|
 The Globe & Mail
(Toronto) featured LEADERSHIP AND THE SEXES on October 29, 2008.
LEADERSHIP
AND THE SEXES: USING GENDER SCIENCE TO CREATE SUCCESS IN BUSINESS - Michael
Gurian with Barbara Annis. Jossey-Bass, $27.95 (272p) ISBN
978-0-7879-9703-8. To learn more about the book click
here.
MANAGING
BOOKS: IDEAS: MIND POWER AND GENDER; Battle of the Sexes' Brains
HARVEY
SCHACHTER
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It was an
important pitch for a high-stakes contract. And at the end of the
presentation, the two men who had given most of the details high-fived
each other, confident they had won the deal.
But two women were on the team, and they were less enthused. They had
been watching the faces of people on the other side, and warned that
the presentation hadn't convinced two individuals.
The two men brushed those concerns aside. Indeed, when they met to
discuss whether to prepare for a second round of presentations, the men
felt the deal was was in the bag. They didn't seek a follow-up meeting
with the client or address its concerns - and they lost a $50-million
contract.
The men had been addressing facts and details; the women were assessing
faces, moods and body language.
Neither approach was better than the other, gender consultants Michael
Gurian and Barbara Annis insist in their book Leadership and the Sexes.
Whether in presentations or a company's day-to-day operations, you need
to take advantage of the natural differences between men and women.
The book starts with a lengthy excursion into scientific findings on
the differences between the male and female brain. "As brain science
becomes more sophisticated, the results of studies consistently
indicate that although men and women produce equivalent intellectual
performance, their brains do it differently," the consultants advise.
Neurobiologists have tracked more than 100 biological differences
between the male and female brain, the authors say. Women take in more
through each of their five senses than men do, on average, and store
more in the brain for later use. Thus they tend to remember more
details during a conversation. Women also use more words than men, in
speaking, reading and writing.
Men have about 6½ times more grey matter in the brain related to
cognition and intelligence than women, while women have nearly 10 times
more white matter related to cognition and intelligence than men. Grey
matter processes information locally in the brain, whereas white matter
networks and connects information between different centres. This
grey/white matter difference is one reason men tend to excel when
focusing on one task only, while women excel at integrating and
assessing information from wider sources of the brain and can multitask
with more ease.
The authors stress that all these findings are based on the average
male or female brain - people will vary. As well, some individuals are
close enough to the other gender that they effectively form
neurological bridges between the genders.
The authors point to companies that are alert to these gender
differences, trying to understand them, and, most importantly trying to
educate their staff on how gender affects their everyday work. They
present five gender tools to help an organization.
BRINGING SKILLS TO THE TABLE
When facing important negotiations, put together teams with both women
and men. Pick the right person to lead the negotiations and, after a
gender assessment of the other side, determine who on your team will
handle the different elements of the talks. Make sure you read gender
signals during the negotiations.
GENDER-BALANCED MEETINGS
Men and women must each understand how the other gender tends to act -
and react - in meetings. Men, for example, because of the way their
brain works, will tend to fidget to keep awake, become more frustrated
by multiple conversations, zone out if discussions become wordy, and
become aggressive, dominating a meeting. Women will be more likely to
move from one subject to another in midstream, connecting dots; feel
unvalued if their opinions are not sought out; and be unable to speak
out in a stressful meeting.
IMPROVING COMMUNICATION
Among the differences in communication approaches are the greater
likelihood of women to criticize themselves, and the tendency of men to
spend more verbal time touting their own accomplishments and prowess
than women do. Women tend to spend more verbal time on emotional
memories than men. Men tend to spend more words on trivia or discussing
the outcomes of large social groupings, such as sports, that have
aggression at their base. Men are more likely to display dominance and
one-upmanship. Each has to learn how the other acts in order to
communicate better.
CONFLICT RESOLUTION
Men tend to become physically more dominant in conflict and to curse
more, especially when with men. Women tend to feel conflict more and
worry about it being their fault, while men often distance themselves
from conflict, deciding the problem is external to them and they,
therefore, don't need to worry about it. Men often think the conflict
is finished when it is finished within them. Women, on the other hand,
often personalize conflict for longer periods of time, storing up anger
and discomfort, which can lead over time to the loss of the woman and
her talent from the team. The authors also stress that while these days
it's popular to hear about the need to talk out conflict, there is no
single way to handle this and you need to be open to different
approaches.
MENTORING AND COACHING
For people to improve in dealing with the issues of gender, they need
mentoring and coaching. And that mentoring and coaching must be
sensitive to gender differences when men and women interact in the
mentoring process, or it will be futile.
The book is fascinating but at times frustrating. It presents an
enormous amount of material, both on brain science and how individuals
act, and every page brings revelations and deeper understanding.
But there is so much material, it is hard to assimilate. However, if
your workplace has men and women, you probably need this book. And if
it doesn't, you also probably need this book.
--------
Michael
Gurian and Barbara Annis are the authors of "Leadership
and the Sexes: Using Gender Science to Create Success in Business,"
published by Jossey-Bass/John Wiley, September 2008. For more
information, visit www.genderleadership.com.
This website features the
Leadership and Gender trainings offered by Michael Gurian and his
associates. We are proud to offer the finest state-of-the-art
training and keynotes in
how men and women think, work and lead. New York Times
bestselling author Michael Gurian is one of the world's foremost
authorities in leadership and gender diversity. Working
together as women and men is one of the greatest challenges we will
each
meet--personally and in corporate environments. If the Gurian
Institute can help your workplace meet the challenge, please contact
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here to learn more.
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