Shop Talk: Apology Expert Ray Hennessey On Saying Sorry At Work
CEOs are being held accountable like never before. Social media and more prominent public profiles have made it next to impossible for company heads to avoid responsibility when and if something goes wrong.
This is something that Ray Hennessey has covered and witnessed during his 25-year career as a journalist and business leader. In his recent book Beyond Sorry: How to Own Up, Make Good, and Move Forward After a Crisis, published earlier this year, he lays out a framework for people to offer sincere and lasting apologies and explores the steps to move forward.
Ray’s bona fides including serving as Editorial Director for Entrepreneur, where he helped launch the Entrepreneur360 and Top Company Culture franchises, as well as the Entrepreneur Network video channel. Previously, Ray helped launch the FOX Business Network, where he served as founding Business News Director.
We talked to Ray Hennessey about the art of the CEO public apology and what thought leaders need to know before and if they decide to own up.
I don’t think people are messing up any more than they used to, they’re just getting found out about it more.
The Helm: This is probably a big question, but can you give us a nutshell kind of answer of how public apology has evolved over the years?
Ray Hennessey: It’s become way more frequent. We’re more likely to apologize just because the things we do wrong are more amplified thanks to social media. And if you look at it from a corporate perspective, most CEOs never felt that they needed to apologize because problems — either in the way that they lead an organization internally or mistakes that they made externally — usually had a very, very limited audience.
If you were a national company you worried about the Wall Street Journal and some of the big newspapers or sometimes, if it was a big enough screw up, you’d got on network TV. Now we live in an environment where a CEO can say something and her staff can immediately put it out on social media. Cameras and recorders are on us all day long. I don’t think people are messing up any more than they used to, they’re just getting found out about it more.
It’s the same even with personal issues. You have CEOs like Bill Gates going through divorces in the public eye. That didn’t happen 20 years ago.
Personal issues or failings become public so often you sometimes have to apologize for mistakes you’ve made.
You should never apologize if you’re not sorry. That’s first and foremost.
The Helm: What are the hallmarks of a legitimate apology?
RH: You should never apologize if you’re not sorry. That’s first and foremost. You need to feel that you can own your actions, you can own up to what you’ve done, and you want to let the world know that you’re going to work through it and learn from it and move forward.
What you sometimes see are these half-hearted apologies where somebody says, “If you were offended, then I’m sorry.” No. If you did something wrong or said something wrong, then you’re either sorry about it or not. It has to do with you as an executive or you as an individual and not necessarily the audience. What does that do, being truly sorry about something? It makes it authentic.
The Helm: A recent real-world example of a public apology was the one made in the U.S. Senate by Boeing CEO David Calhoun in front of crash victims’ relatives. What did you make of that? It seemed almost precedent-setting.
RH: Oh, that was an interesting apology. I thought it was very, very heartfelt and powerful. That’s not easy to do. He could have sat there at the table, and he could have read from a prepared statement, which is what 99% of people in his position would have done. Instead, he got up, he looked them in the eye and he apologized. He knew that they were hostile. That’s what you need to do when you’re taking responsibility. And he did. He took responsibility for that.
The Helm: Going to the opposite end of the spectrum, Elon Musk seems not to care what anyone thinks. He’s not looking for public forgiveness or acceptance.
And if you are comfortable with yourself and your own behavior and your own actions, again, you don’t need to apologize for it. You just face the consequences.
RH: And that doesn’t bother me. He doesn’t think that he has done anything that warrants an apology so he’s not apologizing for it. He’s gotten to where he is based on the traits that made him who he is. Some people like that. Some people don’t. And he is comfortable within himself. And there are people who are very much like that. You’re not going to apologize because a group of people don’t like what you have to say if you truly believe what you believe. And if you are comfortable with yourself and your own behavior and your own actions, again, you don’t need to apologize for it. You just face the consequences.
I could be a jerk in the grocery store and take the last can of peas off the shelves or cut off people with my shopping cart or cut in line. And if I’m comfortable with the fact that everybody in that grocery store doesn’t like my behavior, then why should I apologize for that? I think that’s Musk. And he’s not alone. There’s a number of people who do that.
I like that he doesn’t apologize when there’s controversy. To him, it doesn’t matter. He’s gonna go put another rocket on the moon and he’s upgrade his cars and invest money in all these things important to him. You can’t be sorry for what you believe, unless what you believe has alienated so many people that maybe those beliefs are wrong.
The Helm would like to thank Ray for sharing his time with us. Find him at LinkedIn and on Instagram @rayhennesseywrites. You can order his book Beyond Sorry here.
