Thank You for Arguing (Revised and Updated)

by Jay Heinrichs

  Have you noticed how much harder it is to get a man than a woman to apologize? Aristotle, that wise old soul, noted that men tend to be especially concerned about size. I often give a presentation to corporations and professional groups titled “How to Screw Up,” and every time I do, women come up to me afterward to tell me how they apologize way too much while the men in their lives never do. Why? Because men understandably feel queasy about shrinking. But that doesn’t mean men should apologize more often. In fact…

  Don’t apologize at all. The problem with an apology is that it belittles you without enlarging your audience. Belittling yourself fails to un-belittle the victim. That’s why apologies often don’t work. They rarely seem sincere enough or extreme enough. And many people—especially men—try to couch their apologies in ways that avoid belittling themselves: “I’m really sorry you feel that way.” Apologies like that only increase the belittlement, implying, “I really wish you weren’t such a sensitive flower.” Try this sometime. Shrink your audience to the size of a plant and watch the anger flow.

  Whoa, wait. Aren’t we splitting a hair or two here? When I told my boss how terrible I felt about misplacing a volcano, wasn’t that the same as an apology? Actually, no. Look closely and you will find a critical difference. When you own up to falling short of your own expectations, you emphasize your high standards. Focus on the standards, and you can actually make your ethos bigger in your audience’s eyes. Say you’re sorry, and you shrink.

  Still not convinced? Imagine making these two statements to a supervisor:

  YOU: Boss, you know what a detail person I usually am. In this case, though, I didn’t live up to that reputation. My mistake drives me crazy, and I’ll be even more fanatical about detail in the future.

  YOU: Boss, I screwed up, and I apologize. I’m really, really sorry, and I promise it won’t happen again.

  In each instance, how do you think your posture would look? Where would you be looking? I’m guessing you stood up straighter in the first version and looked pretty hangdog in the second. Version one emphasizes your craft and your cause. Version two sticks to caring; your apology seeks to repair a damaged relationship by putting yourself below the level of the victim. But even a sincere, heartfelt, over-the-top apology won’t get the job done. Not only does it focus on the blameworthy past; it delays fixing the problem. A self-shrinking act makes you less capable of boosting the other person. And, ultimately, boosting the victim—correcting the wrong, empowering the powerless—leads to long-term mutual happiness.

  Of course, it’s not a bad thing if your boss mistakes version one for an apology. But while he looks for contrition, you happen to be moving the issue into a bright and ethos-enhanced future.

  Mapmaker, Mapmaker, Fake Me an App

  You may find yourself sometimes having to clean up after someone else’s screw-up. This happens most often at work, and it can drive you crazy. But a visible mistake by a boss or your company gives you a chance to show your stuff—enhancing not just your higher-ups’ reputation but your own. So what do you do when the screw-up happens in the workplace? The same tools apply.

  Let’s look at one particularly notable disaster, the NFL referee lockout in the fall of 2012. Essentially, it came down to money. The referees wanted more, and the team owners—represented by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell—didn’t want to pay them more. Instead of halting the season and losing all that revenue, the NFL locked out the veteran referees and hired temporary substitutes. To a non-fan, the results were hilarious. To a fan, they were tragic: blown games, wildly missed calls, referees throwing mixed signals or the wrong ones altogether. People were dressing up for Halloween wearing black-and-white stripes and clown wigs.

  The pro refs eventually won, getting pretty much the raise they wanted. Meanwhile, the league ruined some games and temporarily diminished the sport. So what would you do if you were Commissioner Goodell? I’ll tell you what the commish didn’t do. He didn’t say he was sorry. “We look forward to having the finest officials in sports back on the field,” he said. (Notice any future going on there?) He added, “I want to give a special thanks to NFL fans for all those death threats.”

  Actually, he thanked them for “their passion.” Same thing.

  Pundits excoriated Goodell for failing to apologize. But you have seen what an apology does: as a form of self-abasement, an apology shrinks the apologizer. Instead, Goodell focused on his goal. Did he aim to become the most popular NFL commissioner in history? Doubtful. Instead, his goal was to make money. After the lockout ended, attendance and viewership rose above the levels of the previous year. The sport achieved these numbers not despite the lack of apology but arguably because of it. Rhetorical theory would hold that an apology might even have caused some harm. How? By focusing on the past, where blame lies, and by making the NFL seem weaker. Football and weakness do not pair well. Besides, by shifting rapidly into the future, Goodell focused on the refs themselves. The cameras showed the veterans striding onto the field to the cheers of thousands. Fans held signs (printed and distributed by the NFL itself) saying “Welcome Back NFL Refs.” Did you ever imagine you’d see fans holding up signs praising referees? The moment enhanced not just their reputation but that of the sport itself. You think Goodell was crying in his beer, wishing he had apologized? (Rhetorical question intended.)

  On the other hand, many people wrongly praised Apple CEO Tim Cook for apologizing after the release of the flawed new Apple Maps. Along with the release of the iPhone 5, the company came out with a new operating system that included cool maps to compete with the ubiquitous Google product. The Apple executive who introduced the maps, Scott Forstall, bragged about their great graphics, soaring 3-D views, and voice navigation. There was just one little thing wrong with them: they couldn’t be trusted to get you where you were going.

