The more I talk about corporate viruses, the more I keep encountering them (seeprevious blog for a longer discussion on the phenomenon of organizational viruses).The virus on my mind today is called "groupthink", and most of us have encountered it more than once in our working careers.
It has been demonstrated again and again that any organization that aims to make good decisions needs to include variety of thought in its information gathering and decision-making.The virus called “groupthink” can get in the way of that, and it is often related to excessive homogeneity in the decision making team based on organizational and personal history, geography, racial and ethnicity preferences, gender bias, culture in general – a subtle or not-so-subtle exclusion process that amounts to “who we have available to us" or the more insidious "who we’re comfortable with.”
Groupthink is the need for the members of the group to stay socially cohesive by almost always agreeing with each other.It certainly makes life easier in the meetings, but tends to lead to poor results sooner or later. We have seen the very negative effects of such cronyism in both business and government in recent months and years.It is also antithetical to the innovation and creativity that most organizations need in these fast moving times.
For the latest evidence on this common phenomenon, consider this work by K. Phillips soon to be reported in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin as highlighted in the Boston Globe on January 4:
"Aren't we great (and wrong)!
ONE OF THE most famous phenomena in social psychology is groupthink, the tendency of a group to converge on a consensus without much critical evaluation, even if the consensus is wrong. Various remedies have been proposed over the years, but some management researchers are presenting an interesting new angle on it. They invited a couple hundred members of fraternities and sororities to participate in a problem-solving experiment. The students were given 20 minutes to read a murder mystery and deduce the most likely perpetrator out of three suspects. Individually, only 44 percent of the students got it right, which is slightly better than chance. The students were then sorted into groups of three, all from the same fraternity or sorority, and were given 20 minutes to come to agreement on the most likely suspect. After a few minutes, a fourth member was added to the group - sometimes from the same fraternity or sorority, sometimes from a different one. If the new member came from a different fraternity or sorority, the group performed objectively better then the totally homogeneous groups (75 percent vs. 54 percent correct), and members with incorrect guesses were much more likely to change their minds. Nevertheless, the homogeneous groups perceived themselves as having more confidence, consensus, and effective interaction."
Phillips, K. et al., "Is the Pain Worth the Gain? The Advantages and Liabilities of Agreeing With Socially Distinct Newcomers," Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin (forthcoming).
Today’s topic is viruses.Not the kind from which I am currently suffering, with my stuffy head and sluggishness, too uncomfortable and enfeebled to follow through on all my ambitious plans for work and play with anything approaching my usual energy. But the kind that all too likely infects the organization that you are currently trying to rally. You know that an organization filled with smart, well-trained people playing a high-stakes competitive game should be able to move with greater speed and agility, but too often it just doesn’t seem to happen.
We use this metaphor of “organizational virus” not just during flu season, but any time even excellent leaders encounter resistance to change.Despite a great plan for action – you have assigned strong leaders with clear goals and unambiguous direction; you have seemingly secured buy-in from the key implementers; you have been careful to organize decisions and actions into bite-sized chunks, etc, etc, etc – sometimes the existing organizational inertia is just too hard to budge.You might hear grumblings like “that’s not how we do it around here” or “who’s idea was this – not mine – not gonna do it.”You might sense that people who should be behaving like colleagues and collaborators are instead competing for resources and upper level approval.
What you likely have is one or more of the many forms of organizational viruses.The fact is that organizational viruses creep into company cultures with such stealth and cunning that even the leaders in the company fail to recognize them as threats – and then get ambushed by the little traitors when they try to initiate change.Left unattended, these dysfunctional memes will almost always thwart the best laid plans for change. They might act out by having people focus on the rearview mirror when they should looking broadly into the future through the windshield, or perhaps by placing the concerns of their personal turf above the needs of the larger organization. Or maybe by only pretending to get on board a change initiative.
As a leader, you can’t let that happen.
Companies that fail based on an inability to execute are often infected with debilitating viruses. Here is a short list of such microbes that my colleagues Dave Ulrich and Norm Smallwood have identified (you will find more on the website for our book The Leadership Code):
·Over-inform: Tell everybody and then have a meeting. We make sure everyone has been touched before we meet which slows down our ability to be decisive.
·Have it my way: We don’t learn much from each other; not invented here syndrome.
·Saturday morning team captain: We enjoy criticizing everything, even before it happens.
·False positive: We feign agreement, we suppress our real thoughts, or we look for goals that we think will please everyone. Any of these creates passive resistance.
·Hard on the people instead of the problem: We attack a colleague personally rather than attack the problem.In other words, we find scapegoats.
