101: How to Admit Your Mistakes: The Ellen DeGeneres Apology

All right, you screwed up. Mistakes were made, and now it's time to pay the piper. Are you someone who struggles with fessing up when it comes to admitting you've made a mistake? If so, you're not alone.

Oh, boy. Welcome to season 18 of the Ellen DeGeneres Show.

Ellen DeGeneres is addressing the controversy surrounding the Ellen DeGeneres show in its season 18 premiere. According to a source, DeGeneres didn't hold anything back in her opening monologue.

She, in a way, sort of reaffirmed her commitment to the show as well.

We have made the necessary changes, and today we are starting a new chapter.

Ellen DeGeneres candidly addressing allegations of a toxic workplace during Monday's season 18 premiere of her daytime talk show.

If you're watching because you love me, thank you. If you're watching because you don't love me, welcome.

This week on the podcast how to gut through a mistake and admit you were wrong, but when you really don't want to. I'm sharing five maneuvers that will help you create an architecture for getting you through the sometimes brutal process of admitting when you are wrong. How? By letting you listen to Ellen degeneres try to worm her way out of not admitting that she's to blame for her brand and television shows death spiral. In an opening monologue that aired last Monday, DeGeneres returned for the 18th season of her talk show. This after an investigation into the toxic work environment that included accusations of workplace misconduct that led to three producers being ousted. And this was after the host, known as the be kind lady sat quietly for months while she was rebranded as a jerk. Behind the scenes of her show, Ellen had some splaining to do. Now, each week on this podcast, my goal is to help communicators create and deliver the right message at the right time on the right channels. That process, however, is sorely compromised if you start your communications on the wrong foot. Now, communications can seem simple, easy peasy. I hear it all the time. How difficult is it to communicate? Everybody does it. But you know what? It's complex. And if you get it wrong, if you miscommunicate or if there is a lack of communication in business, it can be costly to your reputation and to the bottom line. Now, I've helped many clients successfully craft and deliver their responses, or I've trained them how to do it. But something I make clear to them, the response is never about the words alone. What does someone want want to hear? But also what does someone need to hear? There has to be an intention behind the Words behind the response that solves a problem when you make a mistake, you've created a problematic situation. The words you choose will help you solve that problem, and how you frame those words will help you negotiate your way out of the situation, thereby solving the problem. Ellen DeGeneres apology was not about writing a monologue. It was about saving a multimillion dollar talk show and a multi million dollar brand. Now, a crisis is often defined by what's at stake. In the case of the Ellen DeGeneres show, there was a lot of money in advertising dollars riding on her reputation for being kind. When a mistake happens to you, the pain from possible retribution is a distraction from the typical state. Your new current state is now undesirable. After a mistake, you need to negotiate your way to a future state that is desirable. In short, this is how you admit to a mistake. Now, how are you going to do that? Sidebar A friend said to me this week, still not letting go of this Ellen thing I see now. I admit I'm going going back to the Ellen well, a time or two. But hey, her response, or lack of one over the past six months, validates why my response framework works or doesn't if you don't follow the steps of own it, clarify it, and promise it. Also, people asked DailyCook reached out to me on Twitter last week to ask my thoughts on the Ellen apology. I answered on Twitter and now I'm sharing my thoughts that extend over the 280 character mark. So listen up for how to fess up when you don't want to, but you need to five maneuvers to get you to the other side of the mistake Starring hi everybody. Hey, it's Ellen, everybody. And someone who struggled with it. So let's use Ellen's apology as a blueprint, shall we? All right. Your first maneuver to admit a mistake one is to have a plan after the mistake happens and you've been sitting on that apology for a bit. Before you say anything, figure out how you got there, what happened. Have a clear understanding of who said what and who did what. Then create the framework for admitting what you did and also what you didn't do. Stick with the facts to formulate your response. Don't go off the gut or emotion. Just use facts. You can make it a lot worse if you're not truthful. Ellen's plan if you listen in episode 94 how to apologize during a PR why Ellen DeGeneres kept quiet and why you shouldn't, I detailed why I thought Ellen DeGeneres remained silent. Silent during her PR crisis and the subsequent crisis that followed from her silence. Ellen's plan was to remain mum for the remainder of her season after her brand blew up in March and continued to get worse when she would step in it time and time again on her show. I do have a link in the show notes to the episode if you want more details. Now, as Ellen was waiting it out for her bad crisis to go away. That's typically the point where many people in that situation say their lawyers prevented them from speaking. I hear it all the time in my work. I hear it from famous people. But even at my client level now, respectfully speaking, bull using the lawyer move or the lawyer line is a cop out. It's not true. Now, yes, there are times when you can't speak about proprietary information, private information, but anyone can respond when they are being accused of something. The public believes the truth. The public does not believe deception. And that goes for our personal lives as well. So don't lie. So Ellen needed a plan. She decided to address the allegations in her opening monologue at the start of her 18th season in September. Now, why did she do this? Why last week? Why on her show? Now, my crisis management brain says that Ellen did it because she wanted a safe environment. Her home turf, the studio. Ellen wanted a forum where she could apologize in a scripted format, not a sit down interview with a reporter. No way. She needed to stay safe and in control. That monologue needed guardrails. It was a format where she could use and deploy her most strategic weapon, her humor, on her terms. Now, if you didn't watch the apology, let me set the scene. Ellen opened the monologue to a studio audience made up of large monitors broadcasting or maybe recording individual audience members. So each screen you saw a face. And now I have to give it to Ellen. There. Delivering an apology of this magnitude would have been a heck of a lot easier if she were getting real time feedback from her audience. As a public speaker, I know how it feels to feed off in an audience and she had to feed off of an audience behind monitors. So that's awkward and difficult. Now, her clothes she was wearing, in my opinion, a methodical choice of wardrobe. Jeans with a white turtleneck and a white blazer. White. Pure, innocent and honest, but ill fitting. She looked as uncomfortable with what she was wearing with what she was saying. Her clothes, like her apology, wore her neither one flattering. Now, her hand gestures appeared deliberate as well, when they weren't nervously tugging at her jacket. Which, by the way, she did the same thing when she Hosted the Oscars in 2014. That's Ellen's tell when she. When she's nervous, she tugs at her jacket. Her hands were clasped together in front, thumb to thumb, fingers to fingers. It's like the Merkle diamond, they call it. It's the hand gesture coined Andrea Merkel, the chancellor of Germany. You know what it is? It's like the hands are down and it forms a diamond. Now, experts say that touching the fingertips can appear tense and unrelaxed, as it did for Ellen. It's also distracting. I was drawn to it immediately. And then, of course, there is the risk of the unintended meeting, like the sign language gesture for a part of the female anatomy, which could be a confusing signal if you're a public speaker, especially a male one. But if you're Ellen, you might not be. I don't know. It may have been intentional, who knows? But what we do know is that Ellen had a plan. So for you have a plan for the circumstances, for how you are going to admit your mistake. Next, show empathy. When people hear the word empathy, they typically think it's a squishy feeling word. I need to show empathy. I need to show I care. But I hear it used incorrectly all the time because the actual definition of empathy is the ability to understand and share the feelings of another person. It's understanding how a person feels, not showing a person how you feel their pain. It's addressing their feelings. It's a little more strategic. You can use it tactically to get into the head of someone else, an adversary, someone you're negotiating with, or your public, or in Ellen's case, the audience here. In her apology, Ellen shows empathy.

