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Why Women Make Better Networkers |
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Author: Palms What's the problem? "I'm tired of being treated like chopped liver or some lil' ol' Daisy Mae who just stepped out of the punkin' patch," she says. "I've run my own ad agency, put myself through law school and been general counsel of a $300 million company. I think I'm entitled to a little professional respect." She adds that men whom she contacts often dismiss, patronize, tune out or compete with her. "I don't usually have these problems when networking with other women," she says.
Women job hunters frequently complain that men are terrible networkers when compared to women. They say networking with men can be frustrating, demeaning and unproductive, whether they're the referred contact or the networker. The problem often is jokingly described as "Male Testosterone Syndrome," or MTS, a disease, women say, that's characterized by five symptoms:
Access problems. As networking contacts, men are difficult for women to reach and are reluctant to return their phone calls. In person, they act cliquish, clannish, clubby and standoffish.
Condescension. Men think they know everything, and therefore feel there's no need to listen to another's point of view, especially a woman's.
Dominance. Men are threatened easily and prefer to dominate. To them, every conversation is a competition or contest.
Tactlessness. What men like to call "brutal honesty" often is rude, coarse or boorish.
Callousness. Men are insensitive, inflexible and unconcerned with the difference between sympathy and empathy because they're attuned to neither. They tear into conversations, then shift into a rehearsed sales pitch, overriding any attempts by the other person to respond or ask questions.
Women, on the other hand, are easy to network with. "By and large, the women I contact are more receptive, interested, collaborative and better prepared to receive, as well as provide, information," says the attorney in Philadelphia. "Those who call me for help are more sensitive to my needs and time. They're clearer and more honest about their agenda and expectations."
Another Perspective
When asked about this issue, men typically express surprise tinged with indignation. "That's simply not fair," says a senior lending officer at a major Philadelphia bank. "I have lots of folks asking me for networking advice, and gender isn't a factor. This whole 'men-have-to-dominate-everything' myth just isn't true, either of me or my colleagues."
Many men assert that what women describe as MTS is a reflection of the largely male working world, not gender differences. "The fact is, women may feel dominated because [the workplace] is still male-dominated, at least in the private sector," says an East Coast management consultant.
"For all the advances that have been made toward equality, more men than women remain in positions of power and influence," he says. "The 'Old Boy Network' is alive and well, and it naturally seeks to conserve and consolidate its power. As a job-search or career-development technique, networking is about exchanging information that represents enormous clout and leverage. Those who have it can't be expected to hand it over readily."
Another executive sees the issue in terms of workplace environment and individual style, not as MTS. He jokes that women suffer from a similar disease: FHS, or Female Hypersensitivity Syndrome, because they want every interaction to establish a warm bond and be deeply meaningful.
Networking should be viewed as a business transaction, says the consultant, which drives a specialized economy of favors. "The deal is, I give you a favor, you owe me a favor." Each exchange of favors is supposed to preserve a mutually advantageous system of informal communication, not establish an interpersonal relationship, he says. Moreover, both sides must hold up their end for the system to remain healthy.
Instead of viewing networking as a gender issue, examine its essence: why you do or don't connect with others. Whether you're male or female, understanding those reasons will help you be a more effective networker, which can pay off handsomely when you need a new job.
Where Rapport Comes From
Social scientists have long observed patterns in how people respond to others. They've identified personality and temperamental categories that predict how people react and relate to each other.
Many kinds of personal preferences and tendencies are gender-neutral, with women and men wired similarly. In some crucial dimensions, however, the differences between the sexes are clear and fundamental.
For example, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator, perhaps the most widely used tool for measuring individual style and preferences, distinguishes between "thinking" and "feeling" styles of making decisions and communicating them to others. Thinkers insist that the best decisions are rational, logical and dispassionate. They believe the universe and everything in it are governed by objective, consistent rules of cause and effect. To thinkers, there are absolute rights and wrongs, and you can't change the rules to fit a situation. They believe that emotions can distort and diminish the quality of decisions.
Feelers, on the other hand, place a high premium on the value of emotion when making and acting on decisions. They have a subjective and humanistic frame of reference. In their view, a sound decision makes everyone involved feel as good as possible under the circumstances. To feelers, there are no absolute rights and wrongs. The most effective way to behave is to accommodate all styles. It's an approach that's sensitive to emotion and unconcerned about whether everything makes perfect sense.
Not surprisingly, two-thirds of all men who take the Myers-Briggs exercise score highly as thinkers, and two-thirds of all women as feelers. This difference is the premise behind such best-selling books as "You Just Don't Understand" by Deborah Tannen (1990, William Morrow & Co.) and "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" by John Gray (1992, Harper Collins).
