I hate being wrong. It chafes me, and I swear it leaves a rash. But being all too human, I’m sorry to say I can’t avoid it from time to time. (More’s the pity.) Over the years, I’ve had many occasions to sample a flaky slice of humble pie and apologize to partners, customers, supervisors, co-workers, family members … you name it. I’ve had enough practice to get pretty good at it. (Not that I should brag about it … sorry about that.)

An article in Slate today about why we often seem so quick to take offense with each other got me thinking about the art of apology in our project environments. Hey, this is project management; things are going to go wrong. It’s a given! Why else are so many pages of various project management guides devoted to the innocuously named “issue management” strategies? The art is not to completely avoid issues and offense, which is almost impossible, but rather to avoid as many of them as possible and to promptly apologize and fix those that slip past our social and managerial radar. A key to doing that well is understanding why we take affront with each other; or, put differently, why a customer might appear to take personal umbrage when something goes wrong with the project.

Emily Yoffe’s thought-provoking article holds that our social interactions are ruled by “the three R’s”: Respect, Reputation, and Reciprocation. If the product is delivered with bugs and missing features, the true offense in the customer’s eyes may be that we didn’t accord the project, their needs, and their investment in our services the proper respect. If the date slips, the real danger may not be the delay as much as the risk to their reputation. This may be particularly true if the date has been announced publicly; at that point, the customer risks a public perception that they don’t doesn’t respect their customers. Even worse, it may endanger their reputation with their Board of Directors. Who among us will not bristle when faced with that meeting? When a customer has invested considerable time, effort, or money in a project and the results are less than exemplary, they may feel that we have not properly reciprocated their commitment—that, essentially, the situation simply is not fair. (It may sound like a third grade playground, but don’t underestimate this sense of fairness. See, for example, Yoffe’s description of the “ultimatum game.” Apparently, most people would even forfeit free money to punish someone who violates their sense of fair play.) 

Yoffe’s categories are readily applied throughout our workplace, between co-workers, both up and down the chain of command. It’s fairly easy to continue analyzing similar situations and see where the three R’s would be invoked. Keeping these in mind—and thus understanding the cause of hurt feelings and damaged trust—makes it easier for us to fix the situation, which is far more important.

1. Apologize, and mean it. If you can’t, remove yourself from the situation find someone who can. Insincere apologies don’t mean any more in the workplace than they did when your mother held your little brother by the ear and forced him to apologize for breaking your toys. You didn’t buy it then, and your customer won’t buy it now.
   
   If you are sorry, go to the trouble of describing what you’re sorry for, in such a way that you demonstrate you truly understand the offense. “I’m sorry the schedule slipped so far” rings hollow if you just finished explaining that it was completely out of your control. “I’m sorry we didn’t call you as soon as we realized there was a problem,” sits much better, because it acknowledges the risk to the customer’s reputation and the sense of disrespect they may be feeling. It also hints at the probable strategy for avoiding or minimizing future problems.

2. Fix it, if you can. A slipped delivery often can’t be repaired, but slipped quality and missing features can. Make the missed features a priority in an upcoming release. Offer free customer support services to resolve the quality issues. If your schedule slip comes in the middle of the project (kudos to you for ‘fessing up before D-Day), offer a timetable for making it up in the next phase. Just make sure it’s one you can meet!
   
   If you can’t fix it, compensate for it as best you can. Compensation can take many forms; in some situations, a sincere apology and admission of wrongdoing will be enough. But it should be at least somewhat reciprocal. Overcompensating for an error can seem as false and half-hearted as under-compensating. Remember high school tiffs and “if it will make you feel better, you can hit me back”? It’s hard not to hear an offer like that without a mental eye roll and the thought that somehow your grievance still isn’t being taken seriously. The best advice here is to follow the golden rule; if you were the person offended, what would satisfy your sense of fairness? Offer whatever it would reasonably take to make you happy as a customer.

3. Take steps to avoid a repetition. If a reasonable person would have felt wronged, and there is action a reasonable person could take to avoid causing that offense in the future, take it. It’s pretty hard to go wrong by erring on the side of caution. Over time, this attitude builds a culture of prevention rather than correction, which encourages your team members to speak up the moment they see trouble coming and look for ways to avoid it. Not only does this make your teams more productive and boost morale, it will make your organization easier to work with and help you build a solid reputation for fair treatment of your customers. 

This is the day-to-day application of lessons learned that project management students are always preaching, and there’s no better practice for it. Small lessons along the way, and the adaptations they inspire, can go a long way to avoiding the big, expensive lessons we all prefer to avoid. Besides, there are usually fewer people watching on the smaller errors. That smaller audience makes it just a little easier to say, “I’m sorry”—though it still may itch a bit.

Comments

Such wise advise! The three R's take into account what makes anyone successful in any culture, any company and under any situation. Thanks for the reminder and tips for practical application in the work environment.

I really got a kick out of seeing these concepts applied to a project situation. It made me think. I am well aware that I consistently get upset when something goes wrong somewhere in my personal life... bad service from a waitperson in a restaurant, a service person showing up late or not at all from an appointment I am missing work for, etc. The Slate article reminded me that the force of my anger is driven by this "How can this person devalue me and my time and what I need (and they're getting paid to provide) to this degree? How can they think this is OK?" But when they sincerely apologize, explain what held them up, what got mixed up, I can unbend at least a bit and cut them some slack (of course I know how crazy all our jobs and schedules are, and stuff goes wrong etc.) The sincere apology, the desire and effort to make it right, go most of the way for me.

So hmmm, on projects.... Yeah, if i'm late yet again on something I owe someone and say "i'm sorry i'm late again", well whoop-de-do. If I don't work HARD to NOT be late the next time, I haven't done any good. (I"ve always liked the Stephen Covey "personal integrity bank account" from The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People... every time I miss a date I draw down my store of built up points in that account...)

DeAnna's post makes me think of more project-wide applications. Say one group has missed a major milestone that is going to really hurt another functional group, probably cut their timeline, increase their stress. Contrast an attitude in the team of "well, it's just the way it is, we're all pushed to the limit" emanating from the late folks... with sincere efforts on the part of project manager and functional folks to say "hey, we're struggling here, we know this is goign to mess you up. We're sorry it's come to this, what can we do to ease this, can we find some ways to help reduce the impact on you?...." Even if you can't find huge ways to help the work or date issues, I'll bet the apology and willingness to try to make it right could tanglibly reduce the negative reactions and team stress.