Do you avoid apologizing? Do you have trouble apologizing? Is it scary? I’ll show you how to apologize in a way that’s not so scary, with real examples. You can do it!
Tyler Small: Apologizing can be really difficult. So today I'm going to teach you how to give a Five Star Apology. I'm Tyler Small, and this is Hacking Emotional Intelligence. So when I first started coaching people, it was all about the Five-star Experience, there's open, deliver,
[00:00:20] follow-up I covered that in the last episode. How to create these amazing Five-star Experiences for people without needing to read minds. And I probably should do a whole episode on that just because I was pretty brief in the last episode. But the Five-star Apology follows three different steps.
[00:00:37] And really I think that the first thing we can do, if you're not sure what to apologize for. I'm giving you permission right now to ask, what do I need to apologize for? What should I maybe apologize for? That's something you can ask people and you need to make sure that before you give the apology, there's some sincerity to it, right?
[00:01:06] But that relieves you of this really difficult challenge to know what should I be apologizing for? And some people they think that you should know, but the trouble is sometimes you don't know. So you can explain that to people. You can say, okay.
[00:01:23] Something like, Hey I. I feel like there's some tension between us and I feel like I've done something wrong and , you can even apologize for not knowing. I apologize. I'm not sure what it is that, that I'm doing wrong. I'm pretty sure I messing up somehow though. Can you please help me know so that I can apologize.
[00:01:46]It's that frames it in such a way that you can, help them help you. And that opens up the door for a great apology.
[00:01:57]There's three steps to a Five-star Apology. The first is What, the second is Why, and the Third is How. So what, why and how. To start off with explain what you did that you're not proud of, then explain why.
[00:02:19] Why you feel bad thirdly how you're going to do differently in the future. What's your plan for the future? And I'm going to run through this in a couple of examples at the end, but I also wanted to offer in this a quick summary of troubleshooting that you can do. . So if you go through the what, why, how, and it's not sticking or you sense, there's still some tension there.
[00:02:46] You can repeat the apology. And one way to do this is just to say, Hey I know I already apologized for this last week or yesterday. Or this morning, but whenever it was mentioned it, I just wanted you to know that I'm really serious about it. I really meant it. I do feel bad about hurting your feelings about calling you stupid, whatever it was.
[00:03:09]And I really have resolved, had been thinking about it ever since then. This is really. Important to add. If you have indeed been thinking about it, people like to know that you've been thinking about this thing that you wished you hadn't done. I've been thinking about it. And I have a plan for how to do better in the future, or just re-emphasized the plan.
[00:03:35] You can say something like I've worked out a plan so that. Whenever I start to get upset with you. I'm going to remember what it was like when I was new here and how much I didn't know, and how much I wish that people were okay. Patient with me. That's an example. So that's one way to repeat and then you can do that several times and you can even then you can even say, Hey, I've already apologized for that and you can and you can even say I've apologized like eight times for that.
[00:04:14] And I am still sorry. You can make it very clear. You can be emphatic about your apology. Secondly, and this can be very important if someone is still holding a grudge and you can say. Are you still holding a grudge against me for that? After going through the apology, right? So you're framing it in that.
[00:04:34] You're very sorry. Still right. And then you can ask them, are you still holding a grudge against me for that? And or you can say, it seems like you're still holding a grudge against me for that, and that can help them. Open up to the fact that they are, or the idea that they might be just to be really sensitive with that one.
[00:04:54]And then another is to ask for their forgiveness. And this can be really important if they are indeed holding a grudge, you can say, Hey, , the one thing that , after the apology, the one thing that I would ask from you is your forgiveness. Can you please forgive me for what I've done. I am really working on not doing it again.
[00:05:18] I feel bad and you've opened my eyes to it, and I never want to create that experience for you again. And then you can ask them to and this is the final thing you could ask them to let go of the past and start investing in the future. It does no good to invest in the past. It's already happened.
[00:05:38] It's water under the bridge. And so the future is where we should be investing, especially emotionally when it comes to our relationships, we need to invest in the future. There's so much time wasted dwelling on the past, after people have done their best to work through it. And as long as we've
[00:06:00]looked in the rear view mirror, seeing what's going on and course corrected for the future. We understand we've felt some empathy. We've communicated the empathy. It's now time to move forward. And so asking someone, can you please come with me into the future, let go of the past and start investing with me in the future.
