Adapted by Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis from LEADERSHIP AND THE SEXES: USING GENDER SCIENCE TO CREATE SUCCESS IN BUSINESS (Jossey-Bass/John Wiley, September 2008)
When ineffective communication transpires between women and men, it can profoundly affect a corporate culture. It can lead to millions of dollars of organizational failuremainly in the loss of talent. Not only does an individual woman or man leave the company (after the company invested millions in the person), but the company's culture becomes known for gender discomfort.
A helpful tool, recently being refined for corporate use, is brain science regarding gender. The use of this "gender science by managers has become possible because now we can look into the brains of women and men to create tools for understanding one another. For companies like IBM, Deloitte & Touche, PriceWaterHouse Coopers, Brooks Sports, and others, gender misinterpretations have diminished considerably, leading to better competitive edge and bottom line profits. After training its managers in brain-based gender differences, for instance, Deloitte & Touche saw such an immediate rise in workplace comfort, especially among women managers, that the company estimates it saved $250 million dollars in lost talent.
Thinking about gender through a brain-based lens can take a moment of managerial readjustment. For decades, we've thought of gender as something that was mainly socialized. It certainly is, but scientists have also found over 100 structural differences between men's and women's brains. Not surprisingly, these differences can create miscommunication. PET and SPECT scans of the male and female brain show the brains look quite different from one another!
BEGIN BOX: DID YOU KNOW? OUR BRAINS ARE DIFFERENT
*Women's brains tend to have 15 - 20 percent more blood flow at any given moment than men's brains.
*In women's brains, language tends to occur in both the left and right hemisphere; in men's brains, language tends to occur only in the left. When reading, writing and speaking are all factored in, women tend to use more words than men in a day.
*In women's brains, there are more active sensorial and emotive centers, and better linkage of these centers to language centers; men's senses don't generally work as well as women's, men don't process as much emotion, and men don't tend to link as much complex emotion or sensorial detail to words.
*In men's brain, the cerebellum tends to be larger than in the female brain. The cerebellum is an action and physical movement center in the brain; thus, men tend to communicate more nonverbally, with more emphasis on movement and physicality than women's emphasis on words.
*Men's brain enter a 'rest state,' a zone out state, more easily than women'sthis happens many times per day naturally for men (comparatively, women's brains do not shut off in this way except in sleep); men's brains also enter a rest state when quantities of words become overwhelming during communication.
*Men's brains circulate more testosterone than women's, as compared to women's greater neural emphasis on oxytocin. Testosterone is a competition/aggression chemical. Oxytocin is a bonding chemical. Quite often during a communication, a man will try to compete while a woman tries to bond.
END BOX
FOCUSING ON VERBAL COMMUNICATION
The brain differences in the box are the tip of the iceberg, but if you think about verbal communications for a moment, you might immediately have some "Ahas about your communication with the other gender.
A powerful illustration is a meeting of your managerial team. If, for instance, a woman leads the meeting, there may be more discussion, more words used, more interest in emotive, sensorial and relational detail. If a man leads the meeting, it may be shorter, and not as immersed in relational details.
If a conflict situation should emerge in the meeting, the men in the room may become louder and more competitive as their chosen method of resolving the conflict. Their testosterone level increases with the increase in their stress hormone (cortisol) and their adrenalin.
The women may become quieter and may try to find ways to keep equilibrium and relationships intact, rather than edgy with competition. Women's oxytocin levels increase with the increase in their stress hormone and adrenalin.
Some women of course are quite competitive and loud, some men quite soft-spoken and noncompetitive. The fact that exceptions exist in every environment does actually helps prove the rule--most women and men notice (without realizing the brain science) that men and women are having different experiences together.
SUCCESSFUL ORGANIZATIONAL CHANGE
Once managers learn about brain differences, they look at management and supervision, meetings and alliances, work life and even home life differently. As they interact with the other gender, women (or men) who use a lot of words begin to watch carefully for the male "eyes glazing over look. Men come to notice how women are trying to help an interaction with their oxytocin-based and word-based relational approach. They also curtail interruption and target their competitiveness to individuals who seem game to relate that way. They don't impose their aggression on people, both women and men, who are withdrawing from the corporate culture because the aggression level is unnecessarily high.
