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Startup team breaker: gender specific communication styles
Many successful entrepreneurs say that startups succeed because of a winning team and not a winning idea. So what makes a winning team? One of the factors is diversity. But often differences in communication styles prevent teams from taking advantage of diversity. One kind of diversity where this often happens is gender.
The characteristic female communication style is often perceived by men to be different then what female speakers intend. Deborah Tannen in her popular book “Talking from 9 to 5″ explores some of these female rituals and how men perceive these in business.
Here are some characteristic female conversation rituals and how may men view them in a business setting. Keep in mind though that there are many differences between individual women and individual men, so not all of these apply across the board.
Interesting isn’t it? Can you recall a business situation where a misunderstanding occurred due to any of these rituals? Do comment below and tell us.
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7 Comments
February 14th, 2009 at 12:09 am
Case in point of “appear humble” and “view take charge self-presentation as arrogance”: You (female) are making the standard body font of your blog lighter and smaller, i.e. (going from the very specific to the big picture), the CSS for your blog page contains body {
color: #828282; font-size: 75%; text-align: left; } In other words, you’re always speaking with a soft, small voice.
This may be following expectations for Pashtu (or Urdu?) speaking women in an Islamic society, see http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,607491,00.html but from my male perspective (Dell D820 WUXGA laptop display), I expect statements to be clear if not bold, and have difficulties getting your message clearly (i.e., I need to zoom up the font scale in my browser, and http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3527/3275488386_d3ccea43d0.jpg is hard to read because it’s not scalable like a HTML table would be).
As an aside: The SPIEGEL reference goes straight ad personam to really drive the point home … I wonder if it’s so emotionally loaded that it has a negative effect on the reception of my message (”Speak up, girl!”).
February 14th, 2009 at 8:40 am
Interesting. The font sizes are a the result of a struggle with wordpress. Increasing them throws off surrounding containers. Have hired someone to work on this and font size and color will be the first thing changed. Thank you for the feedback.
The image was an attempt at using flickr for more traffic. Since it hurts user experience I will try and find an alternative.
As for the Spiegel link, it is about individuals from Afghanistan, which is not my culture. However, I would like to remind you that using a single news story as a reflection of individuals of an entire culture puts you in danger of sorely stereotyping and oversimplifying your view of the entire culture. But its interesting to know that just like female conversation styles are perceived by men in ways different then what is intended, ethnic women can be considered more humble than they intend due to cultural stereotypes held by others.
The intention of the post was not only to get women to understand what styles lead to miscommunication but also for men to know what women actually had in mind. Greater understanding rather than forced change by one group will lead to better startup teams. I hope that the post has helped with your understanding so next time you think of a woman as being humble, realize its just a different way of communication and she may have more valuable things to say which you should draw out for the benefit of the team.
Hope your having a great weekend.
February 15th, 2009 at 3:06 am
The intention of my post was, in part, to provide an example of slightly exaggerated male communication style and a reference to extreme male communication style.
On top of that, I’m deliberately cynical.
I have yet to experience a discussion/meeting in which the more or less explicit agenda of establishing who is the alpha male does not get in the way of finding the best solution of an interesting technical problem.
Your flickr image, http://farm1.static.flickr.com/21/27207852_e6f5b969bf.jpg , illustrates, in my opinion, a distinctly male view what team building is all about: the focus is on the (white) alpha male with the full, silver hair, with his (diverse) harem of 4, there’s the stereotypical black sidekick, and in the background there are everybody else who, quite literally, don’t get recognition because they’re put out of focus.
For comparison, typical (in my opinion) women “team” pictures look like http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v1923/199/93/1207043120/n120704312026107177.jpg or http://photos-h.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-snc1/v1490/214/108/502205011/n50220501150500553050.jpg
So the question would be: If anybody has anything valuable to say, will it be drawn out for the benefit of the team or for the benefit of the alpha male?
What do men think “team” is all about? What do women think “team” is all about?? What would HAL9000 do???
In any case, I don’t know what made you do it, but your selection of the team picture for your post is absolutely brilliant.
February 20th, 2009 at 8:13 pm
Sana,
Your blog post is quite intriguing.
Reminds me of the age-old dilemma of a husband and wife taking a trip together and getting lost. It seems as if the wife always suggests stopping and asking for directions and the husband … well, he would rather do a root canal on a Rotweiller than humble himself to ask for help!
I believe the greatest differences in communications between the genders stems primarily from the “right-brained” and “left-brained” concept.
Be fierce and Be fabulous!
~Melanie
February 20th, 2009 at 8:39 pm
Thanks for your comments. Yes, the same linguist who wrote “Talking from 9 to 5″ did research on the being lost and seeking instructions phenomenon. Apparently to a man, getting lost is a way to explore and learn more about the area (along with a fear of getting a one-down position).
Again thanks for commenting and sharing your thoughts.
March 4th, 2009 at 1:20 pm
Interesting article; thank you.
As an aside, I hate to ask for directions (I’m female), but it has nothing to do with reluctance to seem ignorant. Instead it’s about introversion and manners — I hate to ask people I don’t know for something that is beyond what their actual job is, it feels like asking them a favour.
March 5th, 2009 at 12:10 am
Thanks for your comment Stephanie. I am sure some of our earlier commentators would point to that as characteristic female “humbleness” or shyness. I do understand your view point. But then again favours are okay to get and give.
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