I'm SOOOO Sorry

It was a big event. That means a handful of people were coming together to do one event collectively. I was working with another sales manager to not only impact the business for our individual units but for all regional teams.

Our individual duties were assigned and delegated based on strengths, experiences, and gifts.

After weeks of planning, the day of the event finally came. As we showed up to do the finishing touches before the "start time," one guy called me and said, "I got a bit behind because of normal blocking and tackling today… I'll be a bit late…I hope it's not a problem?" It turned out to be a problem; because not only was he going to show up late, but he also hadn’t crossed the T's and dotted the I's that he needed to.

We got into a bit of a tiff. But we put the tension to the side and focused on the event. It ended up being a great event.

Even though the night was a huge success, my business partner asked me, "Do you want to unpack some of the conflict we got into earlier? Or should we talk about it tomorrow?" I said, "Tonight was a great night. Let's talk about it tomorrow on the phone. But let's feel good about what we accomplished." 

It really was a great night. At the end of the day, it was a success.

But still, I was unsettled about our conflict just before the event.

The next day we talked on the phone.

Allow me to set the stage and the physical space: I was on the top floor of my home office. My wife is on the bottom floor. And my business partner and I are on our cell phones. He said, "I don't know if you need to get something off your chest…or if we can just move on and let it go?"

I responded, "I'm not sure if it's ‘getting something off my chest’, rather I want to unpack what happened so we can be a better team… so we can be reliable and count on each other."

My partner circled the wagons, and he got defensive quickly and said, "You're not my boss. Even though you give me recommendations on how to do my job better for you and the organization, I ultimately don't report to you." 

My igniter lit. I blew up.

I dove into winning the argument and not winning the relationship. I let him have it. It was brutal. Even though I didn't feel like I was being "brutal,” I was. He got really defensive and said that he had never been talked to like this before.

I continued, with full measure, and I laid into him, telling him how he wasn't being accountable and owning his lane. 

Repeatedly, I tried to win the argument and not the relationship. Again, and again, and again.

The conversation didn’t end well. We hung up the phone.

Maybe 30 minutes after I got off the phone, my wife came upstairs and asked, "What's going on? Were you talking to your business partner? It sounds like you really lit into him?"

I said, "But he was wrong; even if I was heated, I was right."

Over the following number of minutes, my patient and wise wife kept coming back. "You are losing influence and the relationship, instilling fear into your team, and achieving the opposite of what you want." She continued gracefully, "You want a better team where everybody feels safe and is working towards the same thing." She landed on the most thought provoking question: "How much did you achieve that in your discussion with him a few minutes ago?" 

I responded with a half-muttered, "Yeah, that's a good point." But then, a second later, I would retort with, "But I was right. He is wrong."

It took my wife another nineteen times wisely and graciously showing me what it looked like to be "on the other side of me when I'm fighting to BE RIGHT."

And then, for whatever reason, it sunk in. And I thought, "Wow, I'm a bully."

I called him back quickly within an hour after we had hung up in our previous "heated" phone call. I apologized for how I treated him. I apologized for interrogating him. I apologized for not being a more supportive teammate. I told him it's OK to challenge a teammate, but not when you are challenging them on everything they did wrong.

It was a pivotal conversation for us in our teammate relationship. Additionally, it was monumental in teaching me that I move too quickly towards trying to win the argument every time; and forgo thinking about the relationship. I started thinking about the relationship and not just the facts. And it's not that the facts don't matter. They do. They matter a lot. But the relationship matters more. You probably have heard me say this before; it's "all about relationships."

But for this article, that's not the main point here. The main point is, I was wrong. And something needed to be done about being wrong. My wife showed me this, and she helped me feel this in my heart.

So I went back to him, and I said, "I'm sorry. I am so sorry. I am so so sorry."

When I (or you) do this – when we apologize – that doesn't take away anything that I (or you) might have been right about; but it certainly takes away so much of what we were wrong about. Candidly, and hopefully, if we apologize with authenticity, remorse, and humility, it will help repair the wrong we did. That's the hope, anyways.

"I am sorry," when it comes from your heart, is one of the best things we can give somebody.