The Helm: This is probably a big question, but can you give us a nutshell kind of answer of how public apology has evolved over the years?

Ray Hennessey: It’s become way more frequent. We’re more likely to apologize just because the things we do wrong are more amplified thanks to social media. And if you look at it from a corporate perspective, most CEOs never felt that they needed to apologize because problems — either in the way that they lead an organization internally or mistakes that they made externally — usually had a very, very limited audience.

If you were a national company you worried about the Wall Street Journal and some of the big newspapers or sometimes, if it was a big enough screw up, you’d got on network TV. Now we live in an environment where a CEO can say something and her staff can immediately put it out on social media. Cameras and recorders are on us all day long. I don’t think people are messing up any more than they used to, they’re just getting found out about it more.

It’s the same even with personal issues. You have CEOs like Bill Gates going through divorces in the public eye. That didn’t happen 20 years ago.

Personal issues or failings become public so often you sometimes have to apologize for mistakes you’ve made.