Humanetrics LLC

Step Out From Behind the Mask – Women’s Critical Role In Driving Employee Performance

by Jay Forte, Humanetrics LLC

Women have been forced to hide in the workplace. They hide in roles that do not allow their full contribution; they hide from advancement, promotion and leadership roles. They hide behind male norms and masks of inauthentic behavior. For years they have learned that to be feminine, they must hide their real thoughts and identity and be content with primarily secondary roles. And for the few who advance to a managerial or leadership role they must wear the masculine mask – they become direct, aggressive, competitive and one of the “team.â€? Those were the choices – pushover or bitch – with relatively little in between. And in the interim, the workplace has not benefited from the powerful, practical and performance-based feminine perspective. Male perspectives created male workplace practices; many of these are now outdated and ineffective. It is time for women to step out from behind the mask and own their identity as powerful performers, capable of all roles in organizations. The movement to our new “intellectual economyâ€? has made today their day.

Let’s step back into history for a perspective. In the hunter/gather age, both men and women had nearly equal responsibilities; survival was a collaborative effort. Some gathered, some hunted but both fed and sustained the race. Things changed in the Agrarian Age where the start of farming, planting and “manpower� created a more dominant male role due to physical requirements of the Age. In the late 18th century, progress to the Industrial Age again introduced change. As “manpower� shifted to “horsepower,� machines were invented to do the work previously done by people. This era was also led by the dominant male perspectives of conquering, competition and winning. Today’s workplace and society continue to show this strong male influence as we head for our next significant change.

In the mid to late 20th century, much of manufacturing moved offshore and ushered in a new Intellectual (service) Age. Today, we are back to where we started – the need for both men and women to bring both of their strong perspectives, talents and strengths to the workplace and to collaborate for powerful performance. Today’s economy requires an attitude of community, partnership and connection to inspire employees and engage customers. The Industrial Age and more classically male “command-and-control� style of management is ineffective to drive performance today. In a thinking and intellectual workplace, employees control their contribution, Contribution today can no longer be mandated- it must be inspired and encouraged. Great millennial managers and leaders need to be nurturers, relationship builders, great communicators and strong have strong connecting talents. These attributes are more natural to the brain biology and architecture of women; we are now part of a workplace that requires a significant feminine contribution but is constrained by male-imposed performance norms and societal limitations.

Women and men are not the same but each deserves an opportunity to bring what they do best to the workplace. In our current economy, both men and women have talents, strengths, perspectives and attitudes; they must collaborate to create a performance powerhouse. But many things in the workplace will need to change to allow the blending of influence, impact and performance power. Women must be allowed to contribute in their unique and high value ways. They hold the key to activating and inspiring today’s workers and until they are allowed the ability to fully contribute, in their way, all organizations will perform at only a fraction of their potential. The outdated perspective that men must be in charge and women are support must end today.

Women and men are different. Men prefer competition, women prefer community. Men are transactional, women are transformational. Men are doers, women are communicators. Men love the concept of win-lose; women prefer win-win. With such different perspectives it is easy to understand the popularity of John Gray’s book of relationship struggles, Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus. This difference in biology-inspired brain architecture and hormonal influences inspires and complicates the interaction process. The lesson is that each has naturally inspired positive attributes that, in a successful collaborative environment, encourage and accept the best from each to direct the best results possible. This requires a new focus on the value of women and their ability to impact performance. To create a fairer workplace and advance this collaborative performance effort:

1. Women must become aware of their great value and fit in today’s workplace and commit to developing the core strengths that make them effective at all levels. Women must see and believe that they are capable, in absolute terms, of driving success and performance in today’s workplace and that the previous limiting male model is outdated and ineffective. The more women see their natural fit and role in encouraging performance, the more confident they will become in activating and developing these talents. This confidence is critical for reclaiming a powerful role in organizations’ performance, management and leadership.

2. Women must learn to perform around the intentional and unintentional obstacles established in today’s male-dominated workplace, until they can be changed. Today’s rallying point is “performance� not gender. The focus on performance will show that the Industrial Age male management perspectives are no longer effective in a “connected� service workplace. The more women can activate the specific talents needed in today’s intellectual workplace and translate them into performance, the more noticed, appreciated and valued they will become. This requires a daily plan to understand male thinking and to develop a powerful (performance-focused) feminine response to insure that they are heard and valued by men.