·Caste: We value people and opinions by grade or function rather than competence or real contribution.
How do we create new attitudes and new behaviors to counteract these insidious viruses?To create new patterns requires that these viruses be identified, named and discussed. To identify them is easy: we frequently ask groups to name the three major viruses that get in the way of organizational success, and they have no problem coming to quick consensus. Organizing lasting solutions takes more hard work and resolution, but can be done.
When we can find a way to speak about these issues and discuss them without hurling blame but with some degree of detachment, we as leaders can often resolve them and make progress.
Comments? Please feel free to contact me directly: ksweetman@rbl.net.
“The most pressing question in America today is, Can American business leadership rise to its opportunities and responsibilities?”
The question was posed in 1933, but rings all-too-true for today’s business leadership not only in America but in the world. In 1933, then-dean of Harvard Business School Wallace Donham gave this challenge at HBS’ 25th anniversary gathering during the very depths of the Great Depression. In 2008, current President of Harvard University Drew Gilpin Faust brought this history back to life by aptly quoting these words at HBS’ 100th Anniversary Global Summit. How apt? The Summit was held in mid-October of 2008, a week after the largest drop in the Dow’s 112-year history.
The alumni speakers at the 2008 event included, among others, included Meg Whitman (eBay), Anand Mahindra (Mahindra & Mahindra), John Doerr (Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers), James Wolfensohn (former president of the World Bank), Jamie Dimon (JPMorgan Chase), Oriet Gadish (Bain & Co.), Rick Wagoner (GM) and Jeff Immelt (GE).Each of these powerful and savvy insiders took on Donham’s challenge as they explored the three key topics of the 2008 conference:
Closing the leadership gap in both business and government. As Faust said: we need to create “leaders who make a difference not just in the world but for the world.”The other speakers quickly identified the specifics of the new leadership: addressing both the environment and energy independence, and finding new and productive ways for business and government to collaborate around opportunities to create a better US and world
Managing and leading within the promise and dangers of globalization.How do we make the interconnectedness of the world raise the living standards for all instead for just some?How do we avoid disastrous domino effects like the one we are currently experiencing? HBS Professor Niall Ferguson argued that globalization is inherently unstable because its very strength – driving inefficiencies out of the entire value chain – also creates vulnerability as the robustness that comes with a certain amount of fat in the system is gone.Larry Summers, Treasury Secretary in the Clinton administration and newly named head of the Obama’s National Economic Council, spoke on behalf of financial regulation that would focus on the stability of the larger financial systems, not just individual institutions.
Finding new ways to define market capitalism.Guest speaker Bill Gates talked about his passion for what he calls “creative capitalism,” using a small portion of the innovative power of business to help solve the kinds of problems that capitalism does not address: conquering malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDs in developing countries.
Inspiring stuff from some of the most plugged in people in the business world. Are they really serious? How will these changes happen? In large part, through greater transparency in the conduct of both business and government, and through engaging more people in the process of finding the solutions to complex and far-reaching problems.Said Meg Whitman: “I think the American people are dying to be asked to help solve some of these problems. People need to be enfranchised in the solution.” Gates advocates that American businesses allow their most creative and innovative people to spend 5 percent of their time working to solve social problems.
In truth, more questions were asked than answered, and the proof of sincerity will be in action, not simply heartfelt rhetoric at an alumni gathering.But I can’t help but feel that there is a change in the zeitgeist, particularly with the change in the US administration, that will encourage and embolden both business and government to put some muscle behind the words and help to re-define the prosperity we all seek to include global and environmental health as well as wealth.
Let us hope that in 2009 that we will truly follow through on our highest knowledge and best intentions.As we develop our strategies, devise our plans, deal with the people we have with us today, and imagine the strengths and capabilities of the workforce of the future, let us keep in mind the fuller picture and larger goals.
Let me hear from you on this and other blog entries. My email address is ksweetman@rbl.net. Our book website is www.leadershipcodebook.com, and amazon started shipping last week.
A client of ours recently asked us to develop a 2-day program on three things: innovation, diversity-and-inclusion, and communication.They need their leaders to get a common handle on these issues because this large global company faces changes in their industry driven by customers, competitors and technology, and they need to engage the hearts, minds, and hands of a large workforce on four continents that is diverse in every way imaginable: gender, generation, country and culture of origin, race, religion, socio-economics – you name it.
