Later, when the team convened face-to-face for their first quarterly review meeting, Ann, after praising a Chinese team member, boldly criticized and questioned a Korean, trying to extract the exact reason why he was lagging so far behind on his goals. The meeting immediately lost its groove. The entire group became solemn and, for the rest of the meeting, remained polite but largely mute.
过了一段时间,在团队举行的面对面的首次季度工作总结例会上,安称赞了一位中国成员,而后毫不留情地批评并质询了一位韩国成员,试图找出他比别人落后许多的确切原因。会议立刻偏离了常规程序。整个团队变得严肃沉闷,而且在会议剩下的时间里,虽然大家都谦恭有礼,但大多数时候却沉默不言。
Clearly, Ann was not familiar with the concept of saving face in other cultures. In US culture, saving face exists - but only minimally, and tactful but straightforward speech is highly valued. US managers routinely speak freely about someone else's accomplishments or failures in open, public settings, such as during meetings. This is different in Asian cultures. Singling out an individual due to praise or criticism, a daily habit amongst American managers, may cause Asians to become uncomfortable or deeply embarrassed.
显然,安对其他文化中“顾面子”这一概念并不熟悉。在美国文化中,的确也存在着“顾面子”一说,但其影响微乎其微。更受推崇的是机智老练而又直截了当的谈话。美国经理人惯常于在公共场合,如在会议上,自由谈论其他人的成就或败绩。这和亚洲文化有所不同。对美国经理人来说,把某人单独挑出来予以夸奖或批评是日常性的做法,但对亚洲人来说,这样做会使他们觉得不自在或甚为尴尬。
Ann needs to consider more culturally appropriate ways to support and motivate her team. Providing feedback, especially negative feedback, in more private settings will be helpful. Most of all, she should work on giving more courteous and supportive praise and encouragement, which will help move toward the unification and cohesion that high functioning teams need in order to be successful.
安需要考虑的是,要采取在文化上更加恰当的方式来支持和激发她的团队。如果要给成员提反馈意见,尤其是负面意见的话,那么在私人场合进行会更有帮助。最为重要的是,她应该努力给出一些更加客气、更具支持性的赞扬和鼓励,这样才能使团队更加团结,更加具有凝聚力,而这也是一个高效运作的团队取得成功所必需的。
Around the world, deeper structures such as relationship building and face saving are embedded in the values, beliefs and behavior of a culture. They are much harder to understand than the glossary of terms in any culture's language phrase book. The advice is: Always ask for clarification and seek new insights. For business success, it is essential to learn to mediate these deeper cultural differences. Though it may be a little complicated to incorporate them into your way of thinking and communicating, it is well worth the effort!
在世界各地,人际关系经营及颜面顾及这类更深层次的文化结构都是根植于该文化所具有的价值观、信仰和行为之中的。它们比任何一种文化的词语汇编里所列出的术语都更难理解。我的建议是:随时向对方询问,以得到一个明晰的解释和新的理解。为了取得商业成功,学会协调这些更深层次的文化差异是极其重要的。尽管将它们融入自己的思维方式和人际交往有点复杂,但这样的努力是非常值得的!