由Ernie · Tadla

同样趋向继续了，当我开始工作。 多数经理扮演警察角色，改正什么我们做错了，并且捣了我们，如果我们继续得到它错误。

报纸，电视，杂志，收音全部告诉了我们关于什么是错误的与世界并且居住了在人的缺陷，它是否是以我们的领导或人在街道。

幸运地，那改变。 有集中于我们的力量父母亲训练和业务管理发展方案的一所增长的学校，增强我们做而不是痛打我们为我们的弱点或差错的正面事。

大家做着此在中国超过2,500年。 它从Confucius开始了和叫面孔，对另一个人的尊敬。

当I在中国首先登陆了，大家我遇见了说的好的事关于我国家和我。 他们说仅好的事。 在我的主观， distrusting方式下，我怀疑他们的真诚，想知道什么他们想要，并且是好奇的什么他们说关于我在我的后面之后。

它不仅我。 看起来他们说关于任何人的一切或任何是正面的，玫瑰色，欢呼，赞美，总赞颂大家的贤良。 我继续等待另一双鞋子滴下。

它未曾。 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.