  Not that saying sorry is always wrong. People expect it, and the word itself may not harm you. Just don’t hope that the apology will do anything more than meet expectations for politeness. I often tell my wife I’m sorry. Usually I genuinely am. But if I stopped there, it would be like offering wrapping paper without the present. And in the corporate world, offering an apology without the rest of the screw-up recovery package can cost billions. Cook relied on his apology. Big mistake.

  One thing I love about corporate screw-ups is how much they enhance our Facebook experiences. People were posting pictures of a hairy Tom Hanks in Castaway with the caption “Buy an iPhone 5, they said. Comes with a map, they said.” And they were putting up pictures of the TV show Lost, labeled “Apple’s Map Development Team.” This meme-enabled shaming worked better than a whole MacBook full of apologies.

  Nonetheless, Tim Cook apologized. “At Apple, we strive to make world-class products,” he began. “With the launch of our new Maps last week, we fell short on this commitment.” This was a pretty good start that enhanced the company’s cause or virtue: Apple strives to be world-class. If he’d followed our tools for handling a screw-up, he might have come out okay. He’d have switched immediately to the future and worked on Apple’s caring and craft.

  FUTURE: In the very near future you’ll see the best smartphone navigation ever imagined.

  DISINTEREST: We’re going into fire-drill mode to get there, doing whatever it takes to give customers the experience they expect of Apple.

  PRACTICAL WISDOM: Our engineers have already spotted the flaw and are finding ways to improve Maps well beyond what you see now.

  But Cook didn’t say any of these things. After admitting the company fell short, he apologized.

  COOK: We are extremely sorry for the frustration this has caused our customers…

  To be fair, he did say, “We are doing everything we can to make Maps better.” But that weak switch to the future made Apple seem even smaller. Not “Our world-class people are on the case and will get you t
he experience you expect,” but “We’re doing everything we can.” Not “Make Maps the best ever imagined,” but a flaccid “better.”

  Sigh.

  Many Apple watchers and pundits actually praised Cook for his apology. This was the new Apple! Kinder, gentler, free of the arrogance and impenetrability of Cook’s predecessor, Steve Jobs. But Apple didn’t do all that badly under Jobs. Arrogance is just a slightly darker form of audacity, and impenetrability leads to mystery. The apology shrank Apple to sub-Jobs size.

  Persuasion Alert

  Nice fallacy! Did you spot it? The apologies correlate—happen together—with these examples of business success or failure. But correlation doesn’t prove causation. Where there’s smoke there’s fire. But smoke rarely causes fire. That’s the Chanticleer fallacy, post hoc ergo propter hoc.

  To add insult to abasement, Cook fired Scott Forstall, the man behind Maps, allegedly for refusing to sign the apology. (I suspect that the Maps screw-up itself may have had something to do with it.) Forstall had chosen unemployment over shrinkage. At any rate, neither the apology nor throwing Forstall under the GPS bus helped Apple’s standing. Its stock went into free fall.

  One guy doesn’t apologize, and business improves. One guy does, and the stock tanks.

  A lack of apology does not have to get you in hotter water. Instead, stay big, show concern, talk about high standards, and fix the problem. When you can, be first with the news and a plan. Switch to the future. And move on.

  Screw-Up Parenting

  What happens when it’s not your boss doing the screwing up but someone close to you—say, your own kid? Believe it or not, the same rules apply whether we’re talking about a corporate CEO or a seven-year-old child.

  Actually, given recent corporate screw-ups, maybe you find that comparison easy to believe.

  When Dorothy Jr. was five, she had all the unapologetic feistiness of a Scott Forstall, plus the job security. (She knew her position as older child was safe.) After one particularly torturous moment with her two-year-old brother, Dorothy Sr. sent her to her room until she apologized. Off she went with a determined look on her face. I turned to Dorothy Sr.

  ME: I believe you just painted yourself into a corner. After a few hours you’ll have to choose between giving in and starving the kid to death.

  DOROTHY (looking desperate): You can help me think of other punishments.

  ME: Trade embargo?

  DOROTHY SR.: She needs to learn how to apologize. It’s an important skill. Every civilized person needs to learn it.

  ME: Why?

  DOROTHY SR.: So she doesn’t grow up like you, having to ask why. And never apologizing.

  Dorothy Jr. didn’t apologize. She sat there in her room until her mother set her free, triumphant and hungry, after dinner. At that stage I hadn’t connected my newly learned rhetoric to the art of making good, or I would have pointed out that demanding an apology challenged Dorothy Jr.’s identity. People will go to almost any lengths to protect who they are. And, come to think of it, Dorothy Jr. was in the exact same position as Scott Forstall. An apology to her little brother would constitute an act of self-belittlement, shrinking her to his level. And so her job as elder sibling, with all the rights and privileges thereof, would be in jeopardy.

  What if, instead of an apology, we taught her the skill of making good? I can imagine saying something like this.

