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That’s such a guy thing.

by Kim on April 28th, 2006

Don’t be such a girl! Have you ever heard these phrases about men and women at work? I have; and it used to make me crazy. I always believed that men and women, performing the same function, usually applied the same techniques to get the results they want. Not true.

The sub-title of Deborah Tannen’s book is “Women and Men In Conversation.” Which let’s you know immediately that this book is all about how different the planning and communication styles are between men and women. Duh.

I’m going to try to leave sports metaphors out of this, but I have worked on several projects with male colleagues…and from the starting line (oooops, I just did it, sorry), The women, myself included, will start to examine the project from an intuitive, nurturing place. Some men, start by saying things like “let’s put an Excel spreadsheet together”.

I’d be sitting there, thinking: ’spreadsheet? Wait a minute! What does this thing look like first? How will the customer react, how are we perceived in the marketplace?” I’m not ready for those hard, cold numerals.:-).

I have a tendency to need to visualize what the completion of the project will be, before I can begin to add value to the team. A man at my level, will want to start the clock (I just did that again) by giving specific orders. Men tend not to want take orders from women, they prefer our nurturing side when asked to do something. As in, If you could, can you please, try not to lose this account–that would be so great, thank you.

Ah, but there in lies the a little thing we like to call the “double standard”. Women and men may get along better when they understand how the other approaches a situation…but, because the masculine approach or the more technical style is often evaluated as “better”, we see more men get promoted than women.

Give the book a read, I think you will see some of yourself in many of the situations and hopefully keep some of the anicdotes and advice in your back pocket for future reference.

And here’s a little test: when you’re mate comes home after a long day at work, try going into a very lengthy, detailed account of an event which took place that day. I guarantee you will get a look of “deer in headlights” look his eyes. Then try to tell him the same scenario in five words or less, and that person will listen to you.

Happy Friday!

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