Men and women also come to see their roles as managers in deeper ways, especially when working with the other gender. Here are two case studies (names have been changed) that illustrate both possible misinterpretations, and successful organizational change.
A CASE STUDY: A FEMALE MANAGER WITH A MALE EMPLOYEE
In the first case, a female supervisor has the task of providing the annual performance review for "Ralph. Ralph has completed nine great projects and had one major mess up.
She begins the session by asking Ralph how the wife and kids are, did they enjoy their vacation to Yellowstone, and how his mom is recovering from her stroke. She is instinctively showing that she cares about Ralph and wants to create relational harmony before proceeding. She doesn't notice that Ralph is squirming in his chair or nonverbally signaling discomfort with eyes glazing over.
Ralph's brain is working differently than hers. Ralph wants to know as quickly as possible where he stands in the company hierarchy of competitive risk and achievement. He will respect his manager more if she acknowledges his good work then gets to the point. He needs to know exactly how he messed up (and both asking him and telling him can be important). He then wants to know what resources he needs to make sure he can successfully handle a similar project in the future.
If Ralph says things like, "This mess up wasn't my fault, it was Joe's (or Sarah's), his female supervisor may feel the instinct to engage him on this point with a complex back and forth, beginning with "Why do you say that? and going into great detail for a half hour. This may be necessary, and only you as a manager can decide what is best, but it is also worth remembering that this blaming-another may just be a quick defense/aggression response (Ralph trying to keep his own competitive status intact); it is a common male response, one natural to male testosterone, the male brain, and male socialization, and it may well dissipate on its own within minutes of your helping him do a better job in the future.
A CASE STUDY: A MALE MANAGER WITH A FEMALE EMPLOYEE
In this situation, a male supervisor is responsible for annual performance review of a female staff member. During the past year "Jenny has been assigned 10 projects. She successfully completed 9 of them on time, under budget, and generally did a great job. But assignment 10 was differentit just didn't work out.
Let's say Jenny comes into your office and sits down and you begin with: "Jenny, what happened to this project? It really didn't work.
Jenny looks at you, and in her mind she's thinking, "I did 9 projects perfectly, and all he can focus on is the one that had problems. I am absolutely not valued by this company. She's won't hear much of what you have to say after that.
Men often don't realize how important verbal encouragement is for all people, especially women. As the performance review begins, the female brain releases increased oxytocin in order to respond to the stress of the review. The increased oxytocin stimulates and is stimulated by words used and heard in verbal centers of the brain. Men often misinterpret this as weakness or "she needs too much encouragement, I don't have time for that. This is an error that can cost a company millions of dollars in lost talent.
While any stereotyping is counterproductive, and while a performance review can begin with criticism and still succeed, in general, this kind of response will work better. It's not just a matter of "preference, but of the human brain at work: "Jenny, I'm impressed with your work on projects 1 through 9 this year. You showed a lot of initiative and represented the company real well in these ways. After Jenny responds, you might ask questions like these and engage in responses: "What was different on project 10? What needed to happen to make it as successful as 1-9? How could I have helped?
In this discussion, you have showed appreciation, acknowledged the staff member for good work and become a partner in helping work through the problem project. You opened the door for her to come to you for help when she's stuckyou've shown understanding of all the details and content her mind is processing, and this understanding shows crucial supportiveness.
We often hear CEOs, leaders and managers say, "I know something's going on related to gender, and I know we could do better, but&. Often, the corporation gets stuck in soft gender sensitivity trainings that don't get to the heart of what is going on, or in short pilots that can't really come to grips with deeply different ways the male and female brain negotiate, communicate, do conflict, run meetings, and lead teams.
A million years of brain development has walked into every workplace, and the male and female brain have been developing on somewhat different trajectories for that million years. Like our marriages, our workplaces are gender-charged environments, and one of the most exciting things we do as managers is explore, with depth, what is happening in the female and male brain.