We looked at that brief with its three distinct deliverables and said: “You are not asking for three things.You are asking for one thing that is large, complex and interconnected.What you are asking for requires a degree of leadership throughout the organization that is a grand leap above the ex-military model you’ve got going now. Innovation is the desired outcome, an engaged diverse workforce is the engine, and excellent communications is one of the means to align everything in ways that lead to new ideas, new products and services, and customers willing to open their purses even in this recession.”
For leadership to gain traction in complexity, we need to see the interconnections of issues that seem independent of each other.As resources tighten in the current recession, this imperative is even more important. Innovation comes from both new and old ideas coming in contact with each other in ways which produce creative action.
This does not happen only in R&D labs, or in think tanks or skunk works separate from the daily business of the firm. Our research in developing the Leadership Code tells us that innovation can and must happen in every domain of the leadership opportunity: in strategy development, in operational execution, in dealing with talent, in developing the future workforce and in opening up oneself to the possibilities.
All of these domains involve engaging others. There is an old saw in the leadership business that you can’t be a leader without followers.In our era, you can’t be a leader without engaging others every step of the way.
I would love to hear your comments. Please e-mail me at: ksweetman@rbl.net. and check out our Leadership Code book website for more on the five key elements of leadership: www.leadershipcodebook.com
How does it play out when women are finally at the point when they could “make it” – break through to the executive ranks?We all know that at that point, it is much less about smarts and experience – everyone has that – it is more about “fitting in.”That is the sum total of a lot of things, but surely in large measure about this whole gender thing.Says Michael Gurian of women at this critical point: “They are damned if they do and damned if they don’t.If she has spent her career trying to be more like a man, the men view her as inauthentic [and ultimately don’t want her in the club.]If she has tried to stay authentic to herself, then you start hearing things like ‘she’s too emotional, she goes on too long, she’s too much into relationships.”If we want to get women into higher levels in organizations, says Gurian, “We need to get both males and females to understand that the female style, however it manifests itself, is very valuable.”
I interviewed Michael a week or so ago to understand more of what he sees as the necessary shift. I also wanted to get his take on how women and men together fit into Leadership Code.
Michael: “It is really about moving forward out of the traditionalist frame AND the feminist frame.The traditionalist frame says, basically, that men ought to run companies and women run homes, not companies.”
Kate:“Let me stop you there and ask the traditionalist’s question.Haven’t men been running large corporations for many years? Some of them do remarkably well with a vastly male majority at the top.GE comes to mind.”
M:“Some do, of course, but many don’t and/or could do a lot better.You can’t confuse the rare genius who can make it work with the vast majority of firms that are sub-optimizing or even failing with only the male model at the top.How many failures have we had, even before the most recent crash?We need balance, including gender balance.Lots of women do extremely well in starting their own organizations when they flee the corporate world, so clearly a lot of talent is being lost.It has been amply proven that business is not just a man’s game.”
K:“OK, I see that we don’t want the traditionalist frame.How about the feminist frame? What’s wrong with that?”
M:“The feminist frame tends to assert that men and women are the same (or very very close) in terms of leadership style because there is the worry that admitting biological differences will play against women.This piece of the feminist approach has been disproven by brain science, and the work that I and others are doing in corporations to teach brain-based male/female leadership styles is bringing powerful results, so we now have success data that can put to rest the idea that if we prove males and females to have naturally different leadership styles it will hurt women.As more and more feminists and traditionalists understand that brain/leadership differences are here to stay, they will become better able to help women climb to the top, AND help companies be more successful.”
K: “So the answer is working together in the ways that you work best?”
M: “Exactly. Women will bring the male organization incredible strengths—in organization, negotiation, communication, relationship management, product design, marketing, and leadership--gains that are not available unless the genders co-lead.Male assets truly cannot fully exist dissociated from female assets. And vice versa.They need one another.”
K:“Let’s try pulling these ideas into a frame with which I am very familiar: the Leadership Code.Let’s see the extent to which these two models can inform each other about gender and leadership.We’ll start with Strategy.Strategists answer the question “where are we going?” and make sure that those around them understand the direction as well.They not only envision a future, but can create it. They figure out where the organization needs to go to succeed, they test these ideas pragmatically against current resources (money, people, organizational capabilities), and they work with others to figure out how to get from the present to the desired future.”
M: “Yes.I love what you are saying. A Strategy team is a place where we really want gender balance.Men will often favor getting to a solution quickly.Women may favor taking more time, hearing more opinions, gathering more detail.Both ways of doing business are needed.For instance, a woman might say, ‘I have an intuition that I’d like to test it by talking with some more people.’Men may have a similar instinct but want to test it against data.Right there, in those two impulses, you can see how both are better together.They will find different, equally valid ways to gather information to test their hypotheses. The key thing is not to invalidate either approach.”
