A little lesson from Chris Brogan about the power of apology. Everyone makes mistakes–but not everyone does the tough thing and apologizes. And sometimes, apologizing can set you apart from the crowd in life & in business.
The Power of Apology:
The other day, I made a mistake. I sent 17,600 (or so) people an email that was actually intended for a select 200 people. It was a mechanized delivery process, and it just went to the wrong list. I started getting messages back almost immediately by people who didn’t much appreciate what felt very much like spam.
I felt mortified. I didn’t want to address it. I wanted to hide under a rock.
Instead, I drafted a very quick message to say that I was sorry. I sent it out to the same 17,600 (or so) people and asked their forgiveness. And then I waited. Here’s a sampling of what I got back for responses:
Lynn - You’re a class act. I wondered about that email. Now I understand. Mistakes happen, and once again, you show how to react.
Nicole - YOU can spam me any day! JUST YOU! Hope all is well and Happy Monday!
David - We forgive you. J Hope all is well at SXSW.
Judy - Gosh! It’s lovely of you to send this note. And I understand – hey, it happens to everyone!
Thank you for this follow up e-mail. It’s very nice.
Pat - All is forgiven. Good to see even the great ones make the same mistakes we do 
.
In fact, I went through several thousand responses (many of them “out of office”) and found not ONE person who said something negative after sending the apology. Now, in truth, I imagine that most people who were upset by the mistake voted by opting out of receiving mail from me ever again. But I was thankful to see that my apology seems to have been the right thing to do.
What do you think? Have you ever had a situation like that?
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Great thoughts, thanks!
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Heather Allard Reply:
March 25th, 2009 at 4:39 pm
Glad you liked it!
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i think that was very nice of you!
trisha
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Actually, it was very nice of Chris Brogan–HE’s the one who wrote the post/apology–I just excerpted it from his blog.
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