Apology rejected: Why it’s time for HR to stop saying I’m sorry
Each month I get to put pen to paper and encourage other HR professionals in my column for HR Executive Magazine. Recently, I felt inspired to urge our industry to put down their “sorry shields”.
For years, I was an over-apologizer. However, I’ve been learning just how much saying, “I’m sorry,” when we’re not can damage both our impact as HR professionals and our confidence in our jobs. I’ve come to notice that many of my colleagues in the Human Resources field seemingly share this same bad habit of leading with an apology when one isn’t even warranted. It happens in meetings when we’re bringing up ideas or asking questions, in emails when we need confirmation of status, when we need to give difficult feedback, and in countless other circumstances when we are just trying to do our damn jobs. Today, though, I’m here to assert that we are cheapening the HR function, holding back our own careers and severely limiting our impact with our insincere apologies.
So let’s all make a pact as professionals, to check our impulses to apologize when we don’t really mean it and to reject the unnecessary “sorry” statements from our colleagues.
Check out what sparked this article from Ben Brooks himself in this brief video: