5.4. THE CONCEPT OF FACE

Face saving, face giving, and face losing are all important concepts in dealing with intercultural conflict. To deal effectively with conflict, we must first understand "face" as it applies to various cultures. Ting-Toomey sees face as symbolic and as a claimed sense of self-respect in a relational situation. Face is universal because everyone would like to be respected and needs a sense of self-respect, but how we achieve, maintain, save, or honor one's face differs across cultures.

Face Saving. The meaning of face differs. In individualistic cultures, the concept of face is equated with saving one's own face (pride, reputation, credibility, and self-respect), while in collectivist cultures, it is more related to honor and the family or organization—face in relation to others. In collectivist cultures, everyone is interlocked in an interdependent group orientation. In the Chinese term "guanxi," the interlocking relationship patterns emerge as "who knows whom" and "who is in charge of whom." Also in collectivist cultures, there is a strong link between the concept of power and the concept of face. To have a greater face in Asian cultures is to be more powerful in the organization or know more people in the system. Most Asians, reports Ting-Toomey, understand how much face they have. The Face Negotiation Theory model is based on Ting-Toomey's distinctions.

Face Giving. This is not a common concept in most individualistic countries. To collectivist cultures in Asia, face giving means allowing room for the other person to recover his or her face—room to negotiate—so both can gain face in the end. "For Westerners, face seems to be a dichotomous concept: we either lose face or save face. For Easterners, face is considered to be a mutual, interdependent concept, and is a relational and group phenomena."^[]

Face Losing. In individualistic cultures losing face means personal failure, loss of self-esteem, or loss of individual self-pride. For Japanese, Korean, and other collectivist cultures, face losing has ramifications for disrupting group harmony and bringing shame to their family, classmates, or company.

Recovery. Recovery from face loss also differs. Humor is a common strategy used to recover from face loss in individualistic cultures; if humor doesn't work, defense and attack strategies may be used, causing win/lose situations. Asian cultures focus more on maintaining the image of a win/win process and involve more intermediaries to preserve face than do individualistic cultures.

Conflict. This is also face-related, since face appears to be a predictor of what conflict strategy will be used, according to Ting-Toomey. In conflict situations, individualistic cultures tend to adopt self-preservation strategies, focus on self-face issues, use confrontation and control-focused conflict strategies, and display win/lose orientations. Asian subjects tend to use face-smoothing strategies, mutual face-preservation strategies, and conflict avoidance strategies.

Another way to characterize cultures in relation to conflict management is that developed by anthropologist Ruth Benedict and later amplified by psychologist Abraham Maslow. They discovered that some cultures are more synergistic and inclined toward cooperation, while others are predisposed toward competition and conflict. Some of the differences between high-synergy societies and low-synergy societies are shown below.

Check out your group's conflict style by using "What's Your Conflict Style?"

5.4.1. Suggestions for Using "What's Your Conflict Style?"

Objectives

• To clarify one's own cultural programming around conflict issues

• To understand differences in cultural programming among co-workers

• To stimulate discussion and negotiation of differences

Intended Audience

• Members of a multinational work team, task force, or department

• Managers of international or multicultural teams

• Participants in diversity training sessions

Time

• 45 to 60 minutes

Materials

• Copies of "What's Your Conflict Style?"

• Enlargements of "What's Your Conflict Style?" (optional)

What's Your Conflict Style? Directions: In each pair of statements below, distribute ten points between the two choices, based on how much each describes you when faced with a conflict situation. For example, seven points for the a. statement, three points for the b. statement. If both describe your orientation equally, you would give each five points. _____ a. I like to face conflicts head-on and get the issues out in the open. _____ b. I try to avoid conflict wherever possible. _____ a. I prefer to deal with conflict myself. _____ b. I think it's more effective to use informal mediators or third parties to help resolve conflicts. _____ a. When a conflict arises, I can easily separate the issues from the people involved. _____ b. I consider criticism of my ideas to be personal attacks. _____ c. When faced with a conflict, I like to win. _____ d. I prefer finding creative ways to achieve win/win solutions that combine the best thinking of all the cultures involved. _____ c. The belief systems in my culture emphasize a kind and caring superior being. _____ d. My culture's belief systems are more focused on punishing than rewarding. _____ c. I like competition. _____ d. I'm more comfortable working in a cooperative environment where collaboration is the norm. _____ e. I believe that conflict is normal and useful. _____ f. Conflict is disruptive and hurtful in work situations. _____ e. Going through a conflict together can help a team be more cohesive and work better together. _____ f. Teams are negatively impacted by conflict. _____ e. Conflict often drives innovation and creativity in my team. _____ f. Confrontations are destructive and dangerous to team effectiveness. Scoring Write the points for each statement, then add the total points for each letter and divide by three to find an average score for the three items with the same letter.

Directions

• Discuss and define the dimensions on each continuum.

• Ask team members to respond to the questionnaire and score responses, following directions.

• Have members share profiles and discuss similarities, differences, and implications for the team, either by showing each other their answers or by putting their marks with a colored marker or stick-on dots on an enlarged version of the profile sheet posted on the wall. (One for the whole team or one chart for each group of five to six people.)

Questions for Discussion/Consideration

• What similarities and differences do you see among group members?

• How does your profile reflect a preferred national or organizational profile?

• How does your own profile help and hinder you in managing conflict?

• How flexible are you in adapting to others who have different cultural orientations on these dimensions?

• How do the differences play out in work behaviors and team interactions?

• How does your combined profile help and/or hinder you as a team?

• Where are there potential "hot spots" that may lead to misunderstanding?

• How can you make your combined profile work in your group's favor?

Cultural Considerations

• Talking about differences openly may be uncomfortable for some team members. In such cases, have team members turn in their profiles anonymously and draw a composite group profile for the team to discuss.

Caveats, Considerations, and Variations

• Have each team member mark his or her profile on a separate transparency printed with the profile scoring. Then juxtapose transparencies on the overhead to show differences and similarities in profiles.

• If there are distinct cultural groups, have each group mark profiles using a different colored marker. First show collected profiles of each national or civilizational group together, discussing similarities and differences within a group. Then combine all profiles. (Variation suggested by the work of Mila Hernán Alvarez, Business Communication Consultant, Madrid, Spain.)

• Have members pair or group with those on the team they most need to communicate with to share profiles and negotiate adaptations.