Getting the last word with apology | Jennifer Thomas | TEDxGreensboro
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Not SyncedTen years ago my husband and I had an argument.
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Not SyncedThat is never fun.
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Not SyncedBeing at fault, I said "sorry"
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Not SyncedI noticed JT was unusually quiet during dinner.
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Not Syncedthere was tension in the air and a knot in my stomach
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Not Syncedwhat my apology had lacked in elegance, i thought it made up in simplicity.
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Not Syncedapparently, not.
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Not SyncedRecognizing that my apology had failed miserably, I did what any well trained expert communicator would do.
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Not SyncedI went inside and asked myself a question:
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Not Synced"What's the matter with him?"
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedActually, I asked him: What's the matter?"
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Not SyncedHe said: "I just wish you'd apologize."
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Not SyncedI wanted to say: "Whatcha talkig about Willis?"
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Not SyncedBut I said something like: "I said I was sorry."
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Not SyncedAnd then I got curious. "JT, what was I supposed to say?"
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Not SyncedThat's when I heard it.
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Not Synced"Honestly, Jen, I wanted you to say you were wrong."
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Not SyncedWow.
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Not SyncedLooking back, I realized that instead of making me guess, he had given me a gift.
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Not SyncedWhat happened next?
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Not SyncedI said: "That's what I've meant to say. I made a mistake and I was wrong."
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Not SyncedSoon the tension between us lifted like a fog rolling out to sea.
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Not SyncedWe went on to have a happy evening and I had my usually easygoing husband back.
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Not SyncedThis exprience between us was directly related to my work as a clynical psychologist and it sparked my research on apologies and forgiveness.
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Not SyncedI 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.
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Not SyncedIn my work as a business consultant I've seen my share of apologies. It's so easy to feeel overlooked, undervalued, and ignored.
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Not SyncedI 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.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedEverytime we get offended, it creates an emotional block between us and them.
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Not SyncedThenext time it happens, another block, till 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.
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Not SyncedApologies require vulnerability and it feels too risky to some people.
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Not SyncedTED speaker and researcher, Brene Brown, insists "Vulnerability does not mean weakness."
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Not SyncedIf 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:
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Not SyncedYou are crushing your credibility and trashing your trust. This is stunting your career growth and causing untold frustration for the rest of us.
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Not SyncedWhat we really need are baby steps for apologies.
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Not SyncedMy passion is to help people know what to say whenever sorry isn't enough.
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Not SyncedTo that end we had amassed what maybe the world's largest data set on apology preferences and we're just beginning.
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Not SyncedThe impact of our findings on relationships at home and at work could be truly transformative.
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Not SyncedWho do I mean when I say we?
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Not SyncedI realized that JT and I were speaking different languages and I thought there might be a lot of people in the same boat.
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Not SyncedI reached out to Gary Chapman, New Your Times bestselling author of the relationship book The Five Love Languages.
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Not SyncedHe was kind enough to sit down with me and we began with revealing his five love languages.
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Not SyncedThose are: words of affirmation, quality time, receiving gifts, acts of service, and physical touch.
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Not SyncedWhat he says is if you really want someone to feel loved and appreciated you should not speak your own love language but you should speak theirs.
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Not SyncedOtherwise you're just gonna be wasting your effort.
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Not SyncedWhen 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.
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Not SyncedWe wanna know, "did they really mean this or are they just trying to get this behind us?"
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Not SyncedAnd I told him that I was struck by the similarity between this need to match our apologies with what they expect, and the need to match our love languages with what they expect.
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Not SyncedThen I waited for his reaction.
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Not SyncedTo my relief, he really resonated with the idea.
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Not SyncedHe said, "Yes, for any relationship to last beyond the initial infatuation stage people have to be able to apologize."
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Not SyncedAnd about few months later he gave me this endorsement.
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Not SyncedHe said, "Jennifer, what you have brought to my attention along with the love languages, I would call the other essential for happy, healthy relationships."
