The missing subject

Next time you read an organisation’s apology, try this: look for the subject of each sentence.

“We apologise for any inconvenience caused.” Caused by whom? “Mistakes were made.” Made by whom? The verbs are all there. The people behind them have been taken out.

It’s tempting to put this down to clumsy writing. It isn’t. These texts are rarely written at the communications desk; someone weighing the risk steps in, and communications publishes. And the first thing a risk calculation removes is the subject. But the subject isn’t the only thing that disappears. Once there is no one doing anything in the sentence, there is no one on the receiving end either. Someone whose payment was late, who missed their flight, whose data ended up in someone else’s hands. There’s no trace of them in the text.

Readers don’t get angry because they miss this. They get angry because they notice. People don’t read the sentence; they see that there’s nobody behind it.

The opposite does exist, but it’s rare. Those texts say what happened, who made the decision, and what will be done about it, with a date. The organisation doesn’t look smaller for it. Quite the reverse. An organisation’s strength shows in whether it dares to remain the subject when it describes its own mistake.

Once an apology has gone out, most organisations ask the same question: was it clear enough? The real question is a different one. Who wrote that sentence, and who put their name to it?

Organisations have learned to apologise.
Not to be the subject.