K: “Okay, let’s move on to the Executor dimension of the Leadership Code.The Executor dimension of the leader focuses on the question “How will we make sure we get to where we are going?”Executors translate strategy into action by understanding how to make change happen, how to assign accountability, how to know which key decisions to take and which to delegate.They make sure that teams work well together, keeping promises to multiple stakeholders.Executors make things happen, and put the systems in place for others to do the same.”
M: “Again, I love what you are saying.Both men and women can be really good as execution team leaders, and gender differences can appear.Who might be better depends on the issues facing that team. In LEADERSHIP AND THE SEXES, we tell the story of Pam Gomez-Gil.Her leadership role in a troubled manufacturing team was to help the men (this was in the high-tech/engineering field) to do the “process” better—collect details, write up reports, lubricate the manufacturing system with clarity so that execution could occur.Pam is an example of where a smart executive saw that the “process” piece was missing, and hired a qualified woman, Pam, in respect for her natural leadership ability.By the same token, we have worked with execution teams in which women say, “I’m on a team with ten women.We’re not getting enough done!”They are saying, “We have too much process here!”One woman told me, “I would much rather work for a man than a woman.Men don’t take as much time to get from A to B.”These examples are not trying to say that “men” or “women” are better leaders than the other:we are saying, “Gender is complex, and a lot of the tensions you have in execution (as well as failures) can be dealt with by paying close attention to assets in both the male and female leadership styles.”
K: “Our third dimension is Talent. Leaders who optimize talent answer the question ‘Who goes with us on our business journey?’Talent managers know how to identify, build and engage talent to get results now.Talent managers identify what skills are required, draw talent to their organizations, develop people, engage them, and ensure that employees turn in their best efforts. Gifted Talent managers generate intense personal, professional and organizational loyalty.”
M: “This is another crucial area for gender focus.I don’t believe any company will fully master the Talent dimension of leadership unless and until they fully engage on the gender issue.Men and women need to understand each other.It’s not a sound bite thing, or a one day sensitivity workshop.Corporations really need to understand how to work together as men and women. The great companies who have really advanced in this area – Ernst & Young, Procter & Gamble, IBM – focused on this issue systematically and deeply for many years. IBM, for example, insisted that their executives reach out personally into the talent of IBM to ask their help in the issue. The firm instituted a system in which executives specifically mentored individuals in career advancement and work/life balance. They quite deliberately acted as role models and mentors.The results were impressive.By paying attention to female talent especially, they really increased their bottom line.”
K:“As I understand the story, IBM as well as the others you mention in the book have also been very successful in Human Capital Development -- answering the question, “who stays and sustains the organization for the next generation?”Human Capital Developers ensure that the organization has the longer-term competencies required for future strategic success.Just as good parents invest in helping their children succeed, human capital developers help future leaders be successful.Human capital developers throughout the organization build a workforce plan focused on future talent, understand how to develop the future talent, and help employees see their future careers within the company. Human capital developers ensure that the organization will outlive any single individual.”
M:“Yes.The family is the right metaphor for gender focus. Good parents are not just raising ‘kids,’ but boys and girls. Good parents read the signals of their boy and their girl and give back to their children what they need. They help develop not only the talent of their “child,” but of their boy and their girl.A lot of this is unconsciously done until we as parents focus on the gender of our child (in pre-puberty) and really focus on male/female.Well, the same is true of the workplace, from a gender viewpoint.At a certain point, the leader realizes that employees are not just “people,” but women and men with personal and group assets related to gender.The Catalyst research makes very clear that organizations that understand female capital and know how to work with it do better. To continue with IBM as an example: in 2005, IBM reached the proud milestone of having 1,000 female executives globally.In 1995, they had had only 185.”
K: “At the heart of the Leadership Code – literally and figuratively – is Personal Proficiency.Effective leaders cannot be reduced to what they know and do.Who they are as human beings has everything to do with how much they can accomplish with and through other people.”
M:“The gender work we are doing helps to make people even more into human beings.This science-based approach allows both men and women to more fully tap into their own humanity.”
I would love to hear your comments. Please e-mail me at: ksweetman@rbl.net, and check out our Leadership Code book website for more on the five key elements of leadership: www.leadershipcodebook.com.
The brain science described so far seems pretty clear: there are differences between the male brain and the female brain. The female brain generally has a larger communication center, larger emotional memory center, and has greater ability to read subtle cues in people’s faces and voices. The male brain generally is more compartmentalized, more focused. So what? Do these differences in fact translate into workplace dynamics that matter? To answer my most pressing question, do they in fact get in the way of women’s advancement as high level leaders?
