Got Your GQ?

Contributed by Tracey Carr of Eve-olution.net

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 74 percent of companies have diversity programs in place. That’s a good start, but it sidesteps perhaps the most striking diversity component in the workplace: the personality differences between men and women. This is where we need Gender Intelligence, or GQ™ .

For every person in the workforce, man or woman, one of the following situations is familiar (if not frequent):

• It’s a professional setting and all the men are shaking hands firmly. But, they either don’t shake the women’s hands, or they do with a limp, modified handshake.
• It’s a meeting with two men and a woman. The men are focused on each other’s thoughts, while the woman is just trying to be heard.
• A meeting starts and one of the male executives suggests that a female colleague be the note taker.

These examples are not meant to be biased against men. Rather, they’re just specific examples of the scenarios many female executives encounter on a daily basis. Either knowingly or unknowingly, both men and women fall into specific patterns and stereotypes in professional settings. When this occurs, the results are damaging for everyone involved, particularly for organizations that are denied potential returns from rounded, balanced teamwork.

This is exactly why we need to improve our GQ™ . Gender Intelligence is the ability to respond with finesse and savvy to gender generated issues. And here’s a shocker: many corporations are not ready to hear that men and women have different communication styles that can seriously impact their ability to work effectively together.

As Tom Peters says, “Women love to talk. Men talk silently to themselves. Women multi-track. Women are indirect. Men are direct. Women talk emotively. Men are literal. Men listen like statues. Boys like things. Girls like people. Boys compete. Girls cooperate. Men hate to be wrong. Men hide their emotions.”

To address these gender issues, we have been running GQ™ seminars for the past 7 years, helping senior professionals to understand the underlying nature of gender differences and how they can manifest in the corporate world. For example, if women have different conversational rituals and styles of management, then could the vast drain of female talent be attributed simply to a bad fit between the genders? In fact, one might argue that the few women who make it to the top of the corporate ladder are on the “male” end of the personality spectrum. Are men promoting women who most closely resemble an image of themselves? If so, this subconscious stereotyping will continue until we make a serious commitment to understand it and then change it.

In particular, women need to spot issues and learn response techniques that mesh with their unique personalities. For example, one female executive might respond to an uncomfortable situation with humor, while another executive’s sense of humor could be the kiss of death to a touchy scenario. The key? Know yourself well and then know the nuances and techniques to handle gender differences in a professional setting. Ultimately, before women can worry about sensitizing men to gender issues, they must develop the GQ™ to take accountability for their own roles in gender issues and handle them appropriately.

If corporations are serious about retaining women in their organizations, then they need to send the message that different is equal and complementary. Otherwise, they miss out on tapping into a different, balanced, and highly effective talent pool. If corporations do nothing, they have made a choice – that they are happy with the status quo.

Case Study: Michelle gets promoted to Senior Partner

Michelle is 35 and, within the past few months, she has been promoted to senior partner within her professional services firm. Michelle is impressive. Her whole career has been on fast track and nothing has ever held her back. She is the first female to reach such a senior position within the firm and she feels proud to have reached her goal: The world is now her oyster.

Michelle has a natural feminine management style. In other words, she prefers to discuss projects and talk about what might go wrong. She prefers to air her concerns and share her fears. Michelle’s style has served her well and her previous teams have always responded well to her open and inclusive management. In her own mind Michelle is mitigating against risk by airing the downside of any given situation.

However, in this new all-male senior team Michelle is seen to be failing and for the first time in her career her future is in jeopardy.

What went wrong?

In the traditional world of men at work there is an unspoken set of rules at play. At senior levels promotion is all about visibility. Of course, we need to be highly skilled and good at our jobs but the thing that differentiates us is how good we are at promoting ourselves.

Many women struggle with this concept. Women believe that it should be good enough that they are good at their jobs and they should be noticed and rewarded for doing a good job. Women resist ‘playing politics’ and even look down on those who do.

His perception of you is likely to be that you don’t want promotion or that you aren’t ambitious. His view of work is a political one and is about posturing and positioning. Very much in the same way that any game of sport is played – he wants to win and will position himself to win.

Michelle’s tendency to openly communicate her fears was perceived as weakness. The senior men in her team couldn’t understand why she talked so much about irrelevant things. They began to ask themselves if she had a lack of ability to concentrate. She always seemed to be talking about relationships and outside interests before they got down to business and the men found this frustrating and uncomfortable. More importantly, when Michelle aired her concerns she was perceived to be failing because ‘she keeps talking about what might go wrong.’ In other words, she must be scared and therefore not strong enough to succeed.

Michelle’s solution to her dilemma was to get her bosses coach who taught her how to posture herself with her all male team so that their perception of her turned from concern to trust.

It is important to flex your style and to learn about the GQ™ nuances at senior levels. However, a word of warning – that does not mean morphing into a guy in a skirt! GQ™ is about being the truly awesome feminine leader that you are in your own right and not conforming to outmoded 20^th century macho working models.

Knowledge is power – be GQ™ -clued up and then use that knowledge to be the change that you seek in the world.

Tracey Carr is an exceptional entrepreneur who has developed a global brand and has coached thousands of men and women around the world. In addition to being founder and CEO of Evolution Training and Coaching Ltd. and Eve-olution, Carr has worked with hundreds of FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies who are keen to advance women in enterprise. For free coaching tips and 2009 webinars please go to Eve-olution.net.