  DOROTHY SR.: You painted smiley faces all over George’s favorite truck. I wish I’d learned what you did from you instead of George. That way you could propose how to fix this. Instead, I’ll decide. You’re going to go outside and show him how to build a garage out of leftover wood scraps—you’ll find them out back. And you’ll pay for paint out of your allowance, so George can repaint his truck. And you’ll promise me you’ll ask George’s permission before you borrow his toys again.

  Odds are, we would find ourselves in a negotiation instead of a hostage situation. Dorothy Jr. would try to get out of the payment, the two would settle for her helping George fix up the truck, and the kids would go outside to build the garage. Peace would reign for a solid ten minutes before the next crisis. Meanwhile, Dorothy Jr. would learn the lessons of making good: report first, have a plan, switch to the future.

  Whenever I teach screwing up to adults, a number of them will raise objections. An apology is a moral good. It’s something you owe someone, a debt that must be repaid. People who expect an apology get even angrier when one doesn’t come. Or, as with Scott Forstall, failing to apologize could cost you your job.

  I love it when people challenge me on apologies. It’s a fun debate, and sometimes saying a simple “I’m sorry” really can serve as a shortcut to—I’m talking strictly to men here—getting a woman back in the mood. Toilet seat up? Sorry. Will do my best to close it in the future. Boom. Done. But I hope this chapter demonstrated the manipulative beauty of rhetoric. You want everyone to leave happy. You want to solve genuine problems, make real choices. You want your maps to work and your fans to cheer the referees. You want kids playing happily, if briefly, together. If you still think rhetoric is a bad thing, then I don’t want you near my toy truck.

  The Tools

  To err is human; to benefit from an error, rhetorical. Just follow these steps:

  Set your goals right after you screw up.

  Be first with the news.

  Switch immediately to the future.

  Avoid belittling the victim.

  Don’t rely on an apology. Instead, express your feelings about not living up to your standards.

  23. Seize the Occasion

  STALIN’S TIMING SECRET

  Spot and exploit the most persuasive moments

  A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak…

  —ECCLESIASTES

  As far as I know, my mother played exactly one practical joke in her entire life. She did it to teach my father a lesson, though neither one ever told me what Dad had done. It must have been egregious; Mom was not the joking type. She had a great sense of humor, but not the kind that needs a victim—except for this one time. It was as if she had waited all her life just to spring one joke and then retire in triumph. The joke went like this.

  Dad comes home from work one Friday evening to find a dive mask, snorkel, fins, and a tiny Speedo laid out neatly on the bed.

  Persuasion Alert

  Why am I suddenly using the present tense? For the same reason jokes often do. The present conveys enargeia, the sense that you’re right here, right now.

  DAD: What’s that for?

  MOM: It’s for the party tonight.

  DAD: I thought it was just dinner.

  MOM: No, it’s a costume party.

  DAD: What for?

  MOM: The women just thought it would be fun to have the men wear something wild.

  DAD: Where’s your costume?

  MOM: I’m wearing a dress. The women won’t be in costume.

  You’re thinking, what chump would fall for something like that? But it was inconceivable that Mom would know how to pull off a joke, even if she wanted to. It was unprecedented, and that was what made Dad fall for it. So Dad puts on the Speedo, grabs an overcoat from the closet, and drives her to the party. There he dutifully sheds the coat and dons the snorkeling gear before flopping up to the host’s front door and ringing the bell.

  DAD: What are the other men wearing?

  MOM: Oh, we’re not supposed to tell. That’s a surprise.

  DAD: What do you mean, a…

  Argument Tool

  KAIROS: Rhetorical timing, an ability to seize the persuasive moment.

  The door opens to reveal a formal crowd of women in dresses and, of course, men in coats a
nd ties. Dad told me later that he was too much in awe to be angry. After all, she used remarkable patience and timing to make her husband look like an ass. Whatever it was he had done to her, I doubt that he did it again.

  Rhetoricians would appreciate Mom’s mastery of time and occasion. The ancients had a name for it: kairos, the art of seizing the perfect instant for persuasion. Just as educators have their “teaching moment”—an opportunity to make a point—persuaders have their persuasive moment. A person with kairos knows how to spot when an audience is most vulnerable to her point of view, and then exploits the opportunity. When someone sees you all dressed up and wants to know what the occasion is, he asks a kairos question: What timing and circumstances warrant that outfit? Snorkeling gear at an evening cocktail party is bad kairos. Knowing the perfect occasion to make your husband wear inappropriate snorkeling gear: that’s good kairos.

  Classic Hits

  WE CAN CALL HIM “NICK OF TIME”: The Greeks made kairos into a god and sculpted him as an athlete, beautiful in front and bald in back, to show the persuasive moment as fleeting. The Romans changed his name to Occasio—“occasion.” He survives in the expression “Fortune is bald behind.”

  A race car driver with kairos knows how to spot an opening and cut off the car ahead. (The ancients referred to chariots. Same thing.) A kid with kairos can tell precisely when her father is most vulnerable to a request for ice cream. Kairos, in short, means doing the right thing—practicing your decorum, offering the perfect choice, making the perfect pitch—at the right time. The ancients made a big deal of kairos, because those fleeting moments are essential to changing an audience’s mind.