On the Up and Up - [website] Published: 13th of May 2011 by: (c) Staff Training Reporter
While many men may have a superiority complex (no all men, but many), especially in the world of business...
...it is interesting to note in what areas women are proven to have exceeded their male counterparts.
Men won’t like hearing where they’ve been outdone by the ladies, in fact I’ve probably just lost some male readers by mentioning it, but for those of you still here there is actually a lot to be learned from identifying the differences between men and women and applying that knowledge in the workplace.
Pretending that men and women are the same on the inside is like pretending that dogs and cats are the same on the outside – there are glaring differences that once accepted let us move forward (like deciding whether to let it sleep on your bed if it’s a cat, or outside in the kennel if it’s a dog).
For managers, in the same way that you would pick either the dog or the cat to sleep on your bed (by looking at its average qualities, e.g. cats are on average small, cuddly and warm, whereas dogs are big, often dirtier and if slightly damp will have you throwing a fit) you can decide whether a man or a woman would be more suitable to the task hand.
Of course the statistics are only based on averages, and averages are only good for the most part. Some readers will be saying, “my dog’s not dirty”, but as true as that may be, on average and compared to a cat it’s probably dirtier. Having a cat sleep on your bed (as this seems to be the analogy we’re going with) could, however, result in a scratched head and being woken up numerous times throughout the night, but on average your night’s sleep will be far more peaceful with a cat than a dog.
So when I talk about women being naturally better than men at certain things, I simply mean on average they are. Some men are extremely sensitive while some women are completely clueless; it’s not the same for all people.
By knowing, for example, that women are instinctively better at perceiving facial expressions than men, you could be more inclined to use a woman for a task that requires the reading of non-verbal behaviour.
Women are also better than men at expressing their emotions and do so more comfortably. Research by Crucian and Berenbaum found that the right hemisphere in a man’s brain is primarily specialised for spatial ability, while a woman’s right side is specialised for emotional perception. In another study Kring and Gordon found that, while testing men and women’s expressive, experiential and physiological emotional responses, “women were more expressive, but did not differ in reports of experienced emotion, and demonstrated different patterns of skin conductance (one measure of emotional activity) responding.”
Those of the fairer sex are better at relationships than we men and they also (because of their maternal instincts?) are more nurturing and trusting than men.
But knowing these things only makes you as a manager more capable of making informed business decisions, such as selecting a woman for a task that involves non-verbal communication or implementing more training to those lacking specialised skills.
It is again worth noting (as was previously mentioned) that these findings only relate to averages; decisions should therefore not be made based solely on gender – each person’s own attributes and qualities should be individually taken into account before assigning tasks.
