爲什麼說“對不起”這麼難

“I’m sorry.” Two simple words, not so simply said.

“對不起。”簡簡單單幾個字，卻不能簡簡單單地說出口。

On Wednesday, the public representatives of two embattled American institutions — United Airlines and the White House — found themselves on national television grappling with a delicate and increasingly common ritual of the corporate and political worlds: the public apology.

週三，美國兩個陷入四面楚歌境地的機構——聯合航空(United Airlines)和白宮的公關代表，面對全國性電視節目的鏡頭，勉力應對商界和政治界一個既微妙又日益普遍化的儀式：公開道歉。

Oscar Munoz, United’s chief executive, recalled his “shame” upon seeing a cellphone video, shared by millions of people, of a paying passenger being violently evicted from one of his airline’s flights. Face taut, voice soft, Mr. Munoz’s televised prostration was a far cry from the robotic statement issued by United days earlier, expressing regret for “re-accommodating” a traveler.

聯合航空首席執行官奧斯卡·穆尼奧斯(Oscar Munoz)憶及了自己看到一段手機視頻時的“羞恥”感——在那段被千百萬人分享過的視頻中，一名聯合航空的付費乘客被人使用暴力逐出了機艙。鏡頭中的穆尼奧斯表情肅穆、聲音溫和，那恭順虔敬的樣子，與聯合航空幾天前發佈的一份就“另行安排”一名乘客表達遺憾的生硬聲明天差地別。

Around the same time, President Trump’s press secretary, Sean Spicer, was denouncing himself as “reprehensible” for having favorably compared Hitler to President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and referring to Nazi death camps as “Holocaust centers,” all while standing at the White House podium.

大約同一時間，特朗普總統的新聞祕書肖恩·斯派塞(Sean Spicer)正在進行自我批評，說自己理應因爲站在白宮講臺上宣稱敘利亞總統巴沙爾·阿薩德(Bashar al-Assad)連希特勒都不如，並把納粹死亡集中營說成“毀滅中心”而受到譴責。

The fine art of repentance is a skill taught in business schools and promoted by high-priced consultants. But all kinds of offenders in public life still seem to struggle with the execution. Corporations like BP and Wells Fargo have faced criticism for dawdling responses to cascading crises, while politicians from Bill Clinton to Anthony Weiner have had difficulty admitting to peccadilloes.

懺悔是一門藝術，是一種被商學院的老師傳授、被收費高昂的諮詢師推銷的技巧。但在公共生活中，各種各樣的犯錯者仍然不太善於使用它。BP和富國銀行(Wells Fargo)等公司因爲對一連串危機反應遲鈍而招致批評，比爾·克林頓(Bill Clinton)、安東尼·D·韋納(Anthony Weiner)等政治人物都難以承認自己的小過失。

The key to contrition, according to public-relations experts, is projecting sincerity, humanity, and a plain-spoken demeanor — the better to convince a cynical public. And in this age of whipsawing social media, you had better do it fast.

按照公關專家的說法，懺悔的關鍵是展現出真誠、人性以及樸實的態度——這樣才能更好地讓滿腹狐疑的公衆感到信服。此外，在社交媒體的發展日新月異的時代，你最好快速行動。

“The head of United should never have been allowed to take three swings at correcting and apologizing for an incident that was on more social media than Kim and Kanye’s wedding,” said Mortimer Matz, a New York consultant who has guided decades’ worth of clients through crises small and large.

“這一事件在社交媒體上的討論度比卡戴珊和坎耶的婚禮還高，聯合航空的負責人就此事認錯和道歉時，絕對不該三度出手，”從業數十年、指導客戶度過大大小小的危機的諮詢師莫蒂梅爾·馬茨(Mortimer Matz)說。

United issued several halting statements about the plane episode, which first emerged Monday morning, before Mr. Munoz made his abject appearance on Wednesday on ABC. Mr. Matz said the airline had missed its moment.

穆尼奧斯於週三可憐兮兮地在ABC露面之前，聯合航空就飛機上的插曲發表過好幾份有缺點的聲明，第一份出現在週一早上。馬茨說聯合航空錯過了最佳時機。

“You’ve got to be a fast thinker in the digital age,” said Mr. Matz, who will be 93 in July.

