Social Harmony

More than half of the American workforce is comprised of "knowledge workers"—a term coined by Peter Drucker for people whose productivity is marked by adding value to information. While people have always worked in groups, notes Drucker, with today's information explosion and growing need for specialization, ". . . teams become the work unit rather than the individual himself."

Some teams are better problem-solvers and decision-makers than others. In a very real sense, they have a higher group IQ. Yale psychologist Robert Sternberg and graduate student Wendy Williams set out to understand why. Somewhat surprisingly, they discovered that group IQ has less to do with the group members' intellectual IQs and more to do with their social intelligence. The single most important factor in group effectiveness, it turns out, is the ability of the members to achieve the sort of social harmony that makes it possible to take full advantage of each other's talents.

 In this issue of Thinking Tools, I take a look at politeness, a fundamental prerequisite of social harmony. Specifically, I examine the sort of thoughtful behavior that is required to establish and preserve face.

The Looking Glass Self

To understand face, one must first understand something about the entity that wears this social mask—the self. When we say "I," "me" or "myself," we are referring to what is variously termed the self-system, self-image, or self-concept. Our self-concept consists of the things we believe to be true about ourselves. In other words, it is the way we define and describe ourselves to others and to ourself. Self-descriptions may pertain to physical aspects (thin, short), disposition (kind, demanding), social position (elite, commoner), characteristic role behaviors (leader, caregiver), specific behaviors in specific situations (kind to strangers), and personal values (loyalty, bravery).

 How do we develop our conceptions of self? How do we come to believe one thing about who and what we are rather than another? Part of what we do is to simply believe what we want to believe. Within limits, we imagine a host of flattering things about ourselves for no other reason than we want them to be true. For the most part, however, our conception of self grows out of our interaction with others—we judge what we are like by the way that other people respond to us.

 The sociologist C. H. Cooley was among the first to describe the influence that others have on our concept of self. In 1902, he developed the phrase the "looking-glass self," meaning that we see ourselves as if we were reflected in the faces of other people. He explained, "Each to each a looking glass, reflects the other that doth pass." Other people are like a mirror into which we project ourselves and observe the consequences in order to learn about our identities.

 Another important precursor to understanding face is to consider how the metaphors "social economics" and "social justice" serve to model what goes on between people when they interact.

Early in life, we learn what constitutes a fair and just exchange in human interaction. If you give someone something, you expect them to give back a "thank you." When you are talking to a person, you expect them to pay attention. We've all had the experience of feeling slighted by someone whose wandering gaze indicates that they aren't paying us their full attention.

The notion of "social drama" is another important precursor to understanding face. This has to do with the fact that throughout life we learn to play a variety of roles in a variety of situations—parent-child, boss-subordinate, host-guest, teacher-student, etc. In each of these roles and situations, the rules for what constitutes a fair and just exchange are different.

Face

Consciously or subconsciously, we regard ourselves as having a certain value or worth within a particular social setting. We make claims to this value through various verbal and nonverbal means. The response we receive from others either validates or invalidates our claim.

 "Face" is the amount of self-worth that a person implicitly claims in a given situation and role. Provided that the claimant has not overstepped the socially sanctioned status of his role, the other people in the situation automatically feel obligated to sustain the claims, i.e., to help the claimant "maintain face."

 Not only do people want to be perceived as having a certain amount of value, they want to be perceived as being valuable in certain ways. As a result, they work to build a particular type of public image. Broadly speaking, people seek to construct three types of face. Solidarity face has to do with the desire to be liked and appreciated. Competency face is about the desire to be seen as capable and competent. A person wanting to construct autonomy face desires that others not impose themselves on him. The person wants others to respect his personal territory and his right to self-determination.

 A functioning system—as opposed to a simple aggregate, or "pile of stuff"—exists because the parts engage in reciprocal causal relations. In other words, the parts interact. Whether a small group or a large corporation, a social system functions because of the interaction of its human parts. No interaction means no system—the group is nothing more than a collection of people located next to each other, an inert pile of stuff.

 M.I.T. professor Edgar Schein explains that face work is a necessary condition of human interaction and functioning social systems, "The ultimate reason for face work is that unless we can reassure one another daily that our social selves will be acceptable, life becomes too unpredictable and dangerous and society falls apart. The very essence of society is the implicit contract we have with one another to sustain the social selves as best we can."

 When someone does not grant us the value we claim for ourselves—when they reflect back to us that we are worthless, or worth less than we believe ourselves to be—we feel "humiliated." The humiliations that people visit upon one another range from mild to extreme. The injuries that are inflicted stand in similar measure. The forgotten "thank you" is akin to a pinprick. A thoughtless remark may cut, or deeply wound, another. To deliberately destroy someone's self-esteem, to intentionally strip them of their dignity, is the social equivalent of murder. And equally immoral.