[00:06:22]That's another ask. So asking for forgiveness and then asking, for your counterpart to let go of the past, invest in the future. That is something that can be powerful as a new paradigm to look at the relationship through. So let me give you two examples of this. The first one is with this is a personal experience, but with my wife just happened today.
[00:06:46]We were talking and she said, Hey, last week was my special time of the month. And I remember Tyler, you mentioning something like, and this was in private, of course, but she told me, Tyler, you mentioned something like that this was a really difficult time because it was my special time of the month.
[00:07:06] And. How that, wasn't a good thing. And I and so in, in full the mission I had I had talked about her special time of the month yeah. In somewhat of a negative way. And so I didn't mean to, I didn't mean to hurt her feelings. I didn't mean to put her down or anything like that but I did, I had that that impact, even though that wasn't my intent intent doesn't really matter when we're looking at the other person's perspective.
[00:07:28]So that's something that we need to. Clarify and re communicate. So I said I know that I know that I said this hurtful thing and I feel bad cause I always want you to be uplifted by the things I say. I never want to make you feel bad. And in the future, I'm going to work on not being negative about it.
[00:07:51] And , she brought me a book that she's reading and she had me, she asked me if I would read a chapter of the book. So I read that I read the chapter and then so she had, this has happened actually over the course of a few days. And then today what happened was I re-apologized.
[00:08:07] She brought it up again. And so I repeated the apologies, right? Troubleshooting mode. I repeated the apology and I said, are you still holding a grudge against me for that? And I asked for forgiveness and I pointed out, I, I read the chapter, the book that you that you asked me to read and.
[00:08:27] I don't fully understand what's going on here or what I need to be doing. And I'm sorry for the way that I acted and I will be trying much harder and I've been reflecting on how I might act differently. And so just so you know, I'll be working on that. And then she gave me more information and she said, what I'm learning is that.
[00:08:52] When it's my special time of the month, I need to celebrate it and I want you to celebrate it too. I want it to be a positive thing. And I said, that sounds great. I can do that. I can do that. I will do that in the future. So that how I'm going to do better, that plan part, that was boosted.
[00:09:10]She came up with another idea. I repeated , the steps what I did, why I felt bad and then how I was gonna, I was trying to do better. I repeated all of that. And I asked for forgiveness and then she revealed this other piece that was clarifying for both of us and we're able to go on and it turned out to be a very positive experience.
[00:09:30]I was sensing a little bit of tension between us the point, but after that, she then relaxed and everything felt more peaceful and just lighter and more easygoing. I felt more close to her. So these things can work in your outside of work relationships, they can work inside of work relationships.
[00:09:50]Now my second example is from the experience I had when I was working at Western Governors University and I had this this experience, I may have mentioned it.
[00:10:01] Before in this podcast, we had this little tiny room and there were, it was a nine and a half by 13 foot room. We had to measure it because it was so small. It had dark gray walls, no windows just a normal sized door. No in no internal windows, no, external windows. There were no windows.
[00:10:18] And there were six people in this nine and a half by 13 foot room, all at our desks and their computers there. Eight, you could hear every mouse click, every text messages, someone received, the, their phone buzzing. Like you could hear everything, you can hear everyone breathing. It was a lot, it was a lot for a small space.
[00:10:38] And what I realized one of my coworkers help me understand that. There were there were two coworkers involved in this exchange. One of them, I was having these conversations with, we were working on a project and we were at a stalemate. We both had equal responsibility in this project and there wasn't really a project lead which my which my boss helped us figure out.
[00:11:01] And that was a really. A really tough thing that there wasn't like a tie breaker available to us in the day-to-day conversations that we were having. But anyway, in the middle of it, it was this difficult situation we would get to the point where we're like I think it should be this way.
[00:11:16] Another person say, I think it should be this way. And there was this tension that would develop. And then our other coworker, there was a few others that, . weren't as involved in the conversation or didn't sense what was going on as much. But this other coworker said to us later in a team meeting, we were all talking about our team dynamic is another word for team relationships.