“在數字化時代，你要快速轉動腦筋，”將於7月迎來93歲生日的馬茨說。

Many companies now take steps to be nimble and responsive when a furor erupts online. Last week, Pepsi took less than 24 hours to apologize and retract a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign that used populist imagery to sell soda. It was a rapid U-turn that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.

現如今，當憤怒情緒在網絡上爆發時，很多公司都會快速作出迴應。上週，百事可樂(Pepsi)推出了一個藉助民粹主義影像推銷汽水的廣告，但還不到24小時就道了歉，並將花費了數百萬美元的廣告下架。其掉頭之迅速，在幾年前是不可想象的。

This week, Mr. Spicer was quick to recognize the damage done by his ill-considered remarks, which prompted immediate denunciations on Twitter as well as calls for his resignation. He appeared on CNN within hours of his gaffe, while Mr. Munoz waited two days.

本週，因發表不恰當言論立即在Twitter上受到譴責，還被要求辭職的斯派塞，迅速承認自己的言辭造成了傷害。他惹出亂子數小時後便上了CNN的節目，而穆尼奧斯等了兩天。

Still, Mr. Spicer’s apology came only after his office tried to clarify his remarks with several statements that, while remorseful, did not clearly admit error.

不過，斯派塞道歉前，爲了澄清他的言論，他的辦公室發佈了好幾份聲明，其中雖有悔意，但並未明確承認錯誤。

On Wednesday, in a previously scheduled interview at the Newseum in Washington, Mr. Spicer took a new tack: no excuses.

週三，在華盛頓新聞博物館(Newseum)接受早前定好的採訪時，斯派塞採取了新方針：不找藉口。

“I made a mistake; there’s no other way to say it,” Mr. Spicer told Greta van Susteren, the MSNBC anchor, his tone notably subdued. “I got into a topic that I shouldn’t have, and I screwed up.” He added: “It really is painful to myself to know that I did something like that.”

“我犯了一個錯誤，沒有其他說法，”斯派塞告訴MSNBC主持人葛麗泰·範·瑟斯特倫(Greta van Susteren)，語氣格外柔和。“我談及了一個我不該談論的話題，我搞砸了。”他還說：“每每想到自己竟然做了這樣一件事，我就十分痛苦。”

Mr. Munoz, interviewed on “Good Morning America” on Wednesday, was similarly solemn.

週三上《早安美國》(Good Morning America)時，穆尼奧斯的態度也很鄭重。

“That shame and embarrassment was pretty palpable for me,” he told the correspondent Rebecca Jarvis, emotion in his voice. “This can never — will never — happen again on a United Airlines flight. That’s my premise and that’s my promise.” Later on Wednesday, United said it would refund the fares of all passengers on the affected flight.

“我深感羞恥和愧疚，”他頗爲動情地告訴記者麗貝卡·賈維斯(Rebecca Jarvis)。“在聯合航空的航班上決不能——以後永遠不能——再發生這樣的事。這是我的基本主張，也是我的承諾。”週三晚些時候，聯合航空說它將把機票錢退還給受影響的那趟航班上的所有乘客。

Both Mr. Munoz, who was named “communicator of the year” by PR Week magazine last month, and Mr. Spicer took pains to personalize their apologies. It’s a technique that, conscious or not, is recommended by crisis experts.

不論是於上月被《公關週刊》(PR Week)雜誌評爲“年度最佳溝通者”的穆尼奧斯，還是斯派塞，都非常努力地做出了個人化的道歉。有意無意間，他們採取了一種受到危機處理專家推薦的技巧。

“That’s on me, I have to fix that,” Mr. Munoz said when asked about the airline policies that led to the violent ejection. Mr. Spicer described his blunder as “mine to own, mine to apologize for, mine to ask forgiveness for.”

“責任在我，我會對其加以修正，”當被問及聯合航空實行的導致暴力驅逐事件發生的政策時，穆尼奧斯表示。斯派塞則說自己犯下了“我本人要承擔的”錯誤，“我要爲此道歉，並請求原諒”。

That plead-no-contest approach, consultants say, is one of the few ways to start rebuilding trust. The accounting firm PwC, for instance, gave a detailed explanation, and quick apology, for this year’s Oscar best picture fiasco, eventually holding onto its Academy Awards account.

