Hey friends welcome to Skillopedia. The place to learn skills for the real world. You’re
with me Niharika and in today’s session, we are gonna learn, how to apologize correctly.
Just the right way. Well, we are humans, we make mistakes, we are fallible, we mess up.
But then there are some people, who really struggle with delivering apologies. Now owning
up to your mistake, accepting that yes you are mistaken and then apologizing is quite
a huge step for many people. So in today’s session, let’s have a look at some tips
that would help you to apologize the right way.
The first tip that i have for you, if you have to apologize to someone is face time.
Now we are so dependent on technology. We text people, we email people. But it just
takes too much of effort to call them or even to meet them in person. Now what i really
believe that when it comes to apologizing someone, be it in your professional life or
be it in your personal life, it’s important for you to meet that person and personally
apologize to him or her. With the help of technology, people end up texting or emailing.
Now that’s a big no. Well, it kind of comes as arrogance. Yeah it’s very easy to just
text a person and say, Hey I’m sorry. But that doesn’t really show how you really
feel about the situation. Whether you’re really sorry or not. It’s your body language
that shows, that yes you are really sorry about something. About the mistake that you
made. So I always suggest people that it’s important for you to apologize in person.
Now if the person is in a different country altogether, then just pick up your phone and
call them and personally apologize to them. Avoid texting or emailing.
The second tip that I have for you is Acknowledge. Acknowledge the consequences. Well, if we
make a mistake, there’s certain damage that we make. People suffer, probably there’s
too much of inconvenience that we cause. Maybe there are business loss, but how do we handle
this? Now of course, you apologize, but before apologizing, it’s important for you to acknowledge
the consequences. If it is your mistake, you acknowledge, that Oh my god!, this is what
had happened, sorry about the inconvenience, sorry about the damage. And of course also
suggest the ideal way that this situation could have been handled. So in this way, you
are actually asking for forgiveness. You’re acknowledging the fact that yes it was your
mistake, it could have been handled in a better manner and your asking for forgiveness. So
I totally believe that when you are apologizing, please do acknowledge and ask for forgiveness.
The third tip that i have for you is find solutions. Any apology has three parts to
it. The first one is when you apologize, when you say I’m sorry. The second part is when
you own up to your mistake. And the third part is when you agree that yes it was a mistake
and you kind of find solutions. Like you are gonna do something to correct your mistake.
So these are the three parts of any apology. So the most important part is to find solutions.
For example, if you have made a mistake, bring a solution to a table and this way, you know
the other person would understand or realize that it was just a mistake and one can be
forgiven. I’ll give you an example, There’s a friend of mine, who handles events. Now
he was organizing an event and the client had said that the event is for four thousand
people. But guess what my friend thought or he kind of mistakenly thought that the event
is just for four hundred people. Wow that’s a huge mistake. Well, of course the event
did not go well. Too many problems, it was too much of chaos and the client was extremely
upset. Now the friend of mine, of course he owned up to the mistake, apologized constantly,
but also found a solution. Went up to the client apologized and said that we can have
this event once again. So that’s kind of a solution though this is just an example,
but also you need to follow the same theory. You need to understand that apologizing is
not the only thing that you got to do. It’s important for you to come up with solutions
on the table and this helps you to get forgived.
The last tip that i have for you in order to apologize the right way is to understand
that it takes time. When any relationship is all shaken up, it’s important for you
to understand that it takes time to rebuild that relationship, to rebuild that trust.
Usually when people apologize, when they say sorry to people. They just think that the
work is done, but in fact, it’s important for you to constantly communicate or get in
touch with that person. Try to understand whether the person has really forgiven you.
Now to do so, what you need to do? Constantly keep calling them. Of course don’t call
them like ten times a day. Maybe once a week in order to understand that, if the person
has forgiven you. People usually tend to give up. They just say that okay i have apologized.
Why is this other person not reacting? This is where you need to understand that it’s
gonna take time to rebuild that trust. So the other things that we learnt in today’s
session well follow that. Apologize, acknowledge, find solutions and then ask for forgiveness.
Once you follow these steps, you will realize that apologizing to any person is not really
a difficult task. It is much easy then what you think.
So this brings me to the end of this session today, hope delivering apologies will not
be really a difficult task for you. So go ahead and apologize to the people that you
really have to and I’ll be back with a new session on Skillopedia very soon. So please
do subscribe to Skillopedia. The place to learn skills for the real world.