A friend was telling me the other day about a conversation he had recently overheard in a company.

One of the individuals, an over-aggressive, hard-driving, take-no-prisoners type of manager, had a company-wide reputation as a bully. He was told by his V.P. after increasing feedback not only from the direct reports of this bully, but also from others with whom he had to work, that he had to go around and apologize to those whom he had offended.

He and his V.P. made a list of those to whom he needed to go and offer an apology, and, list in hand, off he went, one more task to get off his over-loaded plate.

As soon as he spotted an individual, he would go up, and say something along the lines of, “I understand that I hurt your feelings the other day. I would like to apologize and tell you that was not my intention.”

These conversations took place in offices, in hallways, in the cafeteria, (and I suspect, in the elevator and bathroom) – whenever and wherever he could locate the victims.

As apologies go, I would give it a 3 out of 10, but what was surprising was to hear the response of those being apologized to. “That’s o.k. No big deal”, or “Oh, that’s all right. I just thought you were having a bad day”, or, in one case, “You didn’t hurt my feelings”.

My friend, (whom, I’ll admit, confessed to doing some eavesdropping on the public area conversations because he was so amazed by the approach), wanted to know what I thought.

“Well, outside of the fact that a drive-by apology is generally never seen as sincere or meaningful,” I replied, what surprised me was quality of responses that he seemed to get. I’d be very surprised if your bully comes out of this exercise believing that he really did or said anything inappropriate. Give him three months or so, and you’ll find that his behavior hasn’t changed at all. As a matter of fact,” I continued, “this process was so painless that it may take even less time than that.”

“What would you have done, then, if you were the VP?” my friend asked.

“I think asking this bully to apologize for his actions was the first step in helping to correct bad behaviour. What the VP should also have done, in my opinion, was to sit down with the victims on the list, and coach them how to respond in a meaningful way to this apology. If the victims discount the impact that the bully’s behavior had on them, why would you ever think that the bully would understand the impact that his actions had? ”

“If you look at the infraction records, oftentimes it’s the same firms that are getting caught, a sign that the executives are condoning bad behavior. The tone is set from the top, and it doesn’t cost anything to change that.”

~ Barbara Roper, Director of Investor Protection, Consumer Federation of America

There are programs in some prisons where people convicted of serious crimes have an opportunity to meet with the relatives of people whom they have murdered, for example, and hear from them, in very real and honest ways, the impact that their actions had on the family. The family is no longer an abstract concept. but living people who have feelings and are not at all shy about expressing them.

For those convicts who do experience that psychological breakthrough, and begin to understand how their actions affect others, the meeting with the victims as they honestly tell them how they feel, how their lives were changed, how they suffered, seems to be a catalyst.

Many people are so wrapped up in themselves, their own needs and wants, or their tasks, that they have no ability to experience empathy and understand how others are emotionally affected by their actions and crimes. It is not enough for a third person to tell you that you have hurt someone’s feelings. You need to hear this from the victim himself.

So, the next time someone comes and apologies for calling you a doofus in front of the whole team at the weekly management meeting, don’t let him or her off the hook. Say something like, “Thank you for your apology. Your comments and especially the names you called me embarrassed me in front of all my colleagues, and made me wonder if I am contributing anything at all to this team. Calling someone out like that in front of everyone in the group has made the whole group gun shy about offering any new ideas in case they suffer the same fate. I accept your apology but I believe that you will need to say something to everyone in the group who witnessed that attack.”

If we cannot bring ourselves to let the aggressor know the impact of his/her behaviour, then in some way, we collude in helping that person to maintain it.

© 2009, Pitsel and Associates Ltd.

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