一些諮詢師說，這種放棄辯護的路數，是不多的幾種有助於重建信任的方法之一。例如，普華永道會計師事務所(PwC)就本年度奧斯卡最佳影片獎頒獎環節的烏龍進行了詳細說明，並迅速道歉，最終保住了爲奧斯卡獎計票的業務。

“People want someone to throw the book at,” said Katie Sprehe, a senior director at the communications firm APCO Worldwide.

“人們想要找出一個可以怪罪的人，”傳播企業安可顧問公司(APCO Worldwide)的高級主管凱蒂·斯普雷赫(Katie Sprehe)說。

Ms. Sprehe, who studies reputation maintenance, said United had erred by not moving swiftly to mirror its customers’ outrage.

研究聲譽維護問題的斯普雷赫表示，聯合航空的錯誤在於，沒能照顧到乘客的憤怒情緒。

“You need to speak your stakeholders’ language, and coming out with P.R. mumbo jumbo, like ‘re-accommodate,’ is the wrong thing to do,” she said.

“你需要跟利益相關者有共同語言，拋出‘另行安排’之類的公關辭令是錯誤的做法，”她說。

Stu Loeser, an adviser to executives in the technology and finance industries, said that a high-profile apology must be considered in context.

給科技和金融行業的一些高管當顧問的斯圖·勒澤(Stu Loeser)說，考量一個引人注目的道歉時，絕不能脫離情境。

“Oscar Munoz answers to more than 85,000 employees who want to know that if they were the ones caught in a viral video maelstrom, he’d back them up,” said Mr. Loeser, who was press secretary to former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York. “Sean Spicer ultimately answers to one person and one person only” — Mr. Trump — “someone who sees backing down or apologizing as not only a weakness, but a character flaw.”

“奧斯卡·穆尼奧斯得對8.5萬名員工負責任，那些員工想要知道，如果是他們捲入了一場由廣爲流傳的視頻引發的軒然大波，他能否給他們以支持，”爲紐約市前市長邁克爾·R·布隆伯格(Michael R. Bloomberg)當過新聞祕書的勒澤說。“肖恩·斯派塞最終得對唯一一個人負責”——即特朗普——那個人不僅認爲退讓或道歉是懦弱的表現，還將其視爲性格缺陷。

“In both cases,” Mr. Loeser added, “what might appear to be an irrational series of statements that got you into trouble makes more sense, when you think about who they’re actually answering to.”

“在這兩個案例中，”他繼續說道，“當你考慮到他們要對誰負責時，那些看似不合情理的一系列招來麻煩的聲明，就很是合乎情理了。”

Mr. Munoz ended his interview by saying he had no plans to resign. “I was hired to make United better, and I’ve been doing that, and that’s what I’ll continue to do,” he said. Mr. Spicer, asked by Ms. Van Susteren if he enjoyed being press secretary, said he loved it.

穆尼奧斯在採訪結束前表示，他沒有辭職的打算。“我上任時的使命是打造一個更好的聯合航空，我會繼續爲之奮鬥，”他說。斯派塞在被範·瑟斯特倫(Van Susteren)問及是否喜歡當新聞祕書時，說他很喜歡。

“I truly do believe it’s an honor to have this job,” he said. “It is a privilege. And if you don’t believe it, then you shouldn’t be here.”

“我真的以能做這份工作爲榮，”他說。“這是一種特殊的榮耀。如果不這樣認爲，就不該待在這個位置上。”

Whether the apologies outlive the gaffes remains to be seen. Ken Sunshine, who founded the public-relations firm Sunshine Sachs, said he was skeptical. “My rule?” he said. “You get one shot.”

目前尚不清楚，這些道歉能否讓事態得到平息。公關公司桑夏恩·薩克斯(Sunshine Sachs)的創始人肯·桑夏恩(Ken Sunshine)說，他對此表示懷疑。“我的法則？”他說。“你得一擊即中。”