How to apologize for the Death Star explosion.
Mistakes happen. Don’t make things worse with a bad apology.
When we build things, we break things. Sometimes we break things in public, and sometimes we break things that affect people’s lives.
You never know when you’re going to discover a problem with your product. Maybe it’s today, maybe next week, maybe next month. Even when we plan well, things happen. Problems are coming. An apology must follow.
Here’s the thing: It is possible to apologize incorrectly. A simple, “I’m sorry,” might work for a typo, but it doesn’t even come close for bigger problems.
Say you managed to survive the explosion that occurred after a targeted attack by a group of your enemies on the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station (AKA the “Death Star”). You’re now the head of operations. It’s time to make a statement to the empire.
In my professional career, I’ve never had to deal with the destruction of a space station, but I have apologized to more than a half a million people, so I want to share a few tips I’ve learned about the art of the apology.
Assess and move quickly.
As soon as a problem is identified and the fires are extinguished, use a triage system to evaluate how fast you need to move.
Is the problem urgent, important or minor? Is is the attack ongoing, or have the rebels already fled back to their base?
You’ll have to make the call, but I recommend you try to get your apology out within 24 hours of discovering the issue.
What just happened?
You can’t write a good apology if you don’t have a full understanding of what happened, so embrace the classic journalism-school “Who, What, When, Where, Why, How” question formula. Try to get a reasonable answer to each question. If your team is still trying to figure out what happened, make a note and follow up later.
Also consider that “Who?” is two-sided. You want to know who is fixing the situation, but to properly frame your audience, you need to know who is affected by the situation. In our example, we’ll need to apologize to the families of the victims and reassure the citizens of the Galactic Empire.
Don’t blame the Rebel Alliance.
It doesn’t matter if the problem was caused by an accident, a natural disaster or a set of stolen plans held by a group of rebels flying around in X-wings. There’s bound to be some aspect of the issue that is your responsibility.
At FreshDirect, I ran the eCommerce group, but I also wrote apologies to customers for delivery issues due to blizzards and hurricanes, power outages, parade routes, presidential convoys, distributor delays and breakages in internal conveyor-belt systems.
Where your user or customer is concerned, it doesn’t matter what caused the problem. They don’t want your excuses. They want to know what happened, why it happened and what you’re going to do about it.
Simple, specific, sincere.
Cliches, blame-throwing and boilerplate have no place in an apology. “Mistakes were made,” doesn’t cut it. People see through that and resent it. Ideally, you will:
- Outline the problem using simple terminology and your WWWWWH data.
- Demonstrate that you understand the harm and damage it caused.
- Apologize sincerely.
- Take responsibility and follow up.
So, to apply that to our Death Star example, a well-constructed apology could look something like this:
“It is with great sadness that I report that a number of our colleagues were severely injured — and many lost their lives — in an explosion today on the DS-1 Orbital Battle Station.
“Our station was damaged when a group of attackers fired proton torpedoes down a thermal exhaust port in the station’s meridian trench. These torpedoes hit the station’s main reactor, starting a chain reaction that destroyed large sections of the station.
While our station design focused on defense against large-scale attacks, the critical exhaust port was overlooked and vulnerable. This outcome was extremely unlikely, but it did happen, and we won’t let it happen again.
“As we begin the work of rebuilding, I want to offer my sincere apologies to everyone who has been affected by this explosion, especially to the families and friends of those who lost their lives or were injured. I am deeply sorry.
“We will keep everyone informed about the progress and timing of imperial memorial services and rebuilding projects.”
Empathize with your audience.
Before you push your apology out into the world, you’ll probably send it past your legal counsel. I also recommend an empathy check. Look for feedback from someone with a high EQ.
Naturally, don’t make it a habit.
And of course, after you deliver your apology, you need to set out a plan to prevent the same thing from happening again.
When you let down your users repeatedly (as Yahoo did with data breaches in 2012, 2013 and 2014) you’ll lose them forever and end up with a shameful Wikipedia page.
On the other hand, a sincere apology, handled well and delivered with a swift demonstration of care and follow-through (as Gitlab did after their recent data loss) can even help to build trust.
Get the basics right, build a solid bridge to forgiveness and soon you’ll be on the road to building the Death Star II.