[00:11:36] And we were having this very open conversation with very close team, which I really loved. And somebody else, I think. Brought something brought it up. And we didn't realize how much it was affecting. This coworker who had sensed it though, who was very sensitive to it. And she said something like the tension was so thick, you could cut it with a knife or something like that.
[00:12:00] The tension was so thick in the room. You could cut it with knife and none of us had realized it to that point. She hadn't even realized it. And but once she said that we were all like, Oh my goodness the coworker , who is sharing the tension with me We realized we were creating this poor experience for her and for others in the room.
[00:12:18] And once somebody said it once the, that my coworker put her finger on it and said it was tension was so thick, you could cut it with a knife. We all just dropped our jobs like, Oh my goodness. And then after that, whenever that tension would start to rise. I started to realize it was like, Oh my goodness this is a terrible thing were inflicting upon our coworkers.
[00:12:42]And so the awareness shot up and we were able to to boost all of our awareness and our emotional intelligence of what was going on. So then at that point I was able to start forming an apology. I was now aware of what was going on. I developed very rapidly, a sense of empathy.
[00:13:03] What for what she in particular was going through in addition to my other coworkers. And I started working on rebuilding that relationship because it had damaged the relationship between myself and this other coworker, even though she wasn't involved in the conversations. And so I said something like, Hey, I've created a lot of tension.
[00:13:23] I've created a lot of stress for you. I'm sorry.
[00:13:27]And I feel bad because I don't feel like I've been a great teammate. And by the way, I believe that is a very productive and sincere statement to make. That may feel bad. You may not feel bad because you may not care about the other person.
[00:13:46]You should, but even if you don't care about the other person who you're apologizing to, you can still say, Hey, I feel bad because I haven't been a great teammate. Because that is another human in the world and you want to be kind and civil to other humans. So even if you don't like the person, you can still have a legitimate, sincere apology.
[00:14:07] Now, in this case I really did care about my coworker. I cared deeply for her and all of my teammates on that team. It was a wonderful team. But I'm just saying that you can use that even in rare circumstances when you don't. But I think I probably did include I care about our relationship cause I actually really did.
[00:14:24] And I had been working at it for a while. And so that, the next thing I said was. My plan for the future is now I'm trying to remember what my, what this piece was. I think what we did is we created a signal and I can't remember what the signal is, but I remember that we create a signal and I asked for her help in helping me know when the tension was
[00:14:47]What does emotional intelligence have to do with poopy diapers? I'm Tyler Small, and this is hacking emotional intelligence. And I want to share with you just a little more. I mentioned I'd share a little more about the structure of a five star experience. Five star experiences are really the stuff that relationships are made of the stuff that I should say.
[00:15:13] The stuff that high quality strong relationships are made of. And so I learned about five-star experiences from Amazon. I've learned about it from review sites like Google maps, Yelp urban spoon. So these all use this five-star way of saying how good was the experience. And when I started building this into a program, I was working at Western governors university and I was able to build this program that was successful with hundreds of leaders.
[00:15:45] And they really latched onto it. It became very very easy to think about in terms of, I'm trying to create an experience for someone and it's gotta be five stars, helping the person to have a really positive experience, putting things in terms of a review on a quantitative. It's technically, it's a categorical scale.
[00:16:07] It's a liquored scale. And side note liquor versus liker, which do you think it is? There's an article out there that talks about the guy who it's named after and how he pronounces his name anyway. It's a liquor scale. It's a, and it's, I I often use some people will get down into the half points, the quarter points and the, I heard yesterday someone I was coaching said.
[00:16:31] 3.7 and they also used a 4.3 for a different thing. And so people can get pretty granular on that scale. I'm not sure how much validity there is in those little tiny points. However, it also creates the opportunity for someone to get as specific as they want and and to move it up. As they feel like the relationship is improving on those smaller.
[00:16:56] So if they're a more specific person, then they can use the scale more specifically. And if they're they're more higher level, then oftentimes it's just the, an integer value or even just using half points. So I typically. See most people using one, two, three, four, five, and then the half points one and a half, two and a half, three half.
[00:17:19] And there's nine points if you give it the whole numbers and the half of members. And so that's the scale and the question is how can I make a five-star experience for you? Another similar question is how can I make this a five star experience for you? So if you're working on a specific project or you're meeting with somebody you're meeting on getting something done or making a decision or touching base.
