When things go badly wrong, it turns out there's actually a lot that we can learn. And in this case I want to think about what we can learn from bad apologies. In 2010, we saw one of the worst environmental disasters of our generation. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill, gushed oil for 87 days, they didn't know how to cap this oil spill. In the initial explosion, 11 workers died. Just an incredible disaster. Now, you could imagine the leadership of BP was having a really bad couple of days, and here's what happened. The CEO, Tony Hayward said, We're sorry for the massive disruption it's caused their lives. There's no one who wants this over more than I do. I'd like my life back. So that's Tony Hayward. Now, on the one hand, we can kind of appreciate he's having a rough day. On another hand, this apology falls far short, because it's so self-focused. And the reaction was pretty swift. Even from employees at BP. Here's someone working in PR who said, the only time Tony Hayward opens his mouth was to change feet. Now, not grammatically perfect but it really captures this essence of how bad this apology is. And there were calls from Capitol Hill for Hayward to resign. And, in fact, he does end up losing his job. The lesson I want to draw from this experience is, we take perspective, that is, when things are going bad for us, they could be going badly for others. And that perspective taking is hard, but essential for delivering an effective apology. Now, let's switch industries, and we'll go to Lululemon. So Lululemon, in 2013, had a problem with the density of their fabrics. And here's what Chip Wilson, the chairman and founder said, some women's bodies just actually don't work. Now, it's kind of funny that as we usually think that pants are supposed to fit the person, but he's suggesting well maybe the person is supposed to fit the pants. And he later apologizes to employees. I'm sorry to have put you through all of this. Now, this apology's to the employees, but not to the customers. So here, the lesson I want to draw is that again, perspective taking is hard and we want to think about the other side's perspective and the audience matters. That is, who is getting that apology really matters. Okay, let's switch gears again. And here we're going to talk about Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods had some problems with his marriage, and he lashes out at the media in his apology. I've been dismayed to realize the full extent of what tabloid scrutiny really means. He goes on, though, and at the end he does, I offer my profound apology. This is 2009. Now here's what's interesting about this apology and where it falls short. Right after he delivered this apology, when things seemed badly wrong for him, he then ends up sailing off on his yacht, and a lot of the media attention then gets focused on this $22 million yacht. It's 155 feet long. It has a private jacuzzi and an elevator and so on. And ironically named the Privacy, and we end up with focus on the yacht and his escape there. And one of the problems, one of the shortcomings with this apology, is that it ends up falling short precisely because we care about penance. That is when somebody is truly remorseful, we expect them to suffer or pay for it. And here, this is the exact opposite of what Tiger Woods seemed to be doing. Okay, now I’m going to jump to 1999. Coca-Cola here in Europe, it started off with a young boy that reported feeling dizzy and a little bit nauseous. It turns out of all of them soon began to file similar reports after drinking Coca Cola. And these reports of dizziness spread and seem to be that there is some problem with carbon dioxide and a plant in Antwerp. Now what do you do if you're Coca-Cola? Now the CEO there, Douglas Ivester said, well we want to take a low profile, we want to see if this thing would blow over, now meanwhile as he is dithering he is sort of waiting, it turns out the media picks this over becomes sensationalized and by the time this is over, 50 million Products are drawn off the shelves. They're thrown out in France, Germany and Belgium. What I want to think about is that, here, in terms of lessons, the speed matters. You can't just wait for things to blow over. You can't wait for the results of a final internal investigation. You need to be more proactive. And your image matters there is only going to psychological contract whos is responsible not just for the letter of the contract, but for people's expectations too. And in this case, people are expecting more. They are expecting to understand that you care, you're concerned that safety comes first, and it didn't seem that way to customers drinking Coca Cola products. Fast forward, here's another failed apology. This is VW, VW turned out to be cheating emissions testing. When the head of VW is dragged up to Capitol Hill, while he was there he offers an apology, but it was really a half-hearted, failed apology. First of all, who goes? It's the head of the US division, not the head of the company. And I would have argued we want the head of the company. We want to really figure out what's going on. We want a candid, clear apology. This apology falls short in a couple of ways. One is it's deflecting blame. This wasn't a corporate decision. The cars are safe to drive. We don't really know exactly what's going to happen. The recalling process could take years. The other thing that happens is first of all, he's saying look, I'm not really in charge. And so it comes across as a limited apology. It's not the head of VW that's going there. And the second part is there's no commitment to change. What we really want to do is understand what VW's going to do. We want that clear, credible, commitment to change and in this case, we're almost certain involve bringing outside party for oversight. So, here are some lessons that we can draw from failed apologies.
