#SorryNotSorry

Add this to the list of conventional, but bad, advice.

If you’re sorry, it’s OK to say it.

I’m a filer, not a piler, so if an email is in my Inbox that means I think I need to do something with it. Read it. Reply to it. Act on it. At the height of my start-up founder no-life life, though, it became obvious that I was never going to have the capacity to get to every email sitting in my Inbox. And seeing a big red number in the hundreds attached to what was effectively a stand-in for my to-do list felt oppressive. So I leaned into a philosophy I called #EmailBankruptcy.

For years I would tell people about my philsophy. It worked like this: About once a quarter I would declare email bankruptcy. I’d create a folder for the quarter in questions and move everything left in my Inbox into that folder. I would not only let my team know it had been declared, I would declare it on social media. I would accompany this announcement with a message that if you were waiting on me for something, now was the time to reach back out. (Spoiler: Very few people did, because very few things that are truly important and/or time-sensitive rely on a single email outreach.)

By keeping those emails in searchable folders I could find the thread if someone did indeed reach out (none too pleased) about my delayed replies.

And the other thing I did, back before there was ubiquitous WIFI on planes, was to use plane time offline to open some of those old folders and see if there was anything I wanted to reply to, even if it was months later.

I would start each such much-delayed reply with the same opener, “Please accept my apology for such an egregious delay, and I understand if the ship has totally sailed on this [idea, opportunity, option, etc.] I have no excuse other than email overwhelm, but in doing some catch-up today, I found your email and wanted to reply.”

It may surprise you to know that I never once received an angry reply to this kind of email. I almost always got a reply, and it almost always expressed both surprise and delight that I answered at all, no matter how delayed, no matter whether we still had something timely to discuss or if the ship had indeed sailed.

So, when I saw this advice from Adam Grant about replacing “sorry for the delay” with “thank you for your patience” making the rounds, you can imagine I had a different response to it than many people seemed to.

Especially because he adds another tenet to his philsophy, recommending replacing “Bumping this up in your inbox” as an opening phrase of an email re-send with “just wanted to make sure this came through” instead. Because the former seems presumptuous to him. (The latter seems disingenuous to me…at least the former is honest and doesn’t try to avoid admitting that really you’re just trying to get an answer, not checking on the state of the recipient’s Internet connection.)

If we’re concerned about being presumptuous, I think saying “thank you for your patience” is presumptuous in its own way. It’s like a “thanks in advance for…” closer to emails that presumes the recipient is going to do or say what you’re asking for, pronto. I’m not really a patient person…you can bet that if you’ve taken forever to reply to me I’ve either a) Moved on and done something without you or b) Waited, feeling peeved about it.

Look, I don’t disagree with the fundamental premise of his column…that a colleague replying to an email within hours saying “sorry for the delay” reflects an unhealthy sense of urgency. I also don’t disagree with all the advice about how to set boundaries between your priorities and time and other people’s emergencies and expectations.

But it’s become blanket advice, given particularly to women, to stop apologizing. You can add it to the list of ways we’ve policed the way women speak and express themselves over the years…e.g. don’t say “just,” watch your upspeak, avoid vocal fry. Sound familiar?

I have a problem with it because a) We don’t police men’s language and tone in the same way…and I can tell you that living in Silicon Valley more guys sound like surfer dudes who’ve never hit the waves… and b) We are pretending that if only women would speak a certain way, if only women would fix their imposter syndrome, if only women would be like we perceive powerful men to be (but not too much like them), then bam!, systemic barriers would fall down before us.

I’ve certainly been the woman who wanted to be “one of the guys,” who “faked it until I made it,” and who was told on numerous occasions that I “managed like a man.” By both men and women, meant as a compliment, but really just reinforcing a gender determinist perspective on leadership behavior that cast me as the exception not the rule as a woman leader.

Our expectations of male leaders are changing, even as we send women in the direction they just came from. But if I want men to have humility, to understand the assignment when it comes to when and how to apologize, to balance trusting their gut with listening to the expertise and lived experience of others, then I must do the same.

To be clear: I’m a big proponent of apologizing….when you feel genuinely sorry, for the thing for which you feel genuinely sorry.

An honest expression of appropriate regret is one of the easiest ways to defuse conflict, put someone at ease, mirror the empathy you want to receive, and open up lines of communication.

Do I make the effort to avoid language that unnecessarily undercuts my own expertise or opinion? Yes. But do I also make the effort to acknowledge and honor what someone else might be feeling on the other end of communications with me, and own it? Also yes.

So. If your reply is in fact egregiously delayed, it’s OK to apologize for it. If it is not egregiously delayed than you don’t have to apologize OR thank someone for their patience (which by the way, also seems to agree that the reply is delayed, you just don’t feel bad about it). You can just answer the damn email.

We are making this harder than it needs to be.

And here’s the part where I don’t say, “does that make sense?” and instead say, “I’d love to hear if you agree or disagree!” LOL