Evolution seems to explain the difference. We're all schooled from birth to distinguish warm, safe things from cold, threatening things. Regardless of gender, we have highly developed "hunch machines," or subliminal radar that supplements (and sometimes overrules) rational, intellectual information-processing faculties. It's always on duty, spontaneously evaluating each situation and personal interaction for threat or safety.
Men seem particularly geared toward recognizing and responding to threat. They orient their style toward controlling their environment and dominating events perceived as threatening. Courtesy of testosterone, men focus their most pronounced distinguishing characteristic, physical strength, on external challenges. As adults, they've been further socialized to exercise and communicate control.
How does a thinking style of decision-making reinforce these behaviors? Thinkers need an objective, cause-and-effect universe to feel in control. They need rules and principles that say, "This cause will always produce this effect." If the rules change from one situation to another, they can't tell who's winning or measure accomplishments and expertise. And if they collaborate, they won't know who's strongest.
Classic MTS behaviors flow from this orientation. Thinkers dislike having to ask for help, and when asked to provide help, they feel and act superior. Thinkers place a premium on truth and integrity, often becoming blunt or candid. They create and obey rules and punish rule breakers. They don't like situational ethics or political games. Right is right, period.
Women, conversely, seek and promote safety, and are geared toward consensus and adaptiveness. Unable to overpower adversaries and dominate their environment, they seem to have developed attributes that support long-term survival of the species: nurturing, sustaining, adapting and consensus building. Rather than using a conflict-based model, they value collaboration, harmony, accommodation and community.
These qualities match those associated with feeling types, who are people-oriented and sensitive to others' needs and feelings. They value tact and sensitivity, and readily accept nonrational experiences that evoke emotion without needing to know the specific causes for those feelings.
Of course, few people neatly fit either the thinker or feeler stereotype. But a tendency toward one style or the other can produce MTS- or FHS-like symptoms.
"Thinkers can be analytical to the point of seeming cold," say Paul Tieger and Barbara Barron-Tieger, authors of "Do What You Are" (1995, Little Brown). "Feelers can be personally involved to the point of seeming overemotional. When thinkers and feelers clash, more often than not the feeler ends up hurt and angry, while the thinker is confused about what went wrong."
John Gray makes a similar point in "Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus" about male and female values: "We [must] explore how men's and women's values are inherently different and try to understand the two biggest mistakes we make in relating to the opposite sex," he says. "Men mistakenly offer solutions and invalidate feelings, while women offer unsolicited advice and direction."
Deborah Tannen views MTS-FHS differences in terms of intimacy vs. independence. "In a world of status, independence is key, because a primary means of establishing status is to tell others what to do, and taking orders is a marker of low status," she says. "Intimacy is key in a world of connection where individuals negotiate complex networks of friendship, minimize differences, try to reach consensus and avoid the appearance of superiority."
Social and cultural pressures won't change because we recognize these outcomes. But instruments such as Myers-Briggs show that these predispositions and behaviors can be altered. When networking, biology doesn't have to dictate our destiny.
Consultants who use Myers-Briggs for team building often emphasize how understanding diverse personal styles can improve interactions. In general, the most dominant person in a group expects others to adopt his or her style. A better approach is to call attention to obvious differences between members and incorporate them into the agenda. As Mr. Gray writes, "By remembering these differences, we can correct our mistakes and immediately respond to each other in more productive ways."
Job-search networking usually suffers because networkers fail to state why they're making contact and their agenda for the meeting. Both parties need to know up-front: What is the networker's situation? Why is she/he contacting me? What kind of help or information does he/she need? What are the stakes in this meeting? Are there risks for either party?
The MTS-FHS issue is simply another item to incorporate into the agenda. Women can minimize problems they perceive in men, such as access, condescension, dominance, tactlessness and callousness, by:
- acknowledging and accepting the need of the powerful to be powerful;
- stating their needs and agendas clearly and confidently without expecting the man to infer or sense them; and
- calling attention -- in calm, nonjudgmental terms -- to behaviors or attitudes that have a chilling effect on the meeting.
A proven technique for sensitizing or softening even the most callous person is to use the word "uncomfortable," as in, "Jim, I'm getting uncomfortable. My purpose in wanting to sit down with you was to test a couple of career ideas, but I'm having difficulty expressing them. I'm grateful for your comments, but they'd be more helpful if they were keyed to my situation. If it's OK, let me take a minute to outline my thoughts and specific questions."
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