When Men & Women Talk: Finding Common Ground

What interests you about communication between men and women? This subject has held my fascination for almost 20 years. I can honestly say, I am more curious today about the male/female dynamics than I was when I began my unwitting exploration.

You see, I took a seminar about Entrepreneurship. It turned out to be about so much more, including ways men and women prevent each other from succeeding, financially and professionally (and how to stop these damaging behaviors in favor of creating powerful, life-changing partnerships). What I learned about healing deep unconscious grudges in that seminar has guided my life and my work. So every day, while gathering more on-the-job lessons (I’m married with an 8-year old son), I have grown to appreciate and honor both masculine gifts and those of my female gender.

What’s really important when you are building a team in business is to recognize that each person has his/her strengths and weaknesses. The quality called “drive” is a masculine quality, yet many females possess it. Similarly, the quality known as “listening” is a feminine quality, which many men have innately and have developed in themselves, recognizing its usefulness in fostering good relationships.
When we talk about team, we are talking about three things:

• the players themselves as individuals
• the ways the players relate with one another (the quality of the relationships they build)
• the functioning of your team as a whole.

I find that looking at the individuals doesn’t give quality data. Often it leads to judgments about right and wrong…not productive. So let’s skip a level up, to the ways the players relate with one another. That is where the masculine/feminine differences can make or break the quality of the relationships the team builds and their overall synergy.

Imagine a male sales manager who is focused on the bottom line (Picture Dragnet’s Sgt. Joe Friday: “Just the facts, ma’am.”) and his saleswoman in the field who embellishes her verbal reports with details about what her prospect has hanging on his office walls. What do you suppose will happen? Likely an impatience or irritation will develop. Similarly, a wife at day’s end wants to “ talk about her day”, while hubby immediately synthesizes her storytelling into a problem that has to be solved, and gets to work doing just that--much to the irritation and frustration of his wife.

This is not to say that men and women cannot get along, and splendidly. We each must be intent on understanding and respecting one another’s reasons for, and methods of, communicating.

Men communicate to solve a problem, to assess status, to move the action forward and to get data that will move the action forward...in other words, men communicate to get results. Masculine communication is goal-oriented and expects an outcome.

Women, to contrast, engage in communication in order to nurture and be nurtured, to bond with others, to get attention and to decompress. Feminine communication is process-oriented, communication for its own sake. Communicating IS the outcome!
How can we use this simple understanding of masculine and feminine natures to improve our quality of life at work and peace of mind at home?

Ladies, understand that you must get to the point with men. Keep the girlfriend conversation for your girlfriends. Find ways to bond that you both enjoy: activities, shared interests or professional matters. Tell brief (I mean 2 or 3 sentences) stories that have a point. For example, “…and then my daughter scored the winning goal that took the team to the championship!” Get to the point and show them the result. They will appreciate it!

Men, understand that bonding is important to women. If you don’t ask about her children, she may perceive you as cold or uncaring. Make an effort to ask appropriately personal questions that show her you are interested in her as a person, not only a means of production. Remember, women appreciate the communication process itself!

We find that when men and women do communicate in a way that satisfies the feminine requirements for bonding, the tone of cooperation in the organization is raised. Then results can go through the roof.

This is simple, but not easy. After all, most of us are most comfortable doing things the way WE do them most naturally. But keep this in mind, if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting. So I challenge you: Use these simple methods of relating to one another, applying awareness of gender differences to your communications. Try it for a week.

Results may be subtle and probably will be. After all, the winning horse in the Kentucky Derby wins by only a “nose” (even if a horse’s nose is long, that’s still a small measurement for a BIG difference in prize money). Let me know how the quality of your relationships improves in the workplace and at home. Over time you may see they foster a professional synergy in which results happen effortlessly. That’s high performance teamwork!

Karen Baker Blum trains and speaks in the corporate world and in private seminars. Her focus is developing women leaders for the home front and the global stage. As she travels and teaches, sowing seeds of harmony and prosperity between men and women, she gathers many allies along her way. Her signature seminar is “How to Talk to Men: A New Paradigm for Relating with Humor and Light-Heartedness.” For a media kit, contact: aMuse@BusinessAsPleasure.com or 516.209.7827.