COLUMBUS, Ohio – For an apology to work, sincere regret will only get you so far. Be prepared to admit responsibility and walk the walk, as well as talk the talk, according to a researcher at Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business.
In research published in the journal Negotiation and Conflict Management Research, Roy Lewicki, lead author of the study and the college’s professor emeritus of management and human resources, and two colleagues found that there are six components to an apology and the more of them you include when you say you’re sorry, the more effective your apology will be.
The elements of an effective apology include an expression of regret, an explanation of what went wrong, a declaration of repentance and a request for forgiveness.
But the most important is ‘fessing up.
“Our findings showed that the most important component is an acknowledgement of responsibility. Say it is your fault, that you made a mistake,” Lewicki said.
The second most vital component is an offer to repair what has been broken
“One concern about apologies is that talk is cheap. But by saying, ‘I’ll fix what is wrong,’ you’re committing to take action to undo the damage,” Lewicki said.
Of the remaining four, Lewicki says asking for forgiveness is almost a waste of time.
In two separate experiments, Lewicki and his co-authors — Robert Lount, associate professor of management and human resources at OSU, and Beth Polin of Eastern Kentucky University — tested how 755 people reacted to apologies containing anywhere from one to all six of the elements.
Lewicki says the value of each component was the same whether the apology was related to failures of competence or integrity but participants were more likely to accept apologies for incompetence than a lack of integrity.