According to Gurian and Annis, brain science and empirical research together support some of what many of us would dismiss as stereotypes. Their work also strongly suggests that these stereotypes can be dismantled with better understanding on everyone’s part – and that if they are not undone, they will continue to inhibit women’s advancement and company results. When men and women are unenlightened about the potential gender dynamics at play, the researchers say, both genders can experience the following in the workplace:
• Men get credit for being direct and “to the point” while women lose face when they “slow things down” by trying to integrate more elements of a complex situation into the discussion.
• Women who seek others’ opinions are viewed as “poor leaders” or “lacking in confidence.”
• Men more often compete through hierarchical battles, turf wars, verbal aggression, viewing colleagues as competitors, weeding others out – while women try to build colleagueship and disarm conflict. The result: total disconnect.
• Men judge themselves on accomplishment and performance while women judge themselves as much or more on their success in preserving relationships.
• Women are more emotional about work and relationships, sometimes carrying grudges and perceiving more emotional conflict than men do - and remembering it longer.
Like most of us, I find myself pretty conflicted about this list. I know too many exceptions to agree whole-heartedly. And yet… there is also truth there. As I wrestled with this paradox, I was reminded of why we find Mad Menso fascinating: its spot-on depiction of male and female roles at work and at home before the liberation politics of the 1960s in the US even took root. Men are in charge, and they are as circumscribed in their acceptable behaviors and outcomes as are the women -- and everyone is frustrated. It is the raw “before” photograph. Today, in 2008, the “after” photo is still developing, and unevenly so at best. In some places, like E&Y and IBM, these gender tensions have been greatly reduced through deliberate and systematic efforts over the long term to raise awareness and create mutual understanding. As a result, retention and advancement of women leaders has soared. In others, no such efforts have taken place, and it is tough to be a woman leader.
Color me female, but I was very curious to hear what others had to say about the bulleted list. I surveyed a few friends. Their comments anticipate well the conversation that I had with Michael Gurian last week in which we translated his work into our Leadership Code model. That conversation will appear in the fourth and final part of this series on leadership and the gender brain. Here’s what they said:
"As I read the bullets initially, I kept saying, 'Well, I’m not sure that is true anymore…' [W]omen are increasingly as direct as men, and that this is acceptable. Also, teamwork is increasingly important and while I do see women being naturally better at it, I see more and more men trying to build this capability (and succeeding). And I see women increasing judging themselves by their accomplishments and performance (in part because it is more socially acceptable to do so now?) … I’m seeing this most clearly with the folks in their 30s to early 40s, and I am wondering if there is a generational implication here. Hillary’s generation fought battles in the workplace and made sacrifices that made it easier for our generation… My emerging hypothesis is that our generation has [further] paved the way… we have made it more acceptable to “be female” in the workplace, and … to see value in the different approaches between men and women."
"…as I was thinking about this, it occurred to me that the new leadership competency model should have a better mix of Mars/Venus. I see parallels to what’s happened on the home front—where men are room parents, cooks, and do laundry more—and are beginning to exercise that part of themselves for a fuller life, so too men should be meeting women halfway in the boardroom—becoming more inclusive, democratic, and creative—for a better bottom line."
"If this [list] is true, then women leaders also have to speak the language of their male counterparts, bosses and employees. They need to be less verbose, use data more, and be more decisive. I think that’s a good thing. On an experiential level, this is (I now realize) what I tried to do (subconsciously too) was model men’s style while retaining the best of my own natural style. At my old firm, I remember my business unit had both the highest % of strategic business (and billing rate average) and also the highest employee satisfaction of all business units in the company!"
"OK, this is a quick "rant" because this is an issue that I see mishandled a lot. I must say that this does feel like stereotyping and I worry that it is not helpful. It reminds me a bit of the Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus craze. That whole thing drove me a bit nuts because it felt simplistic and seemed to reinforce the extremes of behavior rather than to emphasize that both men and women can engage in the full spectrum of behaviors.
What’s your reaction?
I would love to hear your comments. Please e-mail me at: ksweetman@rbl.net, and check out our Leadership Code book website for more on the five key elements of leadership: www.leadershipcodebook.com.
The game was called “Classic Greek Explosives.”All 100 of my classmates in Section A at an East Coast business school in the US played at the same time, forming, in effect, a highly competitive marketplace of buyers and sellers.The goal for the assigned sellers like me was to price our bids optimally in each of a fast-paced series of rounds in order to maximize profit (a somewhat tricky interplay between margin and volume). At the end of the period, the person who made the most money would be declared the winner.
