Read any book on doing business in China and you'll find the Chinese concept of face Explained. In my own book, Riding the Dragon, I wrote a section on why giving face is so paramount to doing anything in China, business or otherwise. This is the concept where you don't risk humiliating anyone to the point of not saying anything when he calls you Mr. Smith . . . and your name is Jones.

While all the advice books cautions the newcomer on how to give face, it doesn't warn us about receiving face. Unfortunately, we receive face more than we realize and without our wanting it. It can be as simple as not being told about the lettuce stuck between your teeth from lunch, to not being disagreed with no matter how absurd your misunderstanding.

Witness the following overheard conversation …

Tourist: These Buddha are beautiful. This must be a temple. Can we go in?
Guide: Yes.
Tourist: This one would look so great in my living room.
Guide: You can buy it.
Tourist: You mean the temple sells their Buddha?
Guide: Yes.
Tourist: Well, I don't want to take their religious icons away.
Guide: its okay, they sell.
Tourist: Is this a temple or a store?
Guide: Yes.
Which is it?
Yes.

This is funny when it's happening to someone else. But when the person in question is yours truly and it's happening at the workplace and not on vacation, then it's different.

How often have you asked your translator on what the other side said only to be told yes to two opposing questions?

Did he agree to my offer of 5 million?
Yes.
Or is he sticking to his price of 6 million?
Yes.

What you have just experienced is the cousin of face, which is bu hao yi si. It is so subtle, so invisible to the foreigner that there's not even an English name for it. Literally, it translates to "not good idea" and we know it by its most common usage which is "sorry."

Did you get the email I sent you?
Bu hao yi si, I haven't checked my email for a week.

But the more subtle meaning, the one you'll never hear but surrounds you at every turn is "I'm embarrassed to …." Finish the blank; I'm embarrassed to say, to point out, to tell you that I don't understand what you have just said, and so on.

Your assistant might be embarrassed to tell you that the meeting time you've scheduled conflicts with her other meeting. So instead of bringing it up, she tries to change the other meeting which involves four other staff members and suddenly you sense that there's excitement and tension around the office only to discover … damn it, why didn't you just tell me, I can change our meeting anytime. It was just a briefing.

This hesitancy to bring up anything that conflicts with what you've said – i.e. giving you face – leads to not asking you questions or communicating with you in general. In an office environment, this can lead to each staff member filling in the blanks and creating stories of why you make the decisions you do.

He likes that secretary, that's why he bought the desk for her when he hired her. So if she starts asking for rmb800 reimbursement for her "business" lunches, it must be because she has his protection. (Actually, when the manager in question found out about these expensive phantom lunches, he fired her.)

But it can become more serious when the stakes are higher.

I'm embarrassed to tell you that your assistant just asked for a kickback.
I'm embarrassed to tell you that your accountant made the mistake on the form and that's why you're being investigated.

People who are not a part of your team will not clue you in on even the grossest violations because not only are they not obligated to, but they are bu hao yi si.

And then there's the censor that your translator do for you because she is bu hao yi si to translate what you say so directly.

Tell him to stop playing around. If he adds on another charge that has hasn't told me about, I'm outta here.
My boss said he's sorry but he cannot pay more. He thinks your deal is very good but this is all he has. He asks you not to add on any more charges.

Sometimes it works. And sometimes it doesn't. There's been times when your translator does know better; particularly if you're negotiating with government agencies. There, you truly have to be careful on giving face and play the bu hao yi si game. But when the other side is another company, or just another department in your company, such hesitancy becomes corrosive.

The lack of communications that bu hao yi si leads to works in a Stated Owned Enterprise (SOE) because those companies tends to managed by one central authority that is not based on information from the market or from the ranks. Lack of communications helps the ling dao (leader) maintain power. But we know how well SOEs perform.

However in western style management where authority and responsibility is decentralized, lack of communicating spells disaster. The manager can only make decisions when information flows freely within the organization. When your staff stays mum for fear of bu hao yi si, what is lost in translation is what you need to make a good decision.

As bu hao yi si is so hard to recognize, there is no sure fire way to guard against it. My experience, as political incorrect as it sounds, is to do some profiling of your employees. If you need someone with maturity, you have to be aware that anyone over 30 means they spent their formative working years in a SOE – and developing SOE working habits.

However, even the fresh out of school types would have parents that worked in SOEs and thus indirectly influenced to various degrees. Anyone who has worked for a foreign company or boss might be more susceptible to western style. But not all foreign companies have western style management: such as Taiwan, Hong Kong, India, and other non-western companies.

Over time, acting on information to make good decisions, asking lots of questions, and rewarding those who speak out will start to create an atmosphere of open communication. You'll weed out the hard core inflexible ones and the open talkative types will get more comfortable. But don't expect even a trusted long time staff to be totally honest in all situations. Bu hao yi si is bigger than any of us, and we can only learn to coexist with it, never without it.