Face and Context

By Frank Mulligan - Recruit China

Successful communication between people that have different values and cultural reference points is difficult at the best of times. At worst it can lead to direct conflict, or war.

In terms of the concept of face in China, which I looked at in my last post, the flash point typically arises when you have communications between less exposed overseas managers from individualistic cultures, and older Chinese managers and staff, who take a more collectivist approach. The main issue appears to be the context of their communication ie. how much information you need to know before you begin communicating with someone.

Individualists work in a low-context society where only the basics are communicated. At meetings people are expected to fill out everyoneís knowledge and ísay what they mean and mean what they sayí. They will held to their statements and therefore they are expected to be factual and explicit.

People from collectivist cultures work in a high context society, where meetings are actually just a way to formally approve decisions that have already been taken privately. People try to mean what they say at the meeting, and often want to avoid discussion about issues that have already been decided elsewhere.

At this point, I would note that my experience has taught me that both sides understand each other to a great degree than the stereotypes would have us believe. Itís more of a continuum than a black/white or high-context/low-context split. For all of us the context of our communications vary with the situations we find ourselves in.

For example, British people are generally low-context but a subordinate will fully understand the subtlety of his managerís comment that he should ëprobably look to revisiting this issue as soon as possibleí. And people in China, a high-context culture, also understand specific instructions without any problems. If you order a latte in Starbucks in China, thatís what you get.

But the meeting of low-context and high-context professionals still produces some interesting results. This is what I have seen.

In low-context, individualistic cultures job interviews are meant as a way of meeting and getting to know each other. Little information is passed between between the two parties beforehand, except where it relates to the ëfití between the person and the job. The context of the job is not thought to be relevant, and is often seen as confidential. This may not fit the high-context local Chinese candidate, who wants much more before the interview.

Once someone from a high-context culture is hired they expect to know a lot, and to be brought up to speed quickly on all manner of issues. This conflicts with someone from the low-context culture, who needs to establish a level of trust before he can begin to share information.

Low context overseas managers in China often place little or no emphasis on status and title. Their Chinese counterparts do, and the fact that the company sees status symbols as unnecessary to the successful running of a business is no great comfort to them.

Successful business meetings and negotiations are made difficult when the two cultures meet, or in this case collide. High-context professionals find it difficult to openly express disagreement and generally try to minimize uncertainty. They hate surprises. People from low context culture tend to battle at meetings and surprises are just part of the game.

When people from the high-context culture finally do express themselves, in my experience, they often do not seem to have the ëlanguage of conflictí, or the learned control of their low-context colleagues, and they tend to explode. (They are quickly forgiven, and given ëfaceí by other high-context professionals. To them the other person must have lost face somehow, even if the reason cannot be seen. Moreover, sometimes the explosion is calculated.)

Professionals from low-context cultures take a more a calm approach to meetings, and view them as an opportunity to finally say what they want to say. So they donít understands the explosions and tend to see the people from the high-context culture as less than professional. Itís hard to see things when you are effectively deaf and dumb.

Assumptions are also a big problem. People from high-context cultures assume that everyone knows what is going on. Anyone who does not know does not have sufficient status to know, so they donít need to be told. People from low-context cultures assume that the meeting process will make all the information available to participants and iron out any difficulties.

Overseas managers often use meetings as a way of thrashing out the issues. This often results in an individualís mistakes coming to the surface in front of everyone. This produces a defensive posture from the person in question and a quick end to the meeting as others in the group comes to that personís aid. A good compromise is to ëpraise publicly, and criticize privatelyí, and get all problematic issues out of the way before the actual meeting. It goes against the grain for many managers, but as guests in a country you have to adapt to the culture around you.

At the end, face has an additional complication that makes it subtle and unclear to people who do not live it. Face is not just held by the person. It is also given by others, and sometimes lost or restored. For professionals from a low-context culture this creates an invisible dynamic in meetings where people are defending, attacking and supporting each other in order to maintain the face balance. Itís a bit like the blind men feeling the elephant and trying to decide what it is.

The concept of face, among other cultural reference points, is worth learning about if you plan to live overseas. Getting to agreement is hard enough within your own culture. Getting it in a cross cultural situation, without an understanding of your hostís culture, is like giving a child a loaded gun and telling them ëPlease be careful sweetheartÖí.

Email frank.mulligan@recruit-china.com
Frank Mulliganís blog - english.talent-software.com