Getting the last word with apology | Jennifer Thomas | TEDxGreensboro

I'm sorry often is just not enough. This talks help us understand what a person needs to hear and experience as opposed to what the other person says. What we say meets our needs, but what someone hears may or may not meet their needs.

Jennifer Thomas is a practicing psychologist and author focusing on communications and relationships. Her focus is offering seminars and sessions for leaders, managers, and individuals on increasing effective positive communication and interaction.

This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at http://ted.com/tedx

Ten years ago, my husband and I
had an argument.

That is never fun.

Being at fault, I said, "Sorry."

I noticed JT was unusually
quiet during dinner.

There was tension in the air
and a knot in my stomach.

What my apology had lacked in elegance,
I thought it made up in simplicity.

Apparently not.

Recognizing that my apology
had failed miserably,

I did what any well-trained
expert communicator would do.

I went inside and asked myself a question:

"What's the matter with him?"

(Laughter)

Actually, I asked him,
"What's the matter?"

He said, "Well, I just wish
you would apologize."

I wanted to say,

"What'chu talkin' 'bout, Willis?"

But I said something like,
"I said I was sorry."

And then I got curious.

"JT, what was I supposed to say?"

That's when I heard it.

"Honestly, Jen, I wanted you
to say you were wrong."

Wow!

Looking back, I realized
that instead of making me guess,

he had given me a gift.

What happened next?

I said, "That's what I meant to say.
I made a mistake, and I was wrong."

And soon, the tension between us
lifted like a fog rolling out to sea.

We went on to have a happy evening,

and I had my usually
easygoing husband back.

This experience between us

was directly related to my work
as a clinical psychologist,

and it sparked my research
on apologies and forgiveness.

I realized JT is not alone.

We all have scripts -
that come from our childhood -

for apologies.

But the trouble

is we have a glaring lack of awareness
about effective apologies.

In my work as a business consultant,
I've seen my share of failed apologies.

It's so easy to feel overlooked,
undervalued, and ignored.

And I know the real cause of trouble
in our offices today -

it's that we work with people
who don't know how right we are.

(Laughter)

Every time we get offended,

it creates an emotional block
between us and them.

And the next time it happens,

another block,

until we have a big wall,

and it's very hard to talk
through a wall or around a wall,

and it doesn't go away
just with the passing of time.

But apologies require vulnerability,

and they feel too risky to some people.

Now, TED speaker and researcher
Brené Brown insists,

"Vulnerability does not mean weakness."

Now, if I could talk
to that person in your office

who hasn't given a decent apology
since the Bush administration,

that's 41 not 43, here's what I would say:

"You are crushing your credibility
and trashing your trust.

This is stunting your career growth

and causing untold frustration
for the rest of us."

What we really need
are baby steps for apologies.

My passion is to help people know
what to say whenever sorry isn't enough.

To that end we have amassed

what may be the world's largest data set
on apology preferences,

and we're just beginning.

The impact of our findings
on relationships at home and at work

could be truly transformative.

Now, who do I mean when I say "we"?

I realized that JT and I
were speaking different languages,

and I thought there might be a lot
of people in the same boat.

So naturally, I reached out
to Gary Chapman,

New York Times bestselling author
of the relationship book

"The Five Love Languages."

He was kind enough to sit down with me,

and we began by reviewing
his five love languages.

Those are: words of affirmation,

quality time,

receiving gifts,

acts of service,

and physical touch.

What he says is if you really want someone
to feel loved or appreciated,

you should not speak
your own love language,

but you should speak theirs.

Otherwise, you're just
going to be wasting your efforts.

When we sat down and talked,

I shared with him just
what I've shared with you here,

and I added, when it comes to apologies,
the key word is sincerity.

We want to know,

"Did they really mean this,

or are they just trying
to get this behind us?"

And I told him that I
was struck by the similarity

between this need to match up
our apologies with what they expect

and the need to match up love languages
with what they expect.

Then I waited for his reaction.

To my relief, he really
resonated with the idea.

He said,

"Yes, for any relationship to last beyond
the initial infatuation stage,

people have to be able to apologize."

And about a few months later,
he gave me this endorsement.

He said, "Jennifer, what you have
brought to my attention,

along with the love languages,

I would call the other essential
for happy, healthy relationships."

So we teamed up for some research
that became our book

"When Sorry Isn't Enough."

Today, we've asked 45,000 people,

"What do you most want to hear
when people apologize?"

And a second question,

"When people apologize to you,
what do you expect them to say or do?"

You might want to make
a mental note of these questions

because they're good ones
for you to use in your own life.

Now, their answers fell into
five categories.

And I promise we weren't looking for five,

although we know
he really likes that number.

(Laughter)

And we coined the term "apology languages"
for these five different ways of saying

"My bad."

Each one is a separate key.

Now, if you have a key
and it unlocks a door,

you might be tempted
to use that on every door,

but that would be foolish
and would only end up in frustration.

It's the same way
with our apology languages.

Now, I'm going to share with you

percentages on how popular
each of our five apology languages are.

This data is hot off the press
for our event today.

The first apology language
is expressing regret.

40% of people most want
to hear us say, "I'm sorry,"

but that is not a complete sentence.

It's important that we give detail
about their feelings.

How we've made them feel sad,
angry, frustrated, worried.

They need to know that we really get it.

And if it's just a small offense,
that may be enough,

but if it's something
that's either serious or repeated,

they're really going to want
to hear their apology language.

It might be something
like our second language:

accepting responsibility.

