Last week here in the UK, a couple of our Members of Parliament (MPs) made comments they regretted \u2013 or perhaps they regretted? Whether they did or they didn\u2019t regret them, it has been claimed in some quarters that they said \u2018sorry\u2019 for their interventions, but I\u2019m not sure that they did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Labour front bencher Diane Abbott was the first. She Tweeted a fairly sweeping generalisation about what \u201cwhite people\u201d allegedy sometimes do, and in doing so raised a few eyebrows. She eventually sought to minimise any damage caused \u2013 after either a period of reflection or having been ordered to \u2013 and issued a statement. Within it she said, \u201cI understand people have interpreted my comments as making generalisations about white people. I do not believe in doing that. I apologise for any offence caused.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second example, which occurred around the same time as the first, was by a member of the Conservative Party \u2013 fortuitously, as it hopefully protects me from accusations of political affiliations! Our Prime Minister had made unfavourable comments about Ed Balls\u2019 body language at Prime Minister\u2019s Questions. He also felt the need to apologise. \u201cI was speaking off the cuff, and if I offended anyone of course I am very sorry about that,\u201d David Cameron said to Andrew Marr on the latter\u2019s BBC1 Show. \u201cThat was not my intention at all.\u201d, he added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But these aren\u2019t apologies. They are excuses for apologies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let\u2019s say you go into a shop to complain about how you have been treated by a member of staff, because their actions and behaviour made you angry. You explain all this to the manager. The manager then apologises to you for your anger. How is that likely to impact on you? Has that really helped? And, perhaps most importantly, how seriously is the matter being taken.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Both Abbott and Cameron have only apologised to people experiencing negative feelings \u2013 and only for the feelings, not for their own actions. If you didn\u2019t experience any feelings, they are not talking to you. They haven\u2019t taken responsibility for their behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This theme of responsibility raised its ugly head again yesterday when I was watching a football match on the Television. A player was waiting for the ball to be returned to him so that he could take a throw in, and from the brief close up it was obvious that the player was receiving a considerable amount of abuse from that section of the crowd. The commentator felt a need to comment. Perhaps because of the colour of the players skin, perhaps because the player had recently been involved in a high profile confrontation with an allegedly racist foundation, perhaps for some other reason. Commenting about the abuse of footballers, he said, \u201cIt is habitual \u2026. It goes on, blue, red, black, white, it\u2019s the nature of the beast\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sadly, I accept such abuse happens \u2013 I go to football matches. But it\u2019s not habitual and if I am part of that collective \u2018beast\u2019, it\u2019s certainly not in my nature. I would have preferred it if the commentator had been a little less resigned and a shown a little more responsibility. Rather than accepting it as the norm and labelling everyone, would it not have been more helpful for him to point out the unacceptability of what was happening, and that it doesn\u2019t have to be like that, to the millions who were viewing?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Having staff take responsibility for their actions is a key role of management. Where a manager genuinely apologises for the inappropriate or unhelpful actions of one of their staff, as opposed to the feelings of the customer, he or she is more likely to deal with the matter robustly. And where the manager ensures that the employee takes responsibility for their actions, the approach is more mature and more beneficial for organisational development \u2013 which can only contribute positively to the organisation\u2019s successes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am currently working with one organisation where such an approach has had a powerful result. In past times, when one of their drivers had a collision, they gave them additional training. For the past few years the first thing they do \u2013 where the driver is at fault \u2013 is to require them to take responsibility for their actions that led to the collision. This discussion leads to a greater insight into what the person has done and their specific development needs. This approach has contributed to a more than 25% reduction in collisions for this organisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps if this approach led to a 25% swing in voters, MPs would be more adept at taking responsibility for their actions \u2013 genuinely or otherwise!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Paul<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Last week here in the UK, a couple of our Members of Parliament (MPs) made comments they regretted \u2013 or perhaps they regretted? Whether they did or they didn\u2019t regret them, it has been claimed in some quarters that they said \u2018sorry\u2019 for their interventions, but I\u2019m not sure that they did. Labour front bencher […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,7,16,17,29],"tags":[35,199],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions\/367"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/breathe-pod.org.uk\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}