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As part of crisis communications, senior management often performs a mea culpa and apologises for the mistake made. Sometimes, this will be enough to appease anger towards the organization and the CEO, but more often than not, it does nothing.
This is because for an apology to be effective, it must comprise two key elements - sincerity and contrition. An apology lacking in either of these will fail.
The dictionary defines sincerity to mean the absence of pretense, deceit, or hypocrisy. Thus, the apology must convey the openness and transparency of management to accept the consequence of what happened and to share the full facts of the incident. Failing to do this, the underlying tone contradicts the intent of the apology and negates it.
Talk is also cheap and the public has come to expect PR speak. As such, the public judges the sincerity of an apology by the contrition that is offered. In short, the public expects management to "pay" for their mistake. If no contrition is offered, this only reinforces the message that management is not sincere. It is also important to note that the form and nature of contrition needs to commensurate with the mistake made. For example, if there is a death due to negligence, simply offering a day of mourning will not be seen as sufficient contrition. The public expects more, and the sacking or demotion of a key executive may be required.
The key lesson for crisis communicators is that one should always apologies in situations where you are wrong. However, in situations where a sincere apology cannot be made, then one should not apologise. A half-hearted or insincere apology will create a crisis of its own and the aftermath may be something that the client cannot recover from.