[00:17:42]You're meaning to do some research, to do an interview, to do some reporting, to to investigate a solution to a problem, whatever the purpose of your meeting most things are either meetings or presentations. There's not a whole other not a whole other reasons that people do things with other people at work.
[00:18:03]It's a meeting, it's a presentation. Sometimes it's a training, but that's really a type of meeting. So it's easy to fit this in at the beginning of a meeting when you're setting up the expectations and you're explaining the purpose of the meeting, you're giving a frame for the scope of the meeting, and then it's easy to ask.
[00:18:20] How can I make this meeting a five-star experience for you, or if you're talking to a group for the different members of the group and you can go around, if it's a small group, you can go around, how can I, and then get a response from each person. Then you can check in midway and say is this is this a five-star experience for you?
[00:18:39] Did, are we meeting these expectations and you can go around and then at the end you can say, How would you rate this meeting on a five-star scale? And that's basically the setup. So the three steps that I use formally are open deliver and follow-up, and you may have heard me talk about these before.
[00:18:54] I just wanted to explain a little bit more on how they work in terms of a silly example, but something that's very important to my wife and in my relationship with my wife. So not a work relationship, but hopefully when that you can remember easily because poopy diapers will now be stuck in your mind.
[00:19:13] For the rest of the day, if not longer, poopy diaper. There it is. So what does poopy diapers have to do with emotional intelligence? It's it's a common five-star experience that my wife requests. She knows that I prioritize our relationship above all other human relationships above the work that I do above most other things in life.
[00:19:34] I would say that my own health. My own happiness is somewhere in there. And I don't, I try not to sacrifice my health for the relationship. Although I try and balance it, it's not just like a, I don't just flush my health down the toilet or flush our relationship down the toilet in order to get to the other.
[00:19:52]It's a balance there and certainly my relationship with. My higher power considered more important than really my relationship with my wife, but yeah. But then comes to the relationships at work, after my relationship with higher power relationships with family, I'm going into this just to give you context and then relationship with work.
[00:20:11] So those are the three categories in it. And so in this helm category, I talk about really relationships and building relationships in very much the same way with the same steps, open, deliver up and with the poopy diaper example, here's what it looks like. I'd say maybe I'd have two minutes. I'd come up.
[00:20:27]From my office is downstairs. I come to the main floor where the kitchen living room area is and say, my kids are watching something on the boob tube and hopefully not, but sometimes they are. And my wife's maybe making a lunch or something and taking care of some, something she's always very busy.
[00:20:47] She's very productive, very industrious. And I'd say, Hey, I've got two minutes before my next meeting, before I need to go down and in prep for my next meeting. What could I do? There'll be a five star experience for you. And she'll often say, Oh, I've got a poopy diaper for you. You want to put your diaper?
[00:21:03] Yes, who's got a poopy diaper. It actually. We have five kids. So this we've got options, right? Our fourth child actually just potty trained. So now we're down. We have less options for poopy diapers. I know who it is. It's Moses number five, energetic, happy Moses poopy diaper. So I go and capture Moses.
[00:21:23] Sometimes he wants to play hard to get, which is a fun game. And capture Moses grabbed the, I grabbed the diapers. I grabbed the wipes, they captured Moses. And then. I'm changed a diaper. Hey, this is a five-star experience for you. I'm changing this diaper and she might, and so she'll give me some indication.
[00:21:41] Yep. Five stars. I want to make sure that I'm doing a good job. I know that if I change the diaper over the carpet or too close to where she is, that won't be a five-star experience. It's too smelly might get poop in the carpet. So I have to change the diaper on the tile floor, which is less comfortable for me, but keeps the poop out of the carpet.
[00:22:00]So there's these little nuances that are very important. And and so I changed the diaper. I get them all cleaned up fresh as a Daisy. I put the poopy diaper in the garage, not just in any garbage. I put it in the garage, garbage, special, poop, garbage. And make sure that the lid to that poop garbage is firmly down, wash the hands, get the hands poop free.
[00:22:25] And everything's good. So Moses is all packaged up, got his clothes on poopy diapers taken care of my hands are clean. Moses's hands are clean. I've made sure that there's no poop on the floor. We don't have a diaper changing table because we're somewhat minimalists in that area. But. So I get it done.
