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Apologies
« Previous EntriesThe psychology, ethics and law of apologies
Friday, July 16th, 2010Yesterday, I had the pleasure of joining reknowned psychiatrist Aaron Lazare and NY Times ethicist Randy Cohen on the Diane Rehm show on NPR. Our topic was apologies, and we spent about an hour kibbitzing the best and worst recent apologies. As a long-time fan of Ms. Rehm I had a ball, and [...]
Will Mel Gibson ever be able to apologize?
Tuesday, July 13th, 2010And we thought it was ugly last time … when Mel Gibson was picked up for drunk driving a while back and let loose with a barrage of ugly sexist and anti-Semitic slurs, it created a firestorm. After all, Gibson isn’t just any actor or director - he’s built his career around his allegedly [...]
Be nice to your staff
Friday, July 9th, 2010Continuing my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, let’s talk about a mistake that managers make all too often. A friend of mine (let’s call her Sam) was complaining recently about her new boss. Seems that the boss who hired her has left for greener pastures, and her new boss [...]
How would you like to get an iPology?
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010Okay, now I’ve seen it all. It seems that a company called High Heels Productions has launched a new IPad app called iPology.app, an app that lets users generate semi-customized apologies based on what they did wrong and to whom they did it. The iPology offers both sincere and sarcastic “iPologies,” and allows [...]
Why General McChrystal couldn’t effectively apologize
Wednesday, June 23rd, 2010Let’s take a break from the Gulf oil spill to look at a mess that’s been brewing here in Washington. Seems that General Stanley McChrystal has been relieved of his duty as top commander in Afghanistan since word leaked out that he and his aides had been downright derisive about their civilian bosses in [...]
Why hasn’t Hearst Corp. helped Helen Thomas apologize?
Thursday, June 10th, 2010Helen Thomas used to be one of the most powerful people in Washington. The grande dame of the White House press corps played a starring role in five decades of Presidential press conferences. She was smart, tough, and articulate, and a worthy challenger to ten different Administrations - until she made some appalling [...]
Now we know why BP hasn’t apologized
Tuesday, May 11th, 2010For the past several days, I’ve wondered why British Petroleum’s CEO, Tony Hayward, has skipped the crucial words “we’re sorry” when discussing the oil leak that’s pouring into the Gulf of Mexico after one of his company’s offshore drilling platforms exploded. It seemed odd because Hayward had already said that BP would pay for [...]
Can we please stop pointing fingers and just mop up the oil???
Monday, May 3rd, 2010As the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico continues to grow, it’s hard not to indulge in a lot of useless finger-pointing. The Obama Administration, under fire for failing to move faster to contain the spill, is blaming British Petroleum. BP CEO Tony Hayward has promised that the company will pay all [...]
Disclose and empathize
Friday, April 16th, 2010Continuing my Friday series on keeping your business out of court, let’s talk about something doctors are learning and business has yet to figure out. When something goes wrong and you injure a client or customer, empathy can be your best defense.
Doctors work hard to do a good job, but even the best doctors [...]
Tiger’s Apology, Part II
Monday, April 5th, 2010Tiger Woods said some pretty remarkable things earlier today. For the first time since his carefully-orchestrated public apology earlier this year, Woods took questions from the press at a conference so packed with reporters that media outlets were asked to send no more than one reporter each. He handled himself pretty well, and [...]
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