Author Archives: abfifer

First Do No Harm

May 25, 2017 – 2:25 pm

Australian mediator Greg Rooney posted an interesting article on mediate.com this month, The Profound Apology, about managing apologies in mediation. Three aspects stand out: (1) Don’t permit an offender in a sexual abuse case to apologize to the victim; (2) Prepare each party ahead of time by telling them not to prepare; (3) An example of […]

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Baseball Player Apology

April 21, 2017 – 3:55 pm

A major league baseball player issued an apology this week. Pittsburgh Pirates outfielder Starling Marte was suspended for 80 games after testing positive for a performance-enhancing drug, the steroid Nandrolone. Here’s his statement: “In this very difficult moment I apologize to my family, the Pittsburgh Pirates, my teammates, my fans, and baseball in general. Neglect and lack […]

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More on Public Apologies

April 13, 2017 – 10:15 am

Today’s New York Times has an article saying, more eloquently and thoroughly than I could have, what I was suggesting in yesterday’s post about the difficulty of making a good public apology, as exemplified this week by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer and United Airlines CEO Oscar Munez.

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Public Apologies Are Tough to Get Right

April 12, 2017 – 10:14 am

Two apologies are evolving in this week’s news cycle: from White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, regarding his comparison of Syria’s use of chemical weapons to Hitler’s, and from United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz regarding the passenger who was forcibly removed from a plane this week. Each man has offered successive apologies, after his original apology was […]

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My Hero

March 30, 2017 – 8:09 pm

Faithful, strong, generous, smart, caring, witty, honest, interested and interesting – these are only some of the qualities I admired in the man who is my hero. He would laugh when I would tell him he was my hero. He would reply, “Many people have it much worse than I do.” But I’m not sure […]

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