New Practice November #2: swap a "sorry" for a "thank you"

[Marta Woźniak-Semeniuk]

That is something that one of my mentors taught me. I had a really big problem with saying 'I am sorry' - this was actually strongly connected to my overall mental state. Changing this slowly to "Thank you" here and there not only improved the quality of the interaction and set a more positive tone there - it also helped me see myself in a better light. That I am not someone who feels sorry all the time - I am someone who is thankful. 

Of course, "I am sorry" is still in my vocabulary as sometimes it can't be swapped - but it's now reserved for when I really am sorry, it is special. 

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

I hear that, @Marta Woźniak-Semeniuk. So much of adopting a practice or revising a team ritual is having a mindset that aligns with the motivation behind the change!

[G subramanyam]

My way of showing gratitude to the people around me or the colleagues is to let them know to "regain the control on their attention".

My situation: I have planned an in-person meeting inviting few SPOC's/ stakeholders to discuss about Atlassian events the coming December.

Meeting proceeding: While SPOC's not only physically attended the meeting, but they went extra-mile checking their mobiles most part of the meeting browsing other chapter events, dates, topics etc.!

My way of shown gratitude: These days, every person is equipped with carrying the Internet in their pocket. That means, less time "contributing to the actual meeting" and more "attention to the mobile screens". When I politely announced to "please regain the control of your attention", all ears turned to my words and puzzled eyes with curiosity.

End result: That small sentence, made participants "introspect the goal of their attendance" and "valuing the host" with out making an "apology" to other attendees.

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Interesting twist, @G subramanyam! I think recognize that asking teammates to have control of what you believe is theirs to control, is essentially you acknowledging they have autonomy. That makes sense and I'm glad you got good reactions :)

[Curt Holley]

Love it!!!

[Fabio Racobaldo _Herzum_]

When someone arrives a few minutes late to a call of which I am the lead (if I know it is due to too much work of the person) I justify it with the others by saying "Thank you for being able to participate. Your work is precious for all of us"

[Paul Wiggers]

At the start of this month, I set a field as required for a particular request type. Everything seemed fine and we got the results we wanted.

After about a week a colleague asked if there were problems with submitting issues. Since we got requests daily, I just told them that there wasn't and we moved on. Then, a week later, another colleague called. Telling me that customers were complaining that they didn't receive an answer to their requests...

Once is an incident, two is a problem. I took a look at our e-mail server logs and saw that the mail was processed correctly. I then took a look at the e-mail logs in JSM cloud and was greeted by a wall of red "Failed" messages.

Turned out that the request type I changed, was also connected to our inbound e-mail channel. Since e-mails only consist of a Subject and Description field, the requests couldn't fill the required field and weren't processed into issues.

I called my team, explained the situation, apologised to them for the increased workload (we doubled our open issues) and thanked them for their ability to handle these hiccups.

I found out that by thanking them in advance, the team was able to process those requests in a single day and get back to a normal backlog, without hampering the service to our customers. 

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

An apology and appreciation combo proven also effective. I also think the apology was on circumstance vs your team's fault per se. Nice, @Paul Wiggers! 

[Fadoua]

This is a tough one @Christine P. Dela Rosa . I need to change a lot in order to apply the way you are suggesting. Saying sorry has become part of me.

May be it is due to(this applies to me only not to others):

• a lack of confidence
• feeling uncomfortable
• the way the person was raised

There could be some other factors behind this behavior. I will try it even though I know it will be a real challenge.

All the best,

Fadoua

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

All we ask is an attempt. We get that trying something that feels very different for a work culture can be especially hard. So if you give it a shot and it doesn't work, let us hear about that!

My hope is that the attempt will be a positive experience regardless of how successful you find adding a note of appreciation. So remember, you can still say sorry and simply add a layer of thanks on top of it. 

[Rilwan Ahmed]

As still we are working from home, the sudden calls which I receive on my laptop will always have either my 2 daughters shouting/playing sound OR the vehicle honking sounds as I stay near to the main road.  I always apologize for the sounds and thank the other person for bearing with it :)

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Nice! How did teammates respond this week (or most recently) with this tactic, @Rilwan Ahmed ?

[Rilwan Ahmed]

Supportive colleagues. They always tell "We understand"  :)

[Brant Schroeder]

@Christine P. Dela Rosa I use this quite often to defuse tough situations and get the team to focused on finding solutions to the problem instead of pointing the finger.  When teams I oversee mess up I acknowledge the issue but also focus on what has been going well (thanking individuals or teams) .  I then use the positive energy to refocus and move the team forward, often on a difficult task.  Example: While doing a tenant build an individual did not follow procedure and made changes to the configuration after the build started.  This caused the whole build to fail putting everything several days behind.  We recognized the mistake, reiterated the importance of following the process and thanked everyone for all the hard work that they had been putting into the build.  We then discussed how we could all move forward to fix the issue.  The person never made the mistake again and I believe was even more dedicated because their teammates assisted in fixing their issue without complaining or pointing blame.  We all make mistakes and it is important we learn from them and are willing to help others when they make a mistake.   