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Not SyncedSo we teamed up for some research that became our book When Sorry Isn't Enough.
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Not SyncedToday we've asked 45 000 people, "What do you most wanna hear when people apologize?"
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Not SyncedAnd the second question, "When people apologize to you, what do you expect them to say or do?"
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Not SyncedYou might wanna take a mental note of these questions because they're good ones for you to use in your own life.
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Not SyncedTheir answers fell into five categories.
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Not SyncedI promise we weren't looking for five, although we know he really likes that number.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedWe coined the term apology languages for these five different ways of saying "my bad."
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Not SyncedEach one is a separate key.
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Not SyncedIf you have a key and it unlocks the door, you might be tempted to use that n every door but that would be foolish, and would only end up with frustration.
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Not SyncedIt's the same way with our apology languages.
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Not SyncedI'm gonna share with you percentages on how popular each of our five apology languages are.
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Not SyncedThis data is hot of the press for our event today.
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Not SyncedThe first apology language is expressing regret.
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Not Synced40 people most wanna hear us say I'm sorry but that's not a complete sentence.
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Not SyncedIt's important that we give detail about their feelings.
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Not SyncedHow we've made them sad, angry, frustrated, worried. They need to know that we really get it.
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Not SyncedIf it's just a small offence, that may be enough but if it's something that's either serious or repeated, they're really gonna want to hear their apology language.
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Not SyncedIt might be something like our second language.
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Not SyncedAccepting responsibility.
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Not Synced37 people most want to hear us say "I was wrong."
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Not SyncedSee, I've been practicing.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedThis is really hard for some people to say.
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Not SyncedWe find especially people who come from a family of origin or we call it FOO in psychology speak.
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Not SyncedThe kind of put the fun back in disfunction.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedThey may have been told all the time not just wht they did wrong but that they were bad, and they learnt to cover up their mistakes.
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Not SyncedThe fact is, we all make mistakes.
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Not Syncedur third language of apology is making restitution or making amends.
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Not Synced10% of people really want us to ask them "what can I do to make this right?"
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Not SyncedFor them, talk is cheap. They wanna see action.
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Not SyncedOur fourth one is revising the plan.
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Not Synced10% of people also wanna hear us say what's gonna be different going forward.
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Not SyncedThey wanna know that we've put some time and effort into making a better plan.
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Not SyncedThis didn't work so we should tell them "Ok, this is a new insight I have about when I went off track or how much I disliked this situation."
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Not SyncedWe can't promise won't make a mistake but here's my best plan for preventing us from ending up in this bad spot again.
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Not SyncedOur final language of apology is the request for forgiveness.
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Not Synced3% of people most want to be asked that question.
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Not Synced"Will you please forgive me?"
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Not SyncedYou may be saying, "Jennifer, I've never asked that question, it would never even pop into my head."
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Not SyncedThe fact is, for people who as children were expected to ask that question, they're gonna expect that of us.
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Not SyncedIf we don't ask them, they may feel like we're holding out on them or we're just getting warmed up for a great apology, why did we stop?
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Not SyncedThose are our five languages of apology.
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Not SyncedAs you can see, you simply can't guess what's gonna speak to a person.
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Not SyncedIf 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.
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Not SyncedI do blogging about apologies in the media and I find that public figures use all five of these only 1% of the time.
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Not Synced(Laughter)
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Not SyncedLots of bad language of apology
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Not Synced"Mistakes were wade to the extent that you were offended. We apologize."
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Not SyncedI had such a good time analyzing the apologies by Tiger Woods, Lance Armstrong, and any number of baseball players.
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Not SyncedYou also might notice, as you look at these numbers, that there's a huge imbalance.
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Not SyncedSomeone might be askig themself, "Ok, do we really need to focus on the meger 3% who want the request for forgiveness?"
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Not SyncedIf you're a smart manager, you will.
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Not SyncedI worked with a company. Employee name is Sarah, I'm making up that name.
