Conflict Management--Face-Management Skills
Managing people should learn to cultivate face-management skills in dealing with interpersonal
and inter-group negotiations competently.
Face-management skills address the fundamental issue of self-esteem. All human beings like to be respected and be approved of in their daily interactions. However, how they behaviorally show such self respect needs and concerns as well as how others accord them respect and dignity very likely differ from one context to the next.
Now ‘giving face’ means not humiliating others, especially one’s opponents, in public. Individualists may want to learn to “give face” to the collectivists in the conflict negotiation process. It also means acknowledging collectivists’ interpersonal and inter-group concerns and obligations.
Collectivists, on the other hand, may want to reorient ‘face-work’ concerns and learn to pay more
attention to the substantive issues at stake.
Collectivists may also want to recognize that individualists often separate substantive
issues from socio-emotional issues in conflict. Conversely, individualists may want to
pay more attention to the interrelationship between substantive issues and face-work/
relational issues when negotiating disagreements with collectivists. Thus, although the
concern for face maintenance is universal, how we manage face issues is a cultural specific
phenomenon.
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