How to effectively say you're sorry

I’m tempted to apologize for the subject of today’s newsletter.

It is only marginally connected to sports, and it doesn’t have anything to do with Seattle.

So I’m sorry if you clicked on this hoping to hear more about Klint Kubiak – who’s reportedly getting a second interview with the Seahawks – or Grant Udinski, the Vikings assistant who’s been identified as candidate for Seattle’s vacancy at offensive coordinator.

But we’re going to be talking about apologies today. Specifically, the one that was offered by a Philadelphia Eagles who was recorded making a particularly vile insult to a woman at last Sunday’s playoff game.

Mitch Levy brought up the subject during our weekly segment on his podcast, and it turns out I had quite a bit to say about apologies. Mitch encouraged me to write something about how to apologize properly, and here we are. 

Not only that, but we now have an apology from the Eagle fan in question, which is not the worst apology I’ve ever come across, but is not very good either.

First, if you are seeking something Seattle sports related, here’s this week’s column about the Seattle Mariners, the eminently frustrating franchise. I know several people who have quit rooting for them entirely. I don’t blame them. I also can’t follow that path, though, because I don’t think I should be forced to abandon the team just because the guys who own it can’t seem to get off their wallets and maximize the current opportunity that this team possesses.

Sorry. Where was I?

Oh yeah. The Eagles fan.

 We’re going to treat this like a case study.

The incident: A Packers fan who creates some content around the team went to Green Bay’s playoff game in Philadelphia. He brought his fiancee. They dressed in Packers gear. He recorded an interaction with an Eagles fan who was seated behind them. The Eagles fan used a foul, aggressively misogynist term for female genitalia in addressing the woman. Her fiancée said very directly, but quite calmly to the Eagles fan that he can’t call her that. The Eagles fan pretended to be puzzled as he said, “But she’s a dumb, ugly …” and repeated the term as he gestured toward her. That’s the screen shot you see above. 

The video was posted on the Internet.

Anyone who is even remotely familiar with the Internet can probably guess what happened next.

Some people saw this as evidence of how fans behaved in Philadelphia. Others wondered both why the man was recording and what happened leading up to the insult. Others thought he should have fought the Eagles fan then and there.

The Eagles fan was identified. He began to hide/delete his online presence. His employer was identified. His employer posted on Twitter it was aware of the incident and was reviewing it. The employer later announced the employee had been terminated.

Now I’m not going to use any names because the specific individuals don’t matter to me. I don’t really care all that much about this specific outcome. On the one hand, he is not someone toward whom I feel much sympathy. On the other hand, losing a job is a fairly steep price for something done on his own private time that did not physically harm anyone or anything. Then again, there are certainly better people who have lost bigger jobs for much less. What he said was tremendously repugnant and when it was pointed out that it was not acceptable, he repeated it.  

What I am interested in, though, is how he apologized.

There are a couple of reasons for this.

1. I’m pretty good at apologizing.

   I have lots of reps given the number of things I’ve done that have required me to say sorry. Whether it’s making a drunken ass of myself in public or losing my temper at incredibly inopportune moments for my family, I have lots of practice at saying sorry for something I’ve done. In fact, if anything, I overapologize.

2. People are generally very bad at apologizing.

   This is surprising to me given the frequency of public shaming in our contemporary environment. Not only that, but companies and even individual people spend billions of dollars to improve their public image — there’s even a whole sliver of the industry called “Crisis PR” — and people tend to be fairly terrible at apologizing for public mistakes that they may have made.

So while it’s going to seem like I’m nit-picking this guy’s apology – and I am going to do that – it’s to serve a bigger purpose: Explaining how to properly apologize. 

I have a format for these things. One I learned first from a therapist and later refined with a substance-abuse counselor in Bellevue that was particularly helpful. It starts with the understanding that the actual purpose of the apology is not to be forgiven. You may hope that you’re forgiven after you apologize. It may be what you really want, but that is not something you will ever be able to control. 

The purpose of an apology is to provide a framework to move forward both for you and the person your actions have harmed. You do this by demonstrating a level of accountability over what you’ve done and you outline what you plan to do going forward.

With that in mind, here are the four components of a good apology:

1. Specify what you are apologizing for.

2. Express remorse for this action.

3. Acknowledge the impact your action(s) had on the person you’re apologizing to.

4. Lay out a plan moving forward. This can include offers to make amends or outlining actions you will take going forward to prevent this from occurring again. 

Now, I’m going to include room for one (small) qualifier. Call it Step 3.5: You can briefly (and I mean BRIEFLY) explain your underlying intentions. However, this must be BRIEF and it must be followed by an acknowledgment that what you wanted to happen is secondary to what actually happened. Your intentions do not outweigh, do not negate, do not offset the harm that your actions caused.

Now, let’s look at how the Eagles fan said sorry. Here’s the statement he provided to the New York Post:

1. Did he specify what he was apologizing for?

Yes. He “said things that were unacceptable. In the heat of the moment I chose unforgiving words.”

2. Did he express remorse for his actions?

Yes. He is clear about the regret and explicitly apologizes to not just the woman he insulted, but to everyone his words affected.

3. Did he acknowledge the impact his actions had on the person he was apologizing to?

Nope. The apology would have been more effective if he’d said something like, “Every fan should feel safe to cheer for their team at a sporting event without feeling frightened or being harassed. My actions compromised that for the two Packer fans who were seated by me and others who’ve now seen it. I’m sorry for that.”

4. Did he lay out a plan moving forward?

Nope. No offer to reimburse the fan for the cost of a ticket. No mention of potentially wearing a Packers jersey as penance. In fact, the only mention he made of the aftermath was a reference to the severity of the consequences he has suffered. This is something that should be strenuously avoided in any apology.

There’s a simple reason for this: An apology is not about how this felt for you. It’s about acknowledging and taking responsibility for how your actions made someone else feel. When you try to minimize the severity of your actions or talk about what you’ve faced in the wake of the mistake, you are putting yourself first. An apology is about demonstrating that you understand the way in which you affected something else.

That’s only the second biggest issue with his apology, though.

The fatal flaw is his attempt to mitigate his own responsibility: 

There is only one way for this tactic to actually make your apology more effective: You must specify exactly what was said.

That would actually provide context. That would allow me to decide how out-of-line your comments were. 

But by leaving this open, he winds up looking like the person who gets pulled over for speeding and starts whining to the officer that everyone was going 85 mph, too. Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not. It’s not going to get you out of the ticket, and it’s going to make everyone who sees it think you lack the character to actually take ownership of what you did.

I absolutely believe that there was more to the interaction than what was captured on video. I’m sure there was some give and take. I’ll even acknowledge the possibility that the two Packers fans were the most foul-mouthed, confrontational visitors imaginable who goaded those around them into a reaction and filmed it. I don’t think is a very realistic possibility, though, given how un-confrontational the Packers fan was when he initially challenged the Eagles fan on his language. If you want to know more from the perspective of the Packers fans, they explained their experience in an interview with a local NBC affiliate.

Apology grade: D

Perhaps I’ve found a new calling here. I could call myself The Apologist and sell my services in learning how to say sorry. My first lesson, though, is going to be about understanding that the goal of the apology isn’t to make you look better. It’s to provide a foundation so you can move forward.