Por Ernie Tadla

Que a mesma tendência continuou quando eu comecei trabalhar. A maioria de gerentes jogaram o papel da bobina, corrigindo o que nós tratamos injustamente, e martelaram-nos se nós continuássemos a o começar errado.

Os jornais, tevê, compartimentos, radio todos disseram-nos sobre o que era errado com o mundo e residia em failings humanos, se era com nossos líderes ou o homem na rua.

Felizmente, isso está mudando. Há uma escola crescente dos programas de desenvolvimento parental da gerência do treinamento e do negócio que focalizam em nossas forças, re-reforçando as coisas que positivas nós fazemos em vez de nos bater acima para nossos fraquezas ou erros.

Todos tem feito este em China por mais de 2.500 anos. Começou com o Confucius e é chamado a cara, respeito para a outra pessoa.

Quando eu aterrei primeiramente em China, todos eu encontrei-me com coisas agradáveis ditas sobre meus país e mim. Disseram somente coisas agradáveis. Estando em minha modalidade judgmental, distrusting, eu duvidei seu sincerity, querido saber o que quis, e fui curioso o que disseram sobre mim atrás de minha parte traseira.

Não era justo mim. Pareceu que tudo que disseram sobre qualquer um ou qualquer coisa era positivo, rosy, cheering, complimentary, extolling sempre todos virtue. Eu mantive-me esperar a outra sapata para deixar cair.

Nunca. I had heard about face, but with my prejudicial attitude, I deemed it a cultural excuse for not telling the truth.

Back home, as a husband, parent, manager, I didn’t want to follow the example of my parents or previous bosses. I was a student of the D.I.S.C. Behavior Profile System, recognizing each individual’s strengths and weaknesses. There was a management choice: focus on their strengths and not their weaknesses. You can’t do both at the same time. When my boss thinks of me and evaluates my performance, I would like him to focus on my strengths, not my weaknesses.

My strengths are:
1 good people skills
2 communicate well
3 enjoy challenges
4 results oriented
5 good starter-upper, builder, pioneer

My weaknesses are:
1 no administrative skills
2 terrible with details
3 not good at finishing projects
4 impatient
5 not analytical

When you respect someone:
≺ what do you think about them?
≺ how do you judge them?
≺ what do you focus on?
≺ how do you talk to them?
≺ how do you treat them?
≺ do you focus on their strengths or their weaknesses?

Generally, the only time we think and talk about people’s strengths is at their funeral. The rest of the time, we dwell on their warts.

The Chinese don’t wait until you are dead to talk, think and be nice to you. They do it while you are alive, to your face, behind your back, to others about you.

Face, respect for the other person, is the most significant fact of Chinese family life, business, and government. It is central to everything Chinese. Its foundation comes from the Confucian code of how people are to behave toward others. He dealt with it at five different levels:
≺ subject to ruler
≺ parent to child
≺ elder to younger
≺ husband to wife
≺ elder and junior friends

Face is showing respect to the other person, which means you must be sensitive to the other person’s needs and not your own. You speak highly of them to their face and openly to others about them. You focus on, recognize and talk about their strengths and what is good, honorable, special, and positive about them. Not just to their face but also behind their back.

You never:
1 disagree with
2 argue with
3 contradict
4 poke fun at
5 joke about
6 ridicule
7 correct
8 discipline
9 embarrass
10 or are critical of another person

If you do any of these, you and they would lose face. Let’s take a look at face on a national scale. Chairman Mao Zedong’s embalmed body lies in a mausoleum on Tiananmen Square and a huge poster of him hangs at the main gate of the Forbidden City. His portrait is on all Chinese paper money. A statue can be found in every town and city. Each year, millions of people visit sites where he spent his childhood and every place he ever lived. He has much face in China.

There is a biography about him that’s banned in China. "Mao: The Unknown Story" written by Jung Chang, whose own family suffered under his rule, and her husband, Jon Halliday, who spent ten years going through previously untapped archives and interviewed hundreds of people close to Mao. The massively researched biography portrays a man who was amoral, repellent, and a mass murderer who makes Hitler and Stalin look like choirboys.
≺ 38 million people died of starvation while he shipped rice and wheat to Russia in exchange for military equipment.
≺ Millions were killed during his Cultural Revolution and millions of others ruined.
≺ He was responsible for 70 million Chinese deaths.

In China, Mao is a hero, an extreme example of face on a national level.

With face, there is really never any need for forgiveness. They never judge. They just look the other way. Mistakes are natural occurrences for us humans, so why beat ourselves up over it. What does rubbing our noses in it accomplish? They’d rather focus on the good we do, and believe we will learn from our mistakes and not repeat them. They have a positive view of human nature and believe that we are basically good, kind and well meaning.

Over here, when you chastise, embarrass or punish a child or employee, does that mean they won’t do it again? Does it enhance the relationship? Does it build trust?

I made my share of faux pas in China, but I was accepted just as I was. This strengthened my resolve to not repeat my errors, to do better, to maintain my self-image and confidence, and feel good about myself. The better you feel about yourself, the better job you do.

Confucius says:
“The nobler sort of man emphasizes the good qualities in others, and does not accentuate the bad. The inferior does the reverse.”

That’s face!

Ernie Tadla
www.odysseychina.net

Next week: Lesson 5. Guanxi: Trust me.