From your own experience, describe a situation in which you used face work.
A recent situation comes to mind regarding my understanding of Face work. Most of my division at work were asked to return to the office back in April. Many did, but many did not. I have one colleague that I never saw through the spring, summer or even fall season. He would show up to everything virtually (and was not alone there either) but often commented that he wanted to be treated like an adult and be able to make the best decision for himself as a working dad as to either working in the office or not in the office. Virtually, the team would listen, nod and let him vent and then move on.
Fast forward to late fall, my organization puts a policy in place that all employees MUST abide to the new hybrid model, or they would be considered to be defying the policy and that behavior could result in negative performance management. We all had to be in the office, T, W and R no matter what. My colleague was not happy about this at all. I finally saw him in the office and he took me aside to have a very serious venting session. During this hour, I had to use face work. I empathized for him, as I too like working from home, but I also see the value of being in office. He did not want to hear it and only wanted to vent about the way he wants to parent. I put on a listening “face” but deep down, did not agree with much of what he was saying. He wants to have lunch with his kids, play time with them, he does not want to use daycare. He wants to go for walks on sunny days and take them to the park. To me, this sounds like parenting and play time not work time, but he was adamant that he was correct. Keeping my face even keeled and compassionate was difficult, but I made the choice as much of our team has tried to reason with him in the past. But now, here we were, with a policy in place and a rule to follow. All I could coach him to was the policy and that he had a choice to stay or go or to be patient to see if this policy will finally get folks back in the office, and then some additional flexibility will come out of it. After all was said and done, he moved to a new department, hoping and wishing that they “might” have more flexibility, but at the end of the day, a company wide policy, will mostly be consistent across all organizations.
I did not like the way this conversation made me feel. It felt dishonest, as I was holding back my true feelings, yet I recognize that is the importance in face work, especially in situational and cultural moments. We do what we have to do in order to get through the moment or experience to save face. Reminds of the saying “we pick and choose our battles.”