Q & A Table of Contents
The Importance Of Apologies
From: Rosaria, Melbourne, Australia
Question: Could you help us resolve a question facing for employees who work in a restaurant: one of the workers is an Aboriginal and he wants all his co-workers to sign a sorry book to commemorate the ‘stolen generation’ — the generation of Aboriginal Australians who were stolen from their home areas and subjected to forced assimilation into the European culture of the majority of Australians. How should I deal with this situation?
Response: Before addressing the specific question you raise, it is very important to understand that apologies are phenomenally important in negotiation. In all human communication there’s a risk that one or more of the people involved might say or do something others find offensive. Sometimes there is a history of bad relations among individuals, between companies, or — as in the case you describe — between people from different cultural/ethnic groups. When an apology is appropriate and genuine, it may not wipe out perceptions of past wrongs — but it can establish a sense of good faith between folks who might otherwise have a difficult time with each other.
People from certain cultural/ethnic/national groups may have a chip on their shoulder about what they perceive as past wrongs. How significant this may be needs to be questioned before you make a decision how to deal with it.
In the case of your restaurant, you need to ask whether there is a potential impact in signing the sorry book that extends beyond your restaurant. For example, what have other businesses in Melbourne — or across Australia — done when presented with the request for the apology for past wrongs to Aboriginal people?
If you and your colleagues sign the sorry book, what kind of impacts can it have on your business? What sort of effect might it have on relationships within the restaurant staff? Are there any members of the staff who feel there is nothing about which to apologize? Did the person who wants the sorry book signed present the idea as a request, as a demand, as a suggestion? While there is little likelihood that any members of the team at the restaurant participated in the government-sponsored harm done to Aboriginal people, it may well be that you and most or all of your colleagues feel that those actions were, indeed, bad behavior. If that is the case, and if signing the sorry book will make your Aboriginal colleague happy, it does not appear that signing the book creates a problem.
On the other hand, if there are differences of opinion, you need to figure out whether the relationship with your Aboriginal colleague is important enough to override disagreements and be a strong enough motivating factor for the team to sign the sorry book. In other words, you need to look at what interests you have that are important — for example, whether the relationship is more important than any concerns about whether the idea of the sorry book was presented in a friendly or hostile way.
Apologizing by signing the sorry book may indicate that the signer’s ego is not troubled by the gesture of apology — and it may help heal painful personal or communal memories that truly bother your colleague.
Open discussion can make the process work better. Apology only hurts the ego of someone who is insecure about his/her self-image.
Good luck,
Steve
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