How to apologize at work without over-apologizing
You made a visible mistake and need to own it without collapsing your credibility.
Strategy
Name it, own it, state the fix, move on. One apology, no groveling. Over-apologizing shifts the burden to the other person to reassure you.
How this one opens
The numbers in yesterday's board deck were wrong.
This is the first line of the full script for this exact situation.
What usually happens next
Most likely: a short question about how the error got out, then a move straight to the fix.
One thing not to say
I am so so sorry, I feel terrible
You are seeing a piece of this script. 5 parts are written in full.
The rest of the opening, the full pushback path, everything to avoid, and the follow-up message — written for this situation.
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