The Power of Apology -- Blog Entry by Chris Brogan dated March 18,2009

Earlier this evening while I was browsing for a quote I needed for a piece I was drafting, I stumbled on a blog entry by Chris Brogan in March of 2009. The title of the blog entry was "The Power of Apology." With a sense of the deep-rooted value of the philosophy and practice of the power of apology, I was compelled to read the entry that can be found at this link: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/the-power-of-apology/.

Incited by the simple and compelling message of the entry, I was inspired to post the following as a reply. I'm pasting it as is into my own blog now in hopes that this recount of an experience I've long been meaning to share will also be of value to anyone who may stumble upon the link to Chris' blog or to the reply comments that I and others were inspired to post.

Thank you Chris for prompting me to finally write about and share this profound learning experience.

Stymied by apology... Thank you for this inspiring reminder of the power of apology. Your message has inspired me to share an experience that was profoundly telling. I hope by sharing it here it will help others who might stumble upon it to gain a better understanding and appreciation of just how powerful an apology can be.

I was doing an impromptu role play with a fellow Toastmaster on the theme of conflict management. My direction in the role play was to act as a co-worker whose idea had been stolen, with the other character having accepted full credit and accolades from superiors. As we became embroiled in the passion of our role-play exercise, my emotions were quite truly stirred, as though I was really feeling the hurt and betrayal one would sense in a similar real-lief situation. I felt myself taking ownership of the role and of the feelings of resent and anger and hurt that were brewing in me. It became easier and easier for me to strengthen my debate, as I vehemently listed my points in a verbal attack on my opponent.

I wondered how we were ever going to wrap up the impromptu role-play as my resolve and my voice and my anxiety were all mounting in a crescendo toward crisis, as was hers with each attempt she made to refute my retributional verbal assaults on her integrity and moral character having inflicted incalculable torment on the instantly vanished value of our friendship (or at least the value of the friendship of the characters we were role playing.)

As our time was almost up, I wondered really how we were possibly going to have any success with the exercise in which the objective was to manage our conflict and to develop a resolution. Although we were only role playing, our emotions were running high and the fast-approaching deadline by which we had to resolve the matter was adding to our sense of stress. Suddenly, my fellow Toastmaster's character had a stroke of genius. She simply said, "It sounds like I've really upset you and that wasn't what I had set out to do. I apologize for hurting you. Maybe we could go together to our boss and explain this situation so that you can get the credit you deserve."

Honestly, I was dumb-founded. I was utterly speechless. My character's anger melted and my resentment was now vanishing at a rate proportionally inverse to which my respect and hope for fulll recovery of our friendship was now mounting. It was beautiful.

We wrapped up our conflict management impromptu role play with a successful resolution before the deadline. It seemed strikingly easy. It makes me wonder if in real life there were such deadlines by which one or the other of the parties involved in a dispute would have to come up with the stroke of genius to apologize when they have offended somone, there might be alot less mounting of tension and hostility that often results from the snowball effect of what may have begun as a relatively trivial slight. The detrimental and compound negative affects of trivial slights or wounds that are allowed to fester without the treatment they need; i.e. apology, run the risk of becoming incurable with the passage of time.

Ideally, heartfelt apologies expressed at early onset of the hurt that others may be feeling as a result of our actions can readily stave off ailing relations. Under less than ideal circumstances nonetheless, where the ailment of a relationship may have advanced to a terminal diagnosis, there is of course always hope for a miracle cure that could result from a heartfelt apology at any time before whatever the dealine may be.

With apologies for what turned about to be a much lengthier entry than originally intended, I thank you for your interest.

Ardently,

Kathleen