Shirts or Skirts; Who Can Best Manage in Today’s Economy
by Jay Forte, Humanetrics LLC
Men and women do not think the same way; biology insures this. Men think in a more spatial, competitive and aggressive way – this has insured our survival for thousands of years. Women think in a more verbal, cooperative and interpersonal way – this has insured the bonding with and development of offspring for thousands of years. We still have the same brains, subjected to the same hormones that activate the switches and inspire our responses – it is our biology. This biology doesn’t change; however, our world and its formula for success changes. The competitive male mind is not as effective in inspiring results today as the engaging and interpersonal female mind. This means that a change in how we manage and who that manager is may be required.
We have moved from brawn to brain, industrial to intellectual, manufacturing to service; today, over eighty percent of all businesses in the US are service because much of manufacturing has moved off shore. As author Seth Godin states, “we used to make food (agrarian society), then we made things (industrial age), now we make ideas” (service economy). No longer do our days include the same repetitive process that hallmarked the manufacturing era. Service (intellectual age) instead, is a thinking and “human” event. To be successful in the service economy, each employee must be engaged, happy and thinking to provide the right level of customer service to build customer loyalty and long term profitability. This is encouraged and developed through a strong employee-focused culture (based on employee needs, values and interests) and supportive employee-management relationships. These relationships are required to understand employees well enough to match their roles with their talents and thinking, encourage them with consistent performance feedback and spend time discussing and defining their development and future.
Today, thinking, passion and emotions rule in the workplace; all are resident in differing amounts in each employee. Today’s successful managers match employees’ thinking to their roles, help them be great in what they are already good at, and allow them to contribute in a way that matches their personality and style. Studies by the Gallup Organization show that when this is in place, employees become engaged and connected to their workplace; they then perform at greater levels. A supportive, encouraging and coaching approach is required today to get the best from each employee. This is the new style of management called Millennial Management; it responds to the changes that moved us from the command and control industrial age, to the community and humanity-based intellectual age. Managers now have the critical role of inspiring, not mandating, performance. This requires great communication, nurturing and interest in each employee. Who is better at this? Let’s look to biology.
Men and women think differently; this will never change. The spatially-skilled, competitive, aggressive and risk-taking male brain marked by male biology since the start of time, was successful in the agrarian and industrial ages. Men are true to their nature; the flood of testosterone in the male brain activates the switches and chemicals that develops the male brain to compete, dominate and win. In the age of engineering, machinery, productivity and environmental domination, male thinking was a great fit.
Women however, did not receive the flood of testosterone early in their development and therefore have brains that evolved differently. The female’s brain developed to be more supportive, more relationship-based, compassionate and verbal. This insured the nurturing of the offspring and supports her unique role in our survival. As Anne and Bill Moir point out in their book “Why Men Don’t Iron, “Her brain sees more, hears more, communicates better and cross-references much more efficiently. Her brain possesses more verbal resources; the parts of her brain that are devoted to language are larger than the equivalent in the male.” The male brain is better at manual tracking tasks, hand-eye coordination and other spatial events. The male brain has the ability to focus a greater degree of attention task by task. “She has a floodlight, he has a spotlight.”
Men are better with things, women are better with words. In the agrarian and industrial ages, men were well matched to the demands of competition, engineering and aggressive invention; women were less well suited for these same roles based on their brain chemistry. However, with the arrival of the intellectual age, things have changed and the once powerful male warriors are now more out of place and less equipped to manage this new intellectual and passionate workforce. Men’s brain chemistry favors competition over emotional connection. Women, the natural communicators and compassionate nurturers have the talents and mindset to engage employees, connect with customers and inspire performance.
This fact creates a new challenge for the workplace. Not only are women better matched to roles of inspiring employees to perform (another way to say “management”), but they are also the best candidates to inspire the workplace to change from its outdated autocratic command and control approach to a more team and humanity-based workplace. The time has come to see that today’s performance must be based on talents and natural abilities. Accessing and developing this in each employee has created a unique opportunity for women to advance in management and significantly influence performance.
Does this mean that only women should manage? No, not any more than only men should have managed in the industrial age. But due to their thinking, men were more naturally effective in that era. Women who assumed management roles in the industrial age were required to be more aggressive and competitive – not to be more male – but to be effective. The result was that fewer women had management positions.
Let’s use that same thinking today. Success in today’s economy is based on thinking, relationship building and engagement. Find the brain that can encourage and develop this in others and you will have a more effective manager. Based on biology, this seems to favors women. Some men are capable of this thinking but not in the same numbers that women are (the same way that fewer women were better suited to managing in the industrial age). Follow the old model of men in management and women in supporting roles and your organization will fail to hire, retain and advance the best employees. In today’s economy, our people (what they think, feel and do) are our profits. Women have a biological advantage to activate a high performing workforce. Start to see your employees and your managers for their talents, rather than gender, age, and ethnicity or by any other bias. What matters most is what is inside…heart and mind…not the outside.
Never has there been a better time for women to advance in management. Gone are the industrial age “men’s clubs” – their management style is ineffective today. For years, women have had limited access to the executive suite. Previously, they were hired to clean it. Today, they are the right choice to reinvent it, staff it, manage it and turn it into a profit center. Women have the natural abilities and talents to manage this intellectual workforce. Our success is in our natural thinking, inventing and passionate performance. Whoever can best activate this in employees and encourage their great performance is the best choice for the role of manager… and it seems more likely to be a skirt than a shirt.
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