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By now, you’ve figured out I’m a big baseball fan. I’m not sure why. I guess its allure has to be bigger than my hometown favorite Cleveland Indians, since it has been at least a decade since they’ve given me much to cheer about, and about 62 years since their last World Series championship…but who’s counting?
Many folks were able to witness an excellent lesson about public relations, and life itself last week. You probably weren’t watching the game (few were), but the Indians were taking on the Detroit Tigers in front of a languid gathering of about 10,000. Those 10,000 were treated to what appeared to be a rare, historical perfect game (no hits, no walks, no men on base whatsoever) spun by young and relatively unknown pitcher Armando Galarraga. Well, perfect at least until the very last batter of the game. That batter did what the 26 batters before him had for the most part done on this summer evening—grounded weakly to the right side of the infield. The first baseman fielded the ball, tossed it to the pitcher covering first base, and the crowd began to celebrate.
Until they realized that umpire Jim Joyce, a respected umpiring veteran, was standing there with his arms extended, signifying that the runner had beaten the throw. Even though he hadn’t.
You’ve undoubtedly seen the replays. Legally blind non-baseball fans could tell that the runner was out. And the gaffe cost the pitcher a place in baseball history.
The real lesson, however, came after the game. Think carefully about many of the responses to mistakes and errors you’ve witnessed recently. What is first response of the typical, scandal-embroiled politician? How does that usually work out for him or her? Know any corporations who have had embarrassing news leak out and explode on them (pun intended) recently? What were their first responses?
“Not me!” “Not our fault!” “Yes, we/I did it, but not to the extent you think!”
Jim Joyce, however, had a different response for his mistake. He “manned up.” You can see his response here. Not only did Joyce admit he missed the call, he was upset about it as well.
The dozens who did watch that game will no doubt remember the response of the aggrieved Tigers after the game. It’s truly amazing Joyce was able to make his way out of the stadium unharmed. As often is the case when a mistake is made, the aggrieved parties were furious.
But less than 24 hours later, Joyce was back on the same field. And when his name was announced prior to the game, would you believe that many in the same home crowd cheered him? No, not a Bronx cheer. It was a genuine cheer.
Confused?
Anyone turning on a TV in the time between the two games couldn’t miss the endless stream of replays of the blown call…and Joyce’s authentic and sorrowful reaction to his own mistake. That response of honest contrition effectively shut off what I call the “BS meter” for most watching it. It touched the human being hiding in many of us. It connected him to us. After all, most of us make mistakes, too.
You see, as a society, we’re now conditioned to expect a denial or a transfer of blame from people, organizations or corporations that make mistakes or, worse, get caught with their hands in the proverbial cookie jar. At times, the denials are ludicrous. And they make us angrier.
It’s routine in good customer service call centers for the employees to be trained to listen and acknowledge a customer’s complaint. Then, apologize and make it right. Again, that’s in good call centers. But most agree that, 9 times out of 10, once the associate acknowledges the customer’s complaint, rather than deferring it, the most irate of customers calms down.
We don’t like mistakes that harm us. But we all make them. It’s when the person or entity making the mistake refuses to acknowledge it that we really boil.
I’m pretty confident there’s a PR lesson in there somewhere. I’ll let you connect the dots.