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Not SyncedShe paid such close attention to every single detail that she was driving her work team crazy.
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Not SyncedOne day, a guy who I'll call John, blew up on her again.
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Not Syncedhe actually did come to her the next day and started to give her a quasi apology.
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Not SyncedSaid something like, "Sarah, I shouldn't have said that."
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Not SyncedBut you see, Sarah is in the 3% and John was way out of the ballpark with what she wanted to hear.
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Not SyncedShe was left thinking, "And? Gimme some more here."
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Not SyncedBut John wouldn't budge.
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Not SyncedAfter a little bit, when she wouldn't let up, he began to lob stink bombs at her.
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Not SyncedGive me a nod if you've ever been hit by one of these phrases:
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Not Synced"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?"
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Not SyncedThis one's really popular: "Let's let the past stay in the past."
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Not SyncedHopefully, we can all do better than John did
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Not SyncedLet me share few tips with you that we've learned along the way.
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Not SyncedFirst, we want our body language to match up with our words.
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Not SyncedEveryone has that BS meter and it'll go off if we seem very closed.
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Not SyncedI also want you to not apologize by text.
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Not SyncedDon't you all hate that?
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Not SyncedFriends don't let friends text apologies.
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Not SyncedNone of your body language is gonna come through that way and it's just too simple and doesn't show your sincerity because it's too easy.
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Not SyncedIf it's a serious apology, I want you to consider writing it out and taking it and reading it to them.
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Not SyncedThe time you took to write it will show them your sincerity.
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Not SyncedDon't let yourself get distracted so leave that cellpfone behind.
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Not SyncedAnd then, I narrowed it down to threedefensive apology mistakes that people often make.
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Not SyncedLet's not blame, excuse or deny.
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Not SyncedThose happen to spell BED.
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Not SyncedBlaming, that's seems to come naturally to kids and I know a few adults, who haven't utgrown that yet.
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Not SyncedWhen my younger son had a Lego creation that turned p broken parts and pieces, he honed it one me s the culprit.
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Not SyncedHe 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."
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Not SyncedHe leveled his gaze on me and with his 5-year-old logic he said, "I'm not blaming you, I'm saying you're the one who casued it."
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Not SyncedWe also need to be careful not to make excuses.
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Not SyncedBenjamin Franklin said this, "Never ruin an apology with an excuse."
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Not SyncedAnd a red flag that an excuse is coming is when we hear the word "but."
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Not SyncedEspecially, "but you."
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Not SyncedThen we know, they've stopped apologizing and they're now blaming me for their poor actions.
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Not SyncedWe don't want to deny what we've done.
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Not SyncedWe should never try to bluff our way around an apology.
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Not SyncedWhen people a mistake, we admire those, who admit their missteps.
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Not SyncedIt is the quality of our relationships that drive our happiness in life.
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Not SyncedWhen we return to those imperfect people in our world, let's commit to doing our part to make things right with others.
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Not SyncedLet's put ourselves into their shoes and give them what they really want and need.
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Not SyncedWhat's the pay off?
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Not SyncedYour team members will trust yo, your customers will be loyal to you.
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Not SyncedYou'll be replacing dicord with harmony, your relationships will be more peacefull and productive.
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Not SyncedYou will feel glorious freedom.
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Not SyncedAs I talk today, someone has come to your mind.
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Not SyncedHow do I know?
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Not SyncedThe hundreds of people with whom I talked have told me so.
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Not SyncedHere's what you can do, when you feel like you've already tried everything to make things right with someone.
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Not SyncedDemonstrate leadership, make the next move.
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Not SyncedTo make sure you aren't jut missing it like I did with JT, use all five apologies in your keyring.
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Not SyncedWhen you look back, you'll never regret it.
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Not Synced(Applause)
- Title:
- Getting the last word with apology | Jennifer Thomas | TEDxGreensboro
- Description:
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- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 17:06
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