Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. Kentucky’s Governor Matt Bevin. Starbuck’s CEO Kevin Johnson. We’re awash in apologies lately, and they’re all worthless.
Zuckerberg apologized before Congress last week for Facebook’s business practices, just as he has done publicly since 2003 (Illinois Representative Jan Schakowsky prepared a list). Every mea culpa was a variation on the same theme: “We did something poorly, but didn’t do it on purpose, and we’ll do better.”
So he’s not responsible for the bad stuff because it’s an unintended consequence of Facebook’s inherently good efforts. Zuckerberg effectively apologized (again) for being imperfect, taking responsibility for striving to achieve things, not the errors. This means he doesn’t need to promise any action other than to continue doing what Facebook does.
Governor Bevin apologized for saying a horrible thing about teachers on strike last week, when he told reporters “I guarantee you somewhere in Kentucky today a child was sexually assaulted that [sic] was left at home because there was nobody there to watch them [sic].” He also said the strikers allowed kids to take poison and do drugs.
Three days later, he issued an “I’m not responsible” apology video on Twitter, saying that “Many people have been confused or hurt or just misunderstand what it was that I was trying to communicate.”
Take a minute to unpack that gibberish. What part of his boldly declarative sentence (which started with “I guarantee”) did people misunderstand? It’s their fault if he intended to communicate a different sentiment? So he gives a lame explanation, but takes no responsibility, and makes no mention of moderating his extreme thinking in the future.
Finally, two African Americans were arrested at a Starbucks in Philadelphia last week for trying to use the bathroom without buying something, so CEO Kevin Johnson issued a written statement and video declaring that he’s talking to local officials, promises to meet with the individuals, and will address “the policy and the practice and the training that led to this outcome.”
He repeatedly says that he’s “accountable,” but what does that mean? Will he follow up with a statement explaining what really happened? He’s promised to revamp policies, store manager training, and other things. Is he really going to remake the company in response to this one incident?
Of course not. Everyone knows that he’s responding to the viral video of the incident, not the incident itself, and doing so with pure PR playbook perfection; the only goal is to make the communications crisis go away.
He’s accountable for a bad movie.
Maybe these three guys are doing exactly what they have to do, but I think it lessens the value of what an apology should be and, thereby, their credibility. An apology should be a complete, simple, and unequivocal admission of culpability, followed by a sincere expression of remorse.
Full stop.
Everything else is just a communications strategy, I’m sorry to say.