Imagine my pride and excitement when our Managerial Economics professor called out the winner: “Mr. Sweetman!Where is Mr. Sweetman?” He peered through his thick glasses at the enormous name tags that had been on our desks all semester (it was, I think, November).The fact that he had no idea who I was and had reflexively defaulted to a male winner didn’t bother me a bit. After all, I, the English major, had beaten a seething mass of freakishly competitive economics majors and engineers to win The Classic Greek Explosives game!I had arrived!
“Well done,” beamed the old gent kindly. “What was your algorithm?Please share with us your formula.”
“Well, I didn’t use a mathematical algorithm,” I began modestly.“I made an educated guess about where to start based on the case facts, and then recalibrated my offer with each round based on what I sensed the market reaction was.I soon saw a pretty clear relationship between the asking price and the market share I could garner…”
“What?” he startled.“No algorithm?”
“No.” I sensed trouble.
“You GUESSED?” Disbelief mingled with scorn.
“Well, it was an educated guess based on...”
“Wha, wha, well, then, you didn’t win!” he sputtered.“You need an algorithm to win.This won’t work.”
He turned his back on me, and re-examined the results clutched in his shaking hand. “Where is Mr…?” And the prize went elsewhere.
I was floored.Embarrassed.Insulted.Angry.I was also young. Could he be right? Does one always need an algorithm?But why?Algorithm based on what?Aren’t these formulas just a bunch of assumptions put into symbols anyway – educated guesses in block letters? My answer had made very good sense, and was not just one lucky guess but clearly a robust solution proven over a series of competitive rounds. I wanted to tell him that I had reasoned it out, then tested in real time, and truly won.But I was young, he was clearly not interested, and I was not in the habit of challenging tenured faculty.I kept my thoughts to myself, and I doubt he ever thought about it again.
For years, this seemingly small episode rankled beyond all proportion.I was endlessly annoyed by…what? By having my best problem solving abilities de-valued, dismissed, waived off, ignored?And, of course, by not speaking up on my own behalf.A good three or four years after graduation, I shared that frustrating episode with my then-boss.He gave me a better explanation than I had been able to come up with on my own.
“When Minnesota Fats sinks a billiard ball in the corner pocket,” he said.“he is working the complex geometry and physics of that table:the ball, the cue, the tabletop, the friction of the felt, the size and depth of the pockets. He may not be calculating the angles the way your ME professor would, but you bet that he’s doing it just the same – and a lot more quickly with better results. That’s why he wins. In that game of Classic Greek Explosives, you were Minnesota Fats.” I felt understood – and vindicated.
I used to think that this was just my story but I have come to realize that this is a very female story.Or, should l say, a very male and female story. Not just because I solved the problem in the way that I did, but the particular reaction of the professor to the solution, his easy dismissal not only of the answer but of me.And then, of course, my own emotional reaction, my long and searing memory of the thing – even the fact that the professor had no idea that “Mr.” Sweetman was a “Ms.” or where she sat. Let me share with you what I have learned from Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis about the male v. female brain, and you will see begin to see what I mean.
* * *
Most of us, concerned about fairness, and anxious to avoid becoming the next Larry Summers before his redemption on the Obama team, avoid sorting capabilities or characteristics by gender (at least publicly). We greatly – and rightly – fear stereotyping either boys or girls, or men or women. Since IQ tests, schools grades and other measures attest to the intelligence of both sexes in just about every intellectual pursuit when individuals are allowed to pursue and develop their talents without prejudice, we are somewhat uncertain about this question of differences. We can all name men who are excellent at speaking and writing, and women who are world class in math and science.Some lucky folks even excel at both.So we have to ask: are there truly differences?Or are there just two spectra with a whole lot of overlap, with the whole subject greatly confused by cultural expectations and how we nurture our boys and girls?
In fact, Michael Gurian and others tell us that tens of thousands of PET scans, MRI scans and SPECT imaging reveal important gender-based differences between the physical brains of men and women.Not just the physical structures, but blood flow, oxygenation, hormonal wash, and other subtle processes that affect how the brain takes in information, sorts, values, connects, uses and communicates it. The conclusion of brain researchers is that men and women may arrive at conclusions similar in quality and accuracy but by very different pathways – and that while they are in the process of working their way down those pathways, they can seem to be miles apart.If that professor had not cut me off in mid-sentence, he might have found that my answer was eerily similar to the one the runner-up had calculated. That perceived distance is at the root of our gender-based difficulties in relating to each other and causing each other harm.It may also be a key reason why even the most talented and successful women either jump or get pushed as they near the top of the organization, no matter how much they want to succeed. Time and again, research shows that they are exhausted by the effort of fitting in to the male model.