This has been a horrible summer for people all around the world. People are losing their jobs. People are losing loved ones to a pandemic. People are losing their homes and lives in raging fires that are going on. There's blatant racial injustice all around us. I watch the news and I feel like, where do we even begin? So my hope is that we can still be a place of happiness and joy. I still want to be the one hour a day that people can go to escape and laugh. I want to continue to help all the people that we help every day. And I am committed to making this the best season that we have ever had.

Now there, Ellen used empathy. She got into the minds, into the hearts of her audience. She stepped into their shoes to discern what they were thinking at that moment, what were their needs, how were they likely feeling Now Ellen was thinking what everyone was Thinking the horrible summer, the impact from the pandemic, the weak economy, the wildfires out in California, the racial injustice. Ellen reminded her audience that she's just like them and that they needed her humor and her television show for relief. Now, for you, what this means. If you need to admit a mistake, think how. Did your mistake hurt the person or group? Or did your mistake cause them to lose something or cost them in some way? You need to step in their shoes to feel their hurt. That way you can negotiate your way out of the situation. Empathy helps you tenderize the situation and the person on the other side to create a more safe environment for admitting your mistake. Next, the third maneuver. Own it. Own it. Own it. Take responsibility. Do not weasel your way out of it by blaming someone else, scapegoating or gaslighting. I hate gaslighting. It's telling someone they are crazy for making such a big deal about the mistake. And do not try to minimize your mistake by using defeasibility. I had no idea what was happening that could have never happened. Or placing it in a different context. Ellen tried it here.

All right, let's get to it. As you may have heard this summer, there were allegations of a toxic work environment at our show, and then there was an investigation. I learned that things happened here that never should have happened.

