweitzer said. “And I think ... that careful control is probably the slow and steady process that a political advisor would suggest. But it’s not the one that’s going to instill the deep trust that I think a lot of Americans would like.”