Here is what the brain researchers have found:
·Men have more gray matter; women have more white matter. Gray matter localizes brain activity into a single active brain center. White matter connects brain centers in the neural network.As Gurian describes it, the gray/white matter difference goes a long way toward explaining why men tend to task-focus on one element or pattern without distraction better than women may – but also explains why women are often better at making important connections, and therefore integrating widely disparate elements in ways that men don’t.Interestingly, a woman typically has 15 to 20% more blood flow in her brain than a man does at any given moment in time.Does this further enable simultaneous use of different parts of her brain in ways that he cannot? Researchers believe that this is likely
·The hippocampus is a major memory center in the brain.The male hippocampus is generally less active than the female’s during emotional experiences in the workplace. The male hippocampus is also less active during “relational” experiences.The female hippocampus is also much more connected to the word centers of the brain.This may explain why I remember this Classic Greek Explosives incident with such force so many years after it happened – and still feel a need to write The Untold Story about it.
·The female occipital and parietal lobes are more active than the male’s.This difference can affect, among other things, the negotiation of deals and daily conflict and communication situations, as they explain in great detail and at great length in the book.
·The male temporal lobe is generally less active than that of the female, which means women have a greater comparative ability to hear words and transfer what they hear, read and see into written words.The conclusion: thatmen and women often use words for different purposes.
The headlines from this analysis are these: Men and women take in information very differently. Women tend to use more of their senses, and attach more emotion as they process and as they remember. Women are also much more likely to integrate and make cross-connections while men are more likely to focus on task.We will get into much more detail on how this plays out in the workplace in blog 3 of this four part series.
For more on gender science of the brain, visit Michael Gurian’s site. For more on Leadership Code, please visit our website on Leadership Code.
If leadership is, as we say, about results, then consider this: well-regarded research by Catalyst Group has proven that corporations in which women hold at least 25 percent of the top leadership spots deliver 35% higher ROI and 34% higher Total Return to Shareholders.Research at London Business School proves that innovation on teams soars when the teams are 50/50 male and female – a perfect balance of male and female energy.Women entrepreneurs lead in new business starts, at least in the US, and women micro-entrepreneurs in developing countries are famously successful (as well as extraordinarily diligent in repaying their loans – something to consider given recent events in the financial markets). Despite this and other evidence of their value, women still hold but a tiny percentage of senior executive jobs in our largest and most powerful companies.
Why so few?Lots of reasons: lack of mentors and sponsors, issues with networks and career development choices, as well as with families and self-concept.We will address these dimensions over time in future blogs. This week, we concern ourselves with what the new science tells us are measurable differences in male and female brains -- but not necessarily in the ways that you may think.
Why is this so important? Because of the world’s 100 largest economies, 51 are corporations. They have huge power and influence.It matters how well these places are run.And it would appear that they would run better if they had better gender balance in the top leadership roles. Given the current demographics in most executive suites and boardrooms, that means more women.
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Every once in a while, while deeply engrossed in the research and writing of Leadership Code, a little thought bubble would appear over my head, a plaintive:“But it’s different for women.”
I wasn’t sure what to do with this.Until that point, I had not consciously suited up for the gender wars.As I saw it, the points of view were these: old fogies said that men were simply better suited for the working world by virtue of biology (the glories of testosterone coupled with neat dodges around other potential career de-railerslike close involvement with their children, or taking care of anyone or anything besides the bottom line). Hard core extremists on the other side said that women were no different from men in any way, and that the situation was all men’s fault: full stop. Obviously, neither was accurate but my counterarguments were limited to anecdotes from my own experience. Interested in neither male-bashing nor turf-defending, and lacking another course, I steered clear of the whole thing.
I focused instead on my true interest: the universals of leadership.And thus our book was born.
Perhaps “co-birthing” Leadership Code finally freed me to look at the leadership situation for women.Or perhaps birthing my own two daughters finally loaded the necessary gravitas and urgency onto questions that other, more enlightened women and men had been asking for years.The central questions I have increasingly felt the need to answer are:
To what extent is women’s leadership the same as or different from that of men?
How do we really know the answer to that question with any degree of rigor and certainty?
To what extent might gender-based leadership style differences explain why so few women lead our largest, most complex, and most powerful organizations?
Might the lack of women at the top explain at least in part why so many large companies get into ethical and economic troubles, fail to deal with complexity, and wander the globe, a little bit lost, wondering where their innovative mojo could possibly be?
