In her conversations with Professor James Sebenius, Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky recalled two incidents that clearly illustrate the power of politeness in negotiation. The first involved a negotiation session in which the Chinese offered to close two factories in response to a request from the United States to close many more. Subsequently, the negotiator also offered a meeting with the Chinese president if the factory offer was accepted. The second incident involved a Chinese negotiator lunging across the table to express his anger at her refusal to accept his offer on an issue in which the Chinese negotiator said, “That's it, take it or leave it!”
What is striking about these incidents is how Ambassador Barshefsky politely responded to each of them and how the power of that politeness worked ultimately to craft a deal that was favorable to the United States. To unpack this perspective it might be useful to begin by reviewing the politeness perspective grounded in the seminal work of Brown and Levinson (1978) and extended later by Wilson, Kim, and Meischke (1991).
Politeness Theory begins with the assumption that cooperative social interaction is built around a concern to project and sustain desired identities or “face.” Individuals remain polite, or respectful, both to bolster their own face and to avoid threatening the face of others. The theory holds that one's face consists of two desires—to have one's personality and possessions approved by significant others (positive face) and to maintain autonomy or be unimpeded by others (negative face). These face needs are threatened when individuals are confronted by face‐threatening acts (FTAs) that seek to diminish face.
When these FTAs become protracted and extreme, they can lead to violence as each side seeks to defend its identity while simultaneously attacking the identities of others (Donohue 2012). These attack–defend cycles can be very destructive as the Rwandan Genocide illustrates. However, in a typical trade negotiation both parties seek to build a respectful relationship, which requires managing the face needs of both parties in order to move toward a cooperative agreement.
As the Barshefsky videos illustrate, Ambassador Barshefsky was very adept at using politeness to manage both her face and the face needs of the Chinese negotiators. In the first video, in which Barshefsky discussed the proposed meeting with China's president, the Chinese negotiator offered the closing of two factories. Since Barshefsky had requested the closing of many more factories, she had to find a way to refuse the negotiator's offer. In the second video, she had to confront a physical lunge across the negotiation table by an angry Chinese negotiator who said, “That's it, take it or leave it.”
What is striking in the first video is how Barshefsky politely refused the offers both to close two factories and to meet with the Chinese president. She certainly could have presented her refusals in a very face‐threatening manner by asserting a loud no, scoffing at the offers, or in other ways displaying disrespect. Instead, she gave a very friendly commentary about the issues along with a respectful refusal of both offers. Rather than communicate offense at the offers, Barshefsky politely and pleasantly refused. She said that although she would be extremely flattered and would consider it a privilege to meet with the president, she could not agree to do so. She added that she was very grateful for the offer to close two factories but if only two factories were closed, the United States would impose sanctions.
Moreover, knowing that the Chinese president would look bad if she were to meet with him and then reject China's offer, Barshefsky gave a rationale for her polite refusal to meet with him, stating: “It would be an embarrassment to you and I would not like to put the bilateral relationship in that context.” This rationale, combined with her very friendly and respectful tone, supported her own face both by presenting a competent demeanor (positive face support) and by sticking to her original position on the issue (negative face support). In addition, her appreciation for the opportunity to meet with the Chinese president supported the positive face of the Chinese negotiator. It is likely that this polite approach allowed her to continue the negotiations, which ultimately resulted in a positive outcome.
In the second video—the “lunge” video—Barshefsky also recounted her attempt to respond politely in order to maintain a cooperative negotiation climate. She responded to the lunge by appearing calm and simply waiting thirty to forty seconds to regain her internal composure. Then she responded politely by saying, “Well if you're saying take it or leave it, obviously I have to leave it, but I don't think that's what you meant.” Barshefsky then reframed the negotiator's comment without reference to the extreme negative face‐threatening lunge. She could see that the negotiator knew he had made a mistake by lunging and resorting to the extreme face threat. Barshefsky recalled saying, “I appreciate what you're conveying to me and that I need to give your proposal serious thought.” By characterizing the negotiator's lunge as a serious proposal and not the physical threat it was, she successfully supported his positive face, thereby stabilizing the cooperative climate of the negotiation.
In both of these videos the power of politeness is clear. To maintain her identity as an effective, agreement‐focused negotiator (positive face) who could not be pushed around with extreme tactics (negative face), Barshefsky consistently presented a polite demeanor, even in the face of extreme threat. In the words of relational order theory (Donohue and Roberto 1993), she refused to reciprocate a proposed conflict‐oriented relational order by the other side. Rather, she redirected the relational frame to remain cooperative and not allow the relationship to degenerate and possibly threaten the negotiations.
For negotiators, the lessons Ambassador Barshefsky provides are compelling. Giving into face threats by reciprocating them demonstrates that a negotiator can be rattled, may submit to impulsive action, and perhaps be sidetracked from a more thoughtful and productive negotiation agenda. Recall in the lunge video how she focused on the Chinese negotiator's facial expressions to read his regret at having lost his cool. Remaining polite allows the negotiator to retain control of the issues, and perhaps more importantly, the climate of the talks.
A second lesson is that remaining polite signals that the negotiator is concerned about understanding the issues from the other side's perspective. That is, by bolstering the other's face by indicating that the lunge was not offensive, instead communicating that the proposal was serious, Barshefsky demonstrated that she was able to see the issues from the other's point of view. This “recognition,” as the transformative mediation scholars note, is essential to sustaining a climate that can forge a positive relationship and lay the groundwork for collaborative agreements.