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Yes, @Brant Schroeder! I think showing appreciation can still include a way to call out what happened while keeping energy forward-moving. 

[Karim ABO HASHISH]

it's a very positive practice that requires continuous practicing.

[vikram]

@Christine P. Dela Rosa 

In some situations it's really helps us not to lead to Arguments also

Vikram P 

[Asif Mohammed]

This is worth trying. I come from a culture of "sorry" enforced by "leaders"

[vikram]

good idea to follow even in situation

 when the situation lead uncontrolable.

[Gergo Matyas]

Starting a meeting 5 minutes later...it's just normal in my team 😅

anyway...I like the idea of using thanks instead of sorry

[vikram]

good idea to adopt 

[Jospeh blessing]

glad to hear thay

[John Funk]

I was struggling to solve a technical issue, that I did not have much expertise with. And I felt like I was bothering the developer by asking for help. So instead of saying sorry for the interruption, I thanked him in advance for helping make a huge impact on our customer by solving a technical riddle. 

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Nailed it!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'm sorry, but it simply doesn't work most of the time.  For me.

It is a good, positive and affirmative step, but when you've got something wrong, you've got it wrong, and that is something to apologise for, not thank people for accepting your failure.

For me, I suspect it is a very cultural thing.  Very English, possibly British in a wider sense.

I've tried, very hard, for the last 3 weeks, but nope, it only half works. 

The part of this idea that fails, and fails hard, is trying to push the problem on to the people that did not get it wrong.  It's supercilious at best to assume thankfulness for your mistakes or problems.  

The bit that works is thanking people for being tolerant of your failures.  That is absolutely a good thing.

But when you get it wrong, you need to admit it, and apologise and/or explain.

TLDR: Take responsibility when you get it wrong.  Say "sorry" when you do, not shift the blame.

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Noting the way you started this response, @Nic Brough -Adaptavist-. (I see what you--I think intentionally?-- did there 😉). 

The challenge description did include adding appreciation on to an apology if the apology itself was warranted and felt. So I think you're right in that a full replacement doesn't always work if the situation doesn't call for that. Totally!

And then to your point about it being cultural, absolutely. I'm not British, but my family's culture has trained me to always come off apologetic as a reflex, especially when my audience is more senior than me. Even as I work from a more western region, as a woman I am socialized to want to claim culpability no matter how that resonates with me.

So if you (not just you, Nic, but anyone reading this) feels as though you have been in the wrong, I think admitting it is absolutely paramount. This challenge was more for times when the apology was reflexive and with less meaning. In fact, I'd go as far to say that not enough of us admit our mistakes openly enough.

We should probably do a different challenge to take ownership of past actions and pair it with communication that exemplifies how there will be change in the future. Or if you have enough riff on this kind of challenge, please do suggest it!

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

I'm sorry I did that opening line ;-)

Yes, you're right, it was deliberate.   You make the point I was grasping for here a lot better than I did when you say "admitting it was your mistake is absolutely paramount".  Yes.  So much yes. 

"Thank you for your patience" when zoom has been playing up and made you late, or "Thanks for flexing and shifting the meeting" when you were ill - those sort of things have definitely played well with me since you challenged us with this! 

It's only the stuff where I'm the one who got it wrong doesn't feel right.  I'm a terrible liar and I can't make up excuses when I know I'm the one who got it wrong.  It's always better for me to simply admit it was me getting it wrong... and then apologise for it.

>We should probably do a different challenge to take ownership of past actions and pair it with communication that exemplifies how there will be change in the future.

I love that idea!   Definitely one for another "New Practice" or one of the "Daily interesting questions".  I'll try to be the first responder with a cryptic "I really want to tell Louisa I was an idiot then"

[Cyril Dubson]

Nice challenge idea!

[Joy Hunsberger]

Great challenge!

[Malka Jackson [Isos Technology]]

We utilize an app at work called 15FIVE and it makes asking for feedback super easy. I am able to thank my colleagues for their honest feedback and for taking the time out of their day to provide it. I find that I ask for feedback from those that show tension when we are working together and that allows them the opportunity to speak freely in an asynchronous manner where they can think out what they want to say without me staring at them the whole time they are working out their thoughts. 

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Ooh I like the idea of providing feedback in a separate platform so that there isn’t as much in-the-moment feedback.

[Opher Lichter]

It took a conscious effort to remember to thank people for waiting rather than apologizing for being late, but it worked out really well!

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Love to hear it!

[Amanda Barber]

Love this idea! As someone who apologizes far too often (for things that don't need apologizing), I think this would help me be a bit more thoughtful about my apologies.

[Teale McCleaf]

Good advice. It's not always easy to consider how someone else perceives your words while working virtually, especially via email or chat. These are good habits to practice that remind us that others are busy also, and show that you respect them and their time.

[Luis Machado]

I started an email with "I apologize.." right before reading this. Making a conscious effort going forward, thank you for your patience.

[Deepak Rai]

Acknowledging mistakes AND thanking people for their honest feedback is better way of improvement.

[Christine P. Dela Rosa]

Totally. This challenge was more for folks who say sorry reflexively as opposed to feeling accountable. But if a mistake was made, absolutely agree that both are a good combo.