The hardest word

I would like to start by saying sorry.  Sorry for repeating what you’ll no doubt have heard endlessly already as the media go into annual review overdrive – that 2009 was the year of the apology.

2009 was the year of the apology

The bankers said sorry for the financial mess.  MPs apologised for their liberal interpretation of the expenses rules.  Tiger Woods said sorry for letting his family down. 

Gordon Brown said sorry for the Damian McBride ‘smeargate’ e-mail scandal. And for spelling a soldier’s name wrong (or not) in a note of condolence to his mother.  And for the child migrant programme, in which thousands of poor children were sent to a life of abuse and neglect in the former British colonies between 1920 and 1967.  I’m not sure that last one was necessarily his fault – he was only 15 when it ended – but I guess he felt he was on a roll.

PR people have long been advising those in the public spotlight to be a bit more forthcoming with apologies.  How many times have we seen an organisation or one of its executives get a long, drawn-out hammering in the media when something has gone wrong because its initial response has come across as callous rather than caring?

Lawyers might prefer ‘No comment’ or ‘It would be inappropriate to say anything during the ongoing investigation’.  But everyone else would much rather hear that the people who might have been responsible are concerned, sorry for any hurt or distress, doing all they can to find out what happened and making sure nothing like it can happen again.

So why, with the bankers and MPs following accepted PR wisdom and apologising, has it been such a PR disaster for them?  Quite simply, because they missed the point that if you say you’re sorry, you ought to also show that you mean it.

Rather like the child forced to apologise to a sibling for some misdemeanour, you just can’t help getting the feeling that many of these apologies are being made through gritted teeth, and that just as soon as the coast is clear they’re going to be back at it again. 

Sir Fred Goodwin set the tone with his refusal to show any contrition about his massive pay off and now its bonus bonanza time at the banks again, while dozens of MPs are challenging orders to pay expenses that have been ruled as unjustly claimed.  

If you say sorry, it is because you have done something wrong.  Usually something that has offended the British public’s acute sense of what is and isn’t fair.  So saying sorry is the start, but ultimately the public want to see fairness restored.

Interestingly, Gordon Brown attracted the most public sympathy this year not when he said sorry to bereaved Jacqui Janes for the poor handwriting in his note of condolence, but when that apology wasn’t initially accepted.  The public thought it wasn’t fair that his telephone apology, made in good faith, was turned around and used against him.

Of course, the problem with fairness is that it is subjective.  Some MPs say that it isn’t fair their claims for renovating their property investments are being clawed back because the rules have been changed after the event.  They may have a point, but they still miss the bigger point – that it runs against the broader public’s collective sense of fairness.  As ever, it is essential to gauge and tune into the public mood.

So what can we learn from this?  That the public want to see fairness restored, as well as contrition.  But fairness is unfair because it is subjective, so you need to stay tuned in to the public mood to know what is fair.  How very unfair.  I’m sorry about that.