Interaction is organised around protecting the participants' presented selves, including that of the person one disagrees with.
Goffman's 1955 essay. The finding that matters for institutions is that people will protect an opponent's face during a disagreement, and that failing to do so escalates far more than the substantive dispute would.
In practice
- Two directors who disagree sharply in a meeting each leave the other a way to change position later, and both do.
- A negotiator who wins the point by publicly humiliating the counterpart has bought the concession and lost the next three.