3. Women must use their increased confidence and impact on performance to set about a collaborative change in the workplace. The connection between women and their ability to better inspire performance will be the catalyst to unseat long standing male-inspired workplace behaviors and make the changes in the workplace that will make advancement and contribution more achievable for other women. This will redefine great workplace cultures as those that look for performance instead of gender as criteria for hiring, advancement and rewards. This change can be brought about by women as they show their natural aptitude for impacting performance.

To first develop the confidence that will change the rules, women need to appreciate how well their natural thinking matches workplace needs. In an intellectual workplace, thinking drives performance. This means that for an employee to contribute, she must think; in order to think, she must be fully engaged, committed, content and focused in her role. To achieve this, today’s managers need to know and understand their employees (as people) to connect each intellectually and emotionally to their roles. Soft skills now overtake hard skills in driving performance.

To create this personal and emotional connection requires strong communication, consensus-building, a commitment to community, and collaboration – or the employee disconnects and disengages. The female brain is wired for connection; this makes women exceptionally adept at engaging and inspiring employees while building strong relationships with customers. The male brain turns most things into competition; they focus more on winning and results than emotions and people. Women are programmed to engage and inspire; men are programmed to command and control. Today’s economy needs the feminine perspective to activate employee performance; this can’t be done in limited support roles.

Confronted with years of being limited respect and contribution by male-inspired workplace norms, women have been made to believe that they offer limited workplace value. In today’s intellectual workplace, this is all changed. To change the mindset of today’s dominant male thinking women will need to embrace their talents, use these talents to impact performance and more significantly defend their perspectives. Review these five critical intrinsic female strengths that are core to driving intellectual age performance:

• Communication – women communicate more effectively because they watch, listen and observe more body language, facial expressions and language nuances than men. Women focus more energy, attention and value to the communication process and in an age where communication moves information and information drives performance, women are better connected and informed. Communication between managers and employees is critical to aligning employees to the right roles and engaging them in their work. Women are skilled communicators. To develop this strength, women must improve on their directness, manage emotional communication and learn the language of performance.
• Consensus-building – women are more natural at finding solutions that create win-win outcomes; they focus on bringing people and ideas together instead of playing to differences. Women use their communication skills to understand people and ideas more effectively and naturally work to find agreement more than men. Women must continue to focus on the win-win attitude that encourages employee and customer loyalty, by a constant focus on inventing opportunities, considering all options and weighing the feelings and attitudes of each party in business environments.
• Community – women are more naturally inspired to find ways to unite, unify and build “family.â€? They nurture more effectively because their level of care is at the very core of their internal values. Great relationship-building skills activate employee and customer loyalty and build a sense of oneness and community. Women, great in the familial environment, must continue to develop their belief in community in the workplace by sharing a common vision, goals and sense of belonging with employees who frequently feel disconnected and unsupported. Uniting the workplace into a powerful community attracts and retains the best employees.
• Collaboration – Getting others to work and get along is programmed into the biology and architecture of the female brain. The early goal of survival fostered a need for collaboration that still exists. Women are more aware of the need for a team and a collaborative approach to complete tasks than the independent male warrior. Working together allows for greater innovation, creativity and overall performance than a series of independent high performing soloists. Women must continue to be the collaborative voice that calls for collective approaches at work and not support the more male perspective of the single “superstar� performer.
• Connection – women possess an intrinsic ability to bond with others. Their overall focus on personalized interest and care insures that their interactions with others are strong, powerful and build connection. In today’s workplace, connection is the power of performance. Employees who are connected (intellectually) to their jobs (they match the way they think) perform. Employees who are also connected (personally) to their managers, are more loyal, contribute more and perform better. Women have a natural connective ability. Women must continue to raise the value of humanity (emotions, passions) in the workplace – that each employee matters and that connecting each employee to their work and to their management is the key to performance. Humanity is back in vogue in the workplace; connections drive emotions and emotions drive performance.

This does not mean that only women should be hired and promoted in our intellectual economy; rather, it shows today’s workplace requires a particular type of thinking to activate performance. This thinking may also show up in men, though based on biology and the development of the brain, it is more likely to naturally reside in women. The focus is on a particular type of thinking that activates performance. Developing these 5 strengths will prove to women that they have the best attributes to drive today’s performance and are worthy to be considered for all significant management and leadership roles.

Once women are more confident that they are well suited for and belong in levels of management, they must learn how to prove themselves to those currently in charge. Not only must they learn how to maximize performance, but they must also learn how to reframe their approach to accommodate the male workplace attitudes to be heard, valued and respected. Women will have to prove that their approach to managing works. This process has historically fatigued many women from the path to management. The additional responses needed to make the same impression and performance as men have encouraged many women to stay at their current level, leave to start their business or leave for home life and raising families. This response indicates to many men that women are not serious about the process of advancement, management and leadership. Whereas the real issue is that performance standards are inequitable and that they don’t readily allow or value the feminine approach or perspective.