[00:22:43] I say, Hey, how would you rate that experience on a five-star scale or more specifically, because we've done this so many times I've started to abbreviate to say, Hey, five stars. She says, yes, that was, thank you. So that's all that it has to be. It's not to Pat myself on the back it's to ensure that I've met her expectations.
[00:23:01] And that is my friends. Emotional intelligence and poopy diapers coming together. Hope you have a great day. That's how the five-star experience is structured. Open, deliver, follow up. And my name is Tyler Small, and this is hacking emotional intelligence. Have a great one.
[00:23:23] rising and she would give me the signal.
[00:23:26] And I think it was like snapping a fingers or, something not like in your face kind of way, but it was something like that where we had this signal and she was able to give me that signal and it only took, I think, two or three times total for her to use the signal. And then it was a signal.
[00:23:47] Yeah. I remember now other people using it as well. We would help each other out, but but that was the plan. And it ended up working really well. And it was a huge success and not too long after that, we moved into a much larger space, which was a huge relief for everyone.
[00:24:02]But I think that I did need to apologize more than once. Cause it was. Some of those behavior changes, take a while to increase awareness and increase the responsiveness. And it may take it, especially if you're working. We were working eight to 10 hours a day together within a few, just a few feet of each other.
[00:24:23] And so I had to go back and re-apologize and go through those steps again, because even though we were behind the worst of it. And there was a decrease in the intensity of the offenses. There were still smaller, much smaller things that occurred that I needed to follow up on and apologize for because it, especially as my awareness rapidly improved, I still had to go back and say, Hey, I noticed that this thing .
[00:24:54]Might've been stressful for you. Might've created a tension in the room. I got to the point where I would then apologize for creating potential stress in the atmosphere and that she wouldn't even realize that it had happened. As I began doing it, it was, wow. This is overwhelming for me.
[00:25:13]From her perspective, she was telling you, and then in the end it was, I was so sensitive. So aware of what was going on that I could notice when the tension rose, and sometimes she wouldn't notice it or she may, or as I brought it to her attention, she might say, Oh yeah, maybe a little bit, but I didn't really, I wasn't really affected by that, like that, that might've been just between you guys, but.
[00:25:36]And I didn't even realize it until now. And and I could see your point and sometimes she would just have no recollection of the moment being stressful at all. So apologies and looking for opportunities to make those apologies can be a life changer in your relationships. I highly encourage you to ask.
[00:25:57] Ask your co-workers ask your boss, ask your direct reports, ask the important people in your life outside of work. I'm trying to work on my relationships. What can I do to to improve it? What can I do to make it better? Ask them the ultimate. Relationship. Question, on a five-star scale, how would you rate our relationship?
[00:26:18] Ask them how can I make it better? Oftentimes, there's an apology in there, right? Oh, wow. I'm sorry. I didn't realize I was doing that. I feel bad because I want to be a better coworker. I want to think about this and make a plan. I'll let you know, is it okay if I let you know tomorrow, I'm really interested in improving my contribution to our relationship.
[00:26:41] Please be patient with me, please forgive me. I'm really interested in investing in the future. So use it use the Five-star Apology. It's a brilliant tool, so powerful. Cool. I have other resources on this. You can you can write to Tyler at five-star approach.com. That's the number five andTyler@fivestarapproach.com.
[00:27:07] Write me, asked me for what for other resources. I'd love to engage with you. Tell me your stories about Five-star Apologies how it went, how it came out. How it benefited the relationship. Let me know where you're running into trouble has has something I've said here today, gotten you into trouble.
[00:27:26] Let me know. I'll do a, I'll do a follow-up but I'd love to hear your stories. Tell me your successes, your failures. What's hanging you up. And I love the Five Star Apology because it's just been a life changer for so many people. Humans, for some reason, don't apologize very much these days.
[00:27:45] And and we can do it. It's easier than you might think. Once you start apologizing for things, it just gets easier. As long as they're a hundred percent sincere, a well-placed apology here and there is just. Can be very natural and very productive for the relationship. I'm Tyler Small, and this is Hacking Emotional Intelligence.
[00:28:09] See you next time.