 Thus, face work has both practical and ethical implications. The morality of "Thou shalt not humiliate another" speaks for itself, though often not loud enough. The practical perspective shows us that the functioning of our social systems requires that we touch a tender hand to one another's face whenever we can. To do otherwise is to make our organizations into inert piles of the wounded and the dead.

Behaving Thoughtfully

We maintain each other's sense of value by employing the social conventions of civility. This is variously referred to as being polite or tactful, having good manners, or behaving thoughtfully. Tongue-in-cheek, the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer defined politeness as, "A tacit agreement that people's miserable defects . . . shall on either side be ignored and not made the subject of reproach." In the same spirit, the writer Emile Herzog described politeness as, "Not speaking evil of people with whom you have just dined until you are . . . a hundred yards from their house." Both comments convey the most superficial sense of thoughtful behavior, which is to act as if you like and admire someone, even when you don't.

 At a deeper level, behaving thoughtfully involves the act of respect. The word respect comes from the Latin word respecere, which means "to observe" or "to look again." To respect another is to look past the facets of the person that you don't like—their "miserable defects"—to see the person as a multifaceted whole. When you see someone whole, you are likely to discover aspects that you do like and admire. When you understand the whole of another's circumstance and history, you become more tolerant of the parts of the person that you don't care for.

 In the most profound sense, behaving thoughtfully toward others involves having what M. Scott Peck calls "extraordinary respect" for them. Treating people with extraordinary respect means moving beyond simply tolerating their faults to looking for what is highest and best in them. It means having a genuine appreciation for the potential in another. The act of extraordinary respect rests on the bedrock belief that we are all of value and that we all have something to teach each other.

 Pretended liking and admiration will take a relationship only so far. Eventually, the disrespect one person has for another will be revealed in an unintended remark or gesture. The instant a person perceives that he has been disrespected, his concern shifts from accomplishing some purpose to defending his dignity. As a result, partnerships and groups that are founded on anything less than mutual respect are destined to be mediocrities at best and abject failures at worst.

 Respecting another is not a passive act. It requires an effort on your part. And, like most efforts, it helps for there to be some method to your madness. Two methods that are particularly helpful are these.

The first, proffered by William Isaacs, requires equal doses of honesty and humility. When faced with behaviors that you disrespect, it helps to listen from the vantage point that says, "This, too, is in me." If you're honest with yourself, you'll find that you sometimes (or often) exhibit the very behaviors that you dislike in others. You'll be amazed at how much easier it is to respect someone once you've armed yourself with this humbling insight.

The second method is to employ the heuristic: destroy judgment and create curiosity. When others annoy you, rather than judge them poorly, take the time to find out why they do, or say, or think the things they do. Imagine, for example, how your judgment of a grumpy receptionist might change if you were to discover that she is a recently-divorced mother of three who is worried sick about paying her bills.

Do’s and Don’ts

Once you have poured a foundation of respect, you can build on it by employing various tactics to establish and preserve face. Following are a few that are particularly useful, especially when meeting with others.

Generally speaking, you want to create an atmosphere in which people feel that they can safely participate. Sarcasm, anger, and impatience, even in subtle forms, are sure ways to destroy a safe environment. That people should avoid such behaviors seems obvious—until you notice how often they crop up in meetings.

Listening is a skill that nearly everyone could stand to improve. Most important is to learn to listen attentively (Economics 101-pay attention) without interrupting or showing other signs of impatience or displeasure. Look at who is speaking as if you were hanging on every word, which, you'll find, helps you to hang on to their every word.

Once you're done listening, you need to respond. Agreeing is easy. Presenting opposing views is the hard part. One way to do so is to introduce another idea without saying that it is better. For example, "What about the possibility that . . ." Another approach is to oppose tangentially by saying something like, "Another slant on that is . . ."

 My parting advice is the same as that which you give your children when they leave the house: Mind your manners!

Kevin W. Holt, the founder of Co.Innovation Consulting, is a strategic planning consultant and meeting facilitator based in Phoenix, Arizona. He works with commercial, government, and nonprofit organizations to develop innovative strategies and solutions. His strategy consulting and meeting facilitation practice centers on the use of proven processes mapped to collaboration technologies (e.g., electronic brainstorming) and specialized software tools (e.g., the Blue Ocean strategy canvas). The technologies enable him to serve as both an offsite meeting facilitator and a virtual meeting facilitator for strategic planning workshops, innovation labs, brainstorming sessions, feedback sessions, and other types of meetings. Kevin is the author of Differentiation Strategy: Winning Customers by Being Different, published by Routledge in June 2022.