Learned, Ellen. When you learned that things were happening, you were the things that were happening. Ellen. If I could pinpoint the one sentence, the one word that killed this apology, it was the word learned. Ellen made it clear by choosing learned that she placed herself outside of the blame. Everyone knew what was happening with Ellen. That's why there were three thousands of retweets of the Twitter post in March from the comedian Kevin Porter asking for evidence of Ellen not being nice. Ugh. If you do not own it when you make a mistake, it's over. Or it's really, really difficult to get back on your feet. Own it. Next. It's all about accountability and not taking partial accountability, which is a little different than owning it. Owning it is admitting it. Accountability is being accountable for what happened. Now, step one in my framework is that own it step. But you need to show that you have full accountability for the situation that happened. Don't twist or cajole your intent and frame the message or the situation to serve you people notice. If there is one piece of advice to remember from this episode, it's this. Don't redefine your sin as a virtue. Ellen did it. Take a listen as she attempted to reframe her now mean image. Into a kind one.

There were also articles in the press and on social media that said that I am not who I appear to be on TV because I became known as the be kind lady. And here's how that happened. I started saying be kind to one another after a young man named Tyler Clemente took his own life after being bullied for being gay. I thought the world needed more kindness and it was a reminder that we all needed that. And I think we need it more than ever right now.

Ellen, a lesbian, is reminding us of her kindness when she spoke about the Rutgers University student who jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge at the age of 18. If I had a hand in writing this apology for Ellen, I would not have gone there. Ellen continues.

Being known as the be kind lady is a tricky position to be in. So let me give you some advice out there. If anybody's thinking of changing their title or giving yourself a nickname, do not go with the be kind lady. Don't do it. The truth is, I am that person that you see on tv. I am also a lot of other things. Sometimes I get sad, I get mad, I get anxious, I get frustrated, I get impatient. And I am working on all of that. I am a work in progress. And I am especially working on the impatience thing because. And it's not going well because it's not happening fast enough. I will tell you that Ellen went.

From the tragic story of Tyler Clemente to wrapping up with a joke about her working on her impatience and how it wasn't happening fast enough. Remember, that's redefining the sin as a virtue. And this last line, and if I've.

Ever let someone down, if I've ever hurt their feelings, I am so sorry for that. If that's ever the case, I have let myself down and I've hurt myself as well.

If I ever let someone down, if I hurt feelings. Ellen's show is on the brink of the cliff. There is an investigation into the toxic work environment of her show. There is no if Ellen let people down and even if she didn't know directly, she knew indirectly. She's the boss and there were facts and people proved it. It was said over and over again. Ellen was not nice. Minimizing an apology is not taking full responsibility or full accountability. When you are in the middle of admitting guilt, never use I'm sorry if I hurt you, if I embarrassed you, if you thought I meant this. No ifs. And last, accept the consequences and carry on. Humans are hardwired to avoid pain. If you are seven on the Enneagram? This part is even more challenging for you. Sevens hate pain. They're masters of denial. There's no getting around this maneuver if you want a clean break from the mistake. Taking your lumps is tough, but the payoff is in the penance. If you experience pain for the good of the relationship, then you will successfully negotiate your way out of the problem. Now you're wondering, did Ellen's apology pass the response sniff test? My opinion?

Meh.

It wasn't a full apology. She didn't take full responsibility, and I expect that she'll feel it by the end of the season. She's been flat since last Monday. She's still rattled and she's playing a room full of monitors. Not an ideal environment for rehabbing your reputation. If I had to formulate a guess, Ellen's show won't make it to 20 seasons. Hey, but that's Ellen. This episode is about you. So here are three takeaways for why you want to admit your mistakes even when you don't want to. 1. When you find yourself in a problematic situation, remember that admitting your mistake is part of the negotiation process for solving the problem. Remember, when you have to admit a mistake, it's a negotiation. You want to get to the other side of it. 2. Mistakes are costly, even more so if you don't admit them. Protect your relationships and your bottom line by owning up when you need to. It doesn't matter if it's a television show, a company in a full blown crisis, or even a divorce. Skirting an admission to a fault can cost you big. And three. Here's the secret about a crisis. You can come out of it even better afterwards if you master the response. Dodging, ducking and weaving always makes it worse. People are too wise to it now. They spot it a mile away. But for every ounce that someone doesn't give you on the front end, when you try to dodge an issue, you more than make up for it on the back end when you admit to it. To get past the mistake, you have to admit that you made it in the first place. It's not hard. Mistakes were made. I screwed up big time. Something went wrong and it's all my fault. This is how I'm going to change. I promise I'll fix it. See? How easy was that? A recap? 1. Have a plan. 2. Show empathy. 3. Own it, own it, own it. 4. Take full accountability, not partial. And 5 accept the consequences and carry on. That's all for today's episode of the podcast. Remember to follow me on twitter@molly mcpherson. Subscribe to the weekly newsletter@mollymcpherson.com subscribe and don't forget Coming soon, the Response Kit, a communicator's blueprint for responding in the age of crazy online media. Thanks so much for listening. Bye for now.