37% of people most want
to hear us say, "I was wrong."

See, I've been practicing.

(Laughter)

Now, this is really hard
for some people to say.

We find especially people
who come from a family of origin,

or we call it "FOO" in psychology speak -

the kind that puts the fun
back in dysfunction.

(Laughter)

They may have been told all the time
not just what they did wrong,

but that they were bad, bad, bad ...

and they learned
to cover up their mistakes.

The fact is we all make mistakes.

Our third language of apology
is making restitution or making amends.

10% of people really want us to ask them,
"What can I do to make this right?"

For them, talk is cheap.

They want to see action.

Our fourth one is revising the plan.

10% of people also want to hear us say

what's going to be
different going forward.

They want to know that we've put
some time and effort

into making a better plan.

This didn't work, so we should tell them,

"Okay, this is a new insight I have
about where I went off track

or how much I disliked this situation.

We can't promise we won't make a mistake,

but here's my best plan for preventing us
from ending up in this bad spot again."

And our final language of apology
is the request for forgiveness.

3% of people most want
to be asked that question.

"Will you please forgive me?"

Now, you may be saying,

"Jennifer, I've never asked that question;
that would never even pop into my head."

The fact is, for people who as children
were expected to ask that question,

they're going to expect that of us,

and if we don't ask them, they may feel
like we're holding out on them,

or we were just getting warmed up
for a great apology.

Why did we stop?

Those are our five languages of apology.

As you can see, you simply can't guess
what's going to speak to a person.

And if you're talking to someone

you don't know what
their apology language is,

or if you're giving an apology to a group,
we recommend that you use all five.

Now, I do blogging
about apologies in the media,

and I find that public figures
use all five of these only 1% of the time.

(Laughter)

Lots of bad language about this, yes.

"Mistakes were made.

To the extent that you
were offended, we apologize."

(Laughter)

I had such a good time

analyzing apologies
by Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong,

and any number of baseball players.

(Laughter)

You also might notice,
as you look at these numbers,

that there's a huge imbalance.

And someone might be asking themselves,

"Okay, do we really need
to focus on the meager 3%

who want the request for forgiveness?"

If you are a smart manager, you will.

I worked with a company

that had an employee named Sarah,

and actually, I'm making up that name,
but I'll call her Sarah,

and she paid such close attention
to every single detail

that she was driving her work team crazy.

One day, a guy who I'll call John
blew up on her again.

He actually did come to her the next day
and started to give her a quasi-apology.

He said something like,
"Sarah, I shouldn't have said that."

But you see, Sarah is in the 3%,

and John was way out of the ballpark
with what she wanted to hear.

She was left thinking,
"And? Give me some more here."

But John wouldn't budge.

And after a little bit,
when she wouldn't let up,

he began to lob stink bombs at her.

Give me a nod if you've ever been hit
by one of these phrases:

"We can't do anything about it now,"

"You're too sensitive,"

"It's time to move on,"

"Why can't you just drop it?"

And this one's really popular:
"Let's let the past stay in the past."

Hopefully, we can all
do better than John did.

Let me share a few tips with you
that we've learned along the way.

First, we want our body language
to match up with our words.

Everyone has that BS meter,
and it will go off

(Laughter)

if we seem very closed.

Now, I also want you
to not apologize by text.

Don't you all hate that?

Friends don't let friends text apologies.

None of your body language
is going to come through that way.

And it's just too simple;

it doesn't show your sincerity
because it's too easy.

Now, if it's a serious apology,

I want you to consider writing it out,
and taking it and reading it to them.

The time you took to write it
will show them your sincerity.

Also, don't let yourself get distracted,
so leave that cellphone behind.

And then, I've narrowed it down
to three defensive apology mistakes

that people often make.

Let's not blame, excuse or deny.

This happened to spell BED.

Blaming, that seems
to come naturally to kids,

and I know a few adults
who haven't outgrown that yet.

When my younger son had a Lego creation
that turned up broken parts of pieces,

he honed in on me as the culprit.

He said repeatedly that I was at fault,
and finally, I went to him and I said,

"Russel, I'm tired of you blaming me
for having busted your Legos.

I'm sorry about it, but I didn't do it."

Well, he leveled his gaze on me,
and with his five-year-old logic, he said,

"I'm not blaming you.
I'm saying you're the one who caused it."

(Laughter)

We also need to be careful
not to make excuses.

Benjamin Franklin said this,
"Never ruin an apology with an excuse."

And a red flag that an excuse is coming
is when we hear the word "but."

Especially "but you," right?

Then we know they've stopped apologizing

and they're now blaming me
for their poor actions.

And we don't want to deny what we've done.

We should never try
to bluff our way around an apology.

When people make a mistake,
we admire those who admit their missteps.

It is the quality of our relationships
that drives our happiness in life.

So when we return to those
imperfect people in our world,

let's commit to doing our part
to make things right with others.

Let's put ourselves into their shoes

and give them what
they really want and need.

What's the payoff?

Your team members will trust you,

your customers will be loyal to you,

you'll be replacing discord with harmony,

your relationships will be
more peaceful and productive,

and you, you will feel glorious freedom.

Now, as I talk today,
someone has come to your mind.

How do I know?

The hundreds of people
with whom I've talked have told me so.

Here's what you can do

when you feel like
you've already tried everything

to make things right with someone.

Demonstrate leadership,

make the next move.

To make sure you aren't just missing it,

like I did with JT,

use all five apologies in your keyring.

When you look back,
you will never regret it.

(Applause)