To get heard, listened to and valued in the male workplace, women must understand how the workplace “game� is played, develop a response to get noticed, and change the rules in the process. To play the game, women can build an action plan by using the TPSOC approach– Think, Plan, State, Own, and Connect. These areas will create a powerful female response to the male behaviors that guide today’s workplace protocol and success:

• Think- Women are natural thinkers; their brains are more connected and can handle more ambiguity and information flow than men’s. Women must learn to focus more on the empirical details and facts. It is important that they fully understand each situation and rely more on their brain’s “web� approach of connecting details to consider all perspectives. They must be able to document their thought process and summarize their thinking so that it is clear, well-defined and empirical. Women must manage their emotional perspectives and temper them with reason, thought and analysis. The male workplace is committed to actions plans that are first clearly defined and well thought out. To be considered credible, women must be able to show how their thinking leads to their conclusions and that these conclusions drive performance.

• Plan – Women are talented strategists and multitaskers; they can both respond quickly, and can work to implement long-term plans. It will be important for women to translate their thinking and powerful intuition into specific action plans. The male workplace is action-based and responds to specifics. At all times, women must translate thinking into actionable items that tie to performance. Women also must balance the fine line of including an emotional (passionate) perspective in their plans (because emotions and passionate responses are key to employee and customer loyalty) and a rational and empirical perspective to win over male support.

• State – Women are exceptional communicators with some exceptions. In responding to the male workplace, women must learn to be more direct, say what they mean, get to the point more quickly, support their perspective, and always connect to performance. Areas that undermine women’s success are the focus more on feelings that actions, not stating what they think, not challenging existing or outdated perspectives or responding in a tentative tone or choice of words. Women walk a fine line between being perceived as aggressive (negative) or professionally assertive (positive). Standing up for a position, presenting in a clear and empirical way and publicly defending its thought is the sign of a professional. Managing pitch, volume and vocal confidence comes with practice. Stating is one of the most critical ways a woman must translate her intrinsic thinking and ideas into a way that the male audience can respond, accept and value her contributions.

• Own – Women are committed to people, feelings and events; they take full responsibility and own their feelings, ideas, relationships and actions. Owning performance is a statement about taking the mask off and becoming more authentic – more female. It is not about acting like men to “fit in� but rather to be confident in her female thinking, planning and stating abilities and their connection to employees, customers and performance. Balancing the feminine perspective with an understanding of the male workplace protocol is the key to feminine progress in the workplace. Women must learn to take a risk to stand up for what they believe and challenge what is outdated and ineffective – since they now know that their perspectives are in tune with today’s workplace attitudes.

• Connect – Women are the connectors of society; they are natural nurturers, communicators, care-givers and are emotionally savvy. Performance today is in “connection� – connection of employees to their roles and connection between people. This connective ability drives performance. Women must show the power of connectivity to their male counterparts by showing the performance power of connection. Connecting to employees, who in turn perform at exceptional levels, will be the proof that women are capable and that their approach is more sound in influencing performance than the male approach. The proof will be in performance.

Men and women are different; they each have unique performance talents. Women now possess the stronger management skills of communication, consensus-building, community, collaboration and connection. Men still possess high tech spatial and engineering skills and a focus on wining and the competitive spirit. Combined, they are a powerhouse. When either side is excluded, organizations underperform. Today is the day to reintroduce the power of the feminine perspective and talents to the workplace. Today is the day to recommit to a more collaborative approach with performance as the goal. This excludes gender, age and other biases; it now looks to match the most qualified individuals with the right job.

It is no longer about hiring women or men. It is about hiring talent, and the thinking that drives performance. This can only happen when the male-established limiting perspectives are removed and that women are appreciated for the value, talents and perspectives they bring. The barriers will disappear when women realize that at this very moment, in an intellectual workplace, they host the preferred approach to management thinking; they have the natural talents to inspire and engage. Women must develop a plan to get their ideas through the male-dominated workplace. In the process, they will help to reestablish the rules that govern contribution, performance and advancement in the workplace. It is time to recreate the collaborative environment, one that fairly honors and respects the contributions of both men and women. It is time to focus on performance, not gender. Only then will we learn how to use the performance power of the Intellectual Age.

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