Nobody likes receiving a lazy, thoughtless apology.
If you want to be sincere and heartfelt, a basic “I’m sorry” won’t cut it, according to Beth Polin, a professor of management at Eastern Kentucky University who studies trust and apologies.
“Apologies are really effective, and they don’t cost very much,” Polin said on a May 27 episode of the “WorkLife with Adam Grant” podcast, adding: “I think people do offer apologies more often than we think, except they’re bad apologies.”
Seventy-three percent of American’s sat they’ve apologized without really meaning it, according to a 2023 Preply study of 2,025 U.S. adults.
In her research, Polin found that the most effective apologies contain five components. Grant, a Wharton organizational psychologist and the podcast’s host, called them the “5 Rs”:
