If we really annoy somebody and they let us know they are annoyed, what is our first reaction?

Usually it is to explain why we spoke or behaved as we did, and that we didn’t mean to annoy them.

We do that because we are trying to repair the relationship.

Unfortunately, that is a classic mistake, as Peter Bregman explains in the Harvard Business Review.

The reason it is a mistake is that what is important to the other person is not your perspective but the consequence to them of your speech or behaviour.

The best way to handle it if you upset somebody, regardless of the rights and wrongs as you see them, is to acknowledge how what you said or did affected the other person.

Your job in this situation is to acknowledge their reality, something critical in maintaining the relationship.

Mr Bregman points out we are not betraying ourselves, we are just empathising.

There’s more on this,  and you can read it at http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2013/04/what-to-do-when-youve-angered.html