I hoped to find an answer that was not: “It’s a boys club and they won’t let us in.”
So my quest became: How can we synch up what we now know to be the universals of leadership with the best of what is currently known about gender?Suffice to say that the answers from much of the existing literature – both business and social research – confused more than enlightened.One source says that women’s leadership is exactly the same as men’s.Another says that women are cooperative, empathic team builders (if a bit wordy and overly process-oriented) while men are hard-charging data hounds with little regard for human life.
Then I was introduced to Michael Gurian and his lifetime of popularizing and applying scientific knowledge about the gender brain (the phrase “gender brain” roughly means “the scientifically observable differences between male and female brains”).In my next two blogs I will summarize what Michael tells us that the science tells us, as well as how he and his team have applied that insight in corporations. In the fourth and final blog in the series, I will share how Michael and I mapped his applied scientific understanding of these dynamics to our Leadership Code framework.The results of that are very illuminating.
I should add that these advances in understanding have been set forth for non-scientists by a few authors.One, Dr. Louann Brizendine”s The Female Brain, is a New York Times best seller. I focus here on Michael Gurian and Barbara Annis, and their new book Leadership and the Sexes because in it they apply the new research on the issues of men and women working together in corporate life.
Think your boss is killing you?You may be right. But you can stop him.
My colleague in the UK, Allan Freed, forwarded to me this morning a must-read from today’s BBC website. The article discusses new Swedish research on the inescapable connection between poor leadership and stress induced illness.This latest work proves that poor leadership literally causes heart attacks in a significant percentage of male reports. What more relevant topic for today’s stressed-out workplace – be they leader or led?
The bottom line: bad bosses can quite literally cause heart attacks and other serious, even life-threatening illnesses. If you are the leader, you must be constantly aware of the effect that you have on those around you, for good and for ill.And if your boss is making you sick, act to make yourself well.
Here’s a way.Here in the US, Dr. Herbert Benson and his colleagues at the Harvard Medical School are considered to be the pioneers in the West in finding and using the positive connection between mind and body.Quick history: starting undercover in the 1970s, Benson sought out the “wisdom traditions” of the world which claimed to benefit health (meditation, yoga, prayer, chanting and the like).He identified what these belief systems had in common (for example, repetitive words or motions), then applied Western medical techniques and metrics to test their effects on blood pressure and other biological activities.When he found that the connections were quite real, his passion became convincing Western skeptics that people can manage their health and well-being without drugs. Benson and his colleagues have developed a number of very simple, completely natural, utterly non-pharmaceutical techniques for reducing stress. His work can now be found that the Benson-Henry Institute for Mind Body Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital.
I took his course a few years ago and learned some very easy, practical tips for reducing stress.The goal is to invoke the Relaxation Response (the opposite of the famous Fight or Flight Response).Here are some techniques that I was taught at the time that do not appear on the public website:
·Cultivate an “attitude of gratitude”
·Avoid “negaholics” and stress carriers
·Volunteer
·Join a support group
·Find time just to play
·Yoga
So, go out there and relax.And don’t let anybody stop you.
Have some innovative impulses but afraid to take the leap? For anyone needing a dose of courage to commit to new undertakings when all around you are retracting like cost-cutting terrapins, I direct you to a terrific piece in the December edition of Wired (16.12). “Back to the Garage” by Daniel Roth is too fresh to have a link yet, so let me intrigue you with some key points and encourage you to read the detail when you can lay your hands on the magazine, or when it becomes available on line (www.wired.com) .
Roth’s central point is that a period of economic disarray presents unusual opportunity because the barriers come down to moving forward in new ways, and a hungry (and less expensive) workforce has to succeed – the alternative is disaster. He references Tom Siebel’s famous founding of Siebel Systems in the depths of the 1993 downturn.He harnessed the skills of “some inexpensive, underworked software engineers,” secured some cheap office space, set up his folding table, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Siebel followed a proud tradition that has a direct line to the Great Depression and other downturns.According to Roth, many a brave leader laid the groundwork for decades of success based on what their leaders committed to innovate in those tough years. His examples: Du Pont “set aside basic research and … came up with nylon, the first synthetic fabric, revolutionizing the way Americans parachuted, carpeted and panty-hosed.” Tom Watson committed IBM to built a new research center, a move that posiitoned them at the forefront of their peer group. A generation later, Bill Hewlitt of HP “committed to building the pocket calculator – at the time, a supposedly impossible task – during the 1969-1970 recession.” For a full list, see the article.
