Dennis Crowley & The Art of the Apology

Dennis Crowley, the CEO of Foursquare, recently came under fire after it was discovered that his wife Chelsa used a fake bib to run the Boston marathon.

Although he’s since offered a more, erm… apologetic apology to the community that was upset by the actions of his wife, his original apology fell short of what a good apology should be. As I read it, I couldn’t help but notice how much of the apology was about him and his wife, and not about the people they might have hurt.

I did a quick analysis of his original response on the WCVB website, and found that nearly two-thirds of what he wrote centered on him and his wife. Only a little more than 30% of the 27 lines he wrote were some form of an apology.

In three of his four paragraphs, what started as an apology quickly switched into an attempt to justify his and his wife’s actions.

The reality is that when you're offering an apology, the party to which you are apologizing is not terribly interested in how you're feeling; they want to hear an acknowledgment of how you made them feel through your action or inaction.

As a post on the Harvard Business Review blog lays out:

In a nutshell, the problem is that most people tend to make their apologies about themselves—about their intentions, thoughts, and feelings.

“I didn’t mean to…”

“I was trying to…”

“I didn’t realize…”

“I had a good reason…”

When you screw up, the victim of your screw up does not want to hear about you. Therefore, stop talking about you and put the focus of your apology where it belongs: on him or her. Specifically, concentrate on how the victim has been affected by your mistake, on how the person is feeling, and on what he or she needs from you in order to move forward.

After some exchanges on Twitter, it seems that Dennis Crowley learned his mistake and he offered a better apology on Medium. It's probably a good reminder for all of us on how we should be apologizing the next time we hurt someone.