Politeness Theory — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00In this video, we're going to talk about two related concepts from Goffman as
2. 0:04well as Brown and Levinson. Politeness theory and face. These concepts will help
3. 0:09us as emerging leaders in the workplace have difficult conversations a little
4. 0:14more smoothly. So there's a lot of value in these concepts that can help us in
5. 0:17our leadership development. So let's get into the details.
6. 0:26Hello again friends I'm
7. 0:27Alex Lyon and if we have not met yet and you've never subscribed to this channel,
8. 0:31Communication Coach, is here to help you increase your impact so you can lead
9. 0:35the people around you to higher levels of excellence. Everything on this channel
10. 0:39is about communication skills or leadership skills. Snd that's why today
11. 0:43we're talking about politeness theory and face. These are two related ideas
12. 0:48that will help you have difficult conversations more smoothly so you can
13. 0:52solve those organizational problems that are hard to talk about. So let's start
14. 0:56with politeness theory. Politness theory came to us several decades ago and
15. 1:00essentially it says that we have a universal desire across the globe in
16. 1:04every culture to be treated with politeness. Now, politeness looks a little
17. 1:08different depending upon where you go but we all want to be treated politely.
18. 1:13And so when we're talking about difficult topics if we use politeness
19. 1:16it'll be that much easier. So that's why we have to talk about this notion of
20. 1:19face. Within this idea of politeness we all have a desired self-image a way
21. 1:26that publicly we want to be seen. When someone comes to talk to us about a
22. 1:32problem, one of the reasons why it's difficult to talk about sticky issues is
23. 1:37because we don't know how to talk to people without putting them in a bad
24. 1:41light, without threatening their face. Every time we come in with an issue or
25. 1:45make a request we have the potential to make what's called a face-threatening
26. 1:50act, an FTA, face-threatening act. When we talk to
27. 1:55people we have to have a sense for how to navigate this conversation. So face
28. 2:00has two parts. First the positive and then the negative. Positive face is where
29. 2:05we want to be esteemed and admired and looked up to and respected by the people
30. 2:11around us. That's how we want to be seen in a
31. 2:13positive light. There's also negative face and a negative sense we want to be
32. 2:18free from people imposing on our freedom, on our ability to make choices and on
33. 2:24our decisions, because if someone is able to impose on us and take our choices
34. 2:28away that diminishes us. That lowers our position in the group socially. So we
35. 2:34need both positive and negative face to be in place for us to feel like our face
36. 2:39needs are met. So here are some ways that we can talk about this and apply this to
37. 2:44professional settings to have difficult conversation. We'll start with a
38. 2:47really easy one. I often have to request letters of recommendation for myself.
39. 2:52Let's I'm going up for a promotion of some sort at work and when I ask people
40. 2:56for a letter of recommendation I have to think about what this means. They get
41. 3:00nothing out of it. So how I ask for this really matters. If I were to use
42. 3:04positive face (politeness) I would build them up and show them that I respect and esteem them.
43. 3:09I would say hey I wanted to ask you for a letter of recommendation. I'm asking
44. 3:13you because you're an expert in the field. You're extremely familiar with my
45. 3:17work. Nobody knows my material like you do and I think you'd be the perfect
46. 3:20person to write a letter for me. So I'm building them up. I'm showing them I
47. 3:25respect them and I admire that person. The other one is negative
48. 3:29face. I want to be sure that they know that I'm not imposing on them. I don't want to
49. 3:33be someone who's pushing in and trying to take away their choices, that they're
50. 3:36obligated to write this letter. So I would approach it like this. If I were
51. 3:39using negative face, I would say I wanted to ask you for a letter recommendation.
52. 3:43Now of course feel free to say no. I know the deadline may not work for you and
53. 3:48it's pretty short notice and I'm sure you're very very busy but if you have
54. 3:52the time and you're able to it would be amazing to get a letter of recommendation from
55. 3:56you. So there's an example of negative face so you can use both of these of
56. 4:00course but this is a way to get into a hard conversation and that's a simple
57. 4:04request for a letter. Let's use a more serious request. Let's say you're in a
58. 4:08professional setting and somebody around you is racking up the expenses when they
59. 4:13travel on a business trip and you're the one who has to talk about it. Now this is
60. 4:18a real problem that can hurt the organization. How do you have this
61. 4:21conversation without making it worse? Keep in mind politeness theory and both
62. 4:26positive and negative face and you're gonna have a easier time
63. 4:29doing this. Here's how it sounds talking about this with positive face. You might
64. 4:32say hey Brad you know you're one of our best salespeople and we know how hard
65. 4:36you work. We all appreciate that and respect what you do here and how you
66. 4:40contribute. We do have to talk about this expense report, however, because the
67. 4:44expenses are going above the allowed limit. And so let's make a time to go
68. 4:48over this. So here I built Brad up and it makes room to have a more difficult part
69. 4:53of that conversation a reality. Otherwise I might know how to know how to get
70. 4:56there. If we were his negative face we would protect Brad from feeling like
71. 5:01we're imposing upon him even though we have to talk about this. So we say hey
72. 5:04Brad we need to talk about the expense report. It's going above what's allowed
73. 5:09in our organization. And look. We don't have to do this now. We can do it
74. 5:13tomorrow if that works better for you, but we really do need to make a time to
75. 5:16do it. So here I'm trying to remove this sense that I'm imposing on him and he's
76. 5:21I'm bossing him around and I'm taking his freedoms away. You can combine
77. 5:25these, of course, and use both positive and negative face to reduce the chances
78. 5:29that you're going to deliver an intense face-threatening act. When people feel
79. 5:35threatened like this, they're less likely to give you what you want and so having
80. 5:40these concepts of politeness and face and using these in our difficult
81. 5:44conversations will make it much easier to talk about hard things. So question of
82. 5:49the day, how do you see yourself and your professional settings applying these
83. 5:53concepts? I would love to hear your comments in that section below.
84. 5:58Thanks. God bless and I will see you in the next video.