Like me you've probably seen a politician on TV giving an apology that is actually a nonapology. Examples include "I'm sorry they felt that way" or "I meant no disrespect".
In a private complaint I've recently made I learnt some more about nonapologies. It also illustrated how valuable a private non serious complaint can be if you want to shed some light on the true culture of a team or organisation. The content of their response to your complaint reveals whether their reply is just a form of nonapology or a real apology.
The complaint I made was about some slides and videos from a conference not being avaialble until 3 weeks after the conference despite assurances during the conference that they'd be made available quickly. A suggestion in my complaint was that in future they should set the expectation that slides/videos would be available 3 weeks later if that is what they are capable of delivering.
The timescale facts of my complaint were that it was made 2 weeks after the event, that an email with the slides/videos from the event was sent 3 weeks after the event, that a reply to the complaint was sent 12 days after the complaint was made.
The response I received to my complaint made me think of four tactics politicians use when giving a nonapology. It also struck me how the nonapolgy culture of politicians now seems to be infecting PR/Comms generally.
In summary the four tactics politicians use when giving a nonapology are: 1) Flatly contradict any complaint by citing online evidence you control and have made subsequently unavailable; 2) Ignore those parts of the complaint that are factually correct; 3) Ignore any suggestion from the complainent about how in future you could avoid the problem that led to the complaint; 4) Say you/your team is doing the best you can and working hard.
1) Flatly contradict any complaint by citing online evidence you control and have subsequently made unavailable - and so the evidence quoted is unverifiable. This is a gold standard nonapology. You give a fact based counter claim that nobody can fact check.
2) Ignore those parts of the complaint that are factually correct. So in my complaint the videos of the sessions made available excluded the keynote session from their most senior person in the organisation at the conference. Yet their reply said they had made videos of the sessions available.
3) Ignore any suggestion from the complainent about how in future you could avoid the problem that led to the complaint. So in my complaint my suggestion that in future they set realistic expectations as to when slides/videos would be available was ignored.
4) Say you/your team is doing the best you can and working hard. Such a nonapology may well be true but it ignores the possibility that the team could have forseen that they would have more work than they could handle, In my complaint I pointed out how long they took to provide slides/videos. They should have forseen that the size of their team meant it would take them 3 weeks to provide slides/videos, given they knew in advance how much work they would need to do after the conference to provide slides and videos, and therefore should have set the expectation that slides/videos would be made avaialbe in a couple of weeks.
Previous posts on #PoliticalTactics
30 Oct 2020 Corbyns response to EHRC's antisemitism report - The 5 #PoliticalTactics are: 1) I'm the victim here; 2) It's somebody else's fault; 3) I don't accept all the points, 4) There is a conspiracy against me; 5) Simply ignore the most damaging points.
20 Nov 2020 English Government responses to NAO investigation into procurement during COVID-19 - The 7 #PoliticalTactics are: 1) Answer the question you wanted to be asked rather than the question you were asked; 2) Welcome a report and its recommendations (Notice this isn't the same as agreeing with the report); 3) Don't agree that what happened was sub-standard; 4) Don't agree you should have known it was sub-standard; 5) Don't agree to any action plan to make sure this doesn't happen in future; 6) Don't agree that individuals may have financially benefitted themselves or friends through such sub-standard actions and finally 7) Claim you are feeling an emotion directly opposite to what you should be feeling. So if you should be ashamed say you are proud, if you should be unsure say you are confident and so on, sad/happy, depressed/jubilant, anger/calm.
This post - The 4 #PoliticalTactics are: 1) Flatly contradict the complaint by citing online evidence you control and have subsequently made unavailable; 2) Ignore those parts of the complaint that are factually correct; 3) Ignore any suggestion from the complainant about how in future to avoid the problem that led to the complaint; 4) Say you/your team is doing the best you can and working hard.
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