The Art of the ApologyThe Structure and Effectiveness of Apologies in Trust Repair

An Exploration of the Structure of Effective Apologies

“…In addition to the two components listed above, other components have been argued to provide value to an apology (Lewicki & Polin, 2012;Scher & Darley, 1997). First, and given the importance of including an "account", the explanation for why the violation occurred will help improve the perceived quality of an apology.…”

Trust and negotiation

“…Based on recent work by Lewicki and Polin (2012) and Polin et al (2012), effective apologies can contain a combination of other forms of verbal accounts, such as explanations and justifications. Lewicki and Polin (2012) suggest that there are actually six critical components of an effective apology: an expression of regret for the offense; an explanation of why the violation occurred; an acknowledgement of responsibility; a declaration of repentance; an offer of repair; and a request for forgiveness. An apology including all of these components is thought to be more effective than an apology that only includes a few of these components.…”

Lessons Learned from Working with Roy J. Lewicki

“…Our first project together was a book chapter with strong academic and practical implications in which we argued that it was “time to step out of the laboratory” and that “much [could] be learned from studying the actual efforts to repair trust in ‘real’, ‘live’ trust contexts” (Lewicki & Polin, , p. 95). We proceeded to identify individual components of apologies (i.e., expression of regret, acknowledgment of responsibility, declaration of repentance, offer of repair, explanation of why the violation occurred, and request for forgiveness), and then we chose four “famous” contemporary apologies (i.e., Bernie Madoff, British Petroleum, JetBlue, and Tiger Woods) and analyzed the inclusion of those components outlined.…”