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Lip Service by Ruth Sherman

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Leadership: Treat Your Customers Well

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Just before Christmas, my Canon mini-dv camcorder broke. Not great timing, obviously, but what could I do but try to get it fixed? I knew I wouldn’t have it on the holiday itself and I was under no illusions that I would be able to have it repaired (if it was even fixable) during the 10-day period the family was relaxing and having fun together.

I needn’t have worried. I quickly found Canon online and was able to navigate easily on their superb support pages. At one point, I needed to call them. They were busy but instead of making me hold, the recording asked if I wanted someone to call me back as soon as the next available representative was free. I said yes and 10 minutes later, the phone rang.

The agent was very helpful, gave me my options very clearly and told me how and where to send the broken camcorder. I received a repair number, packed up the camera and overnighted it to the repair center.

The day after Christmas, I received an email from Canon describing the problem and providing an estimate. Online, I checked the appropriate boxes and OK’d the repair. 3 days later, the camera was back in my hands. Total time from first call to repaired camera: 1 week. We still had a few days left of family fun, so Christmas 2008 was not a total video loss.

I couldn’t help but contrast my Canon experience with some recent, unsatisfactory customer service experiences from two other behemoths, American Express and AT&T. The ease and pleasure of being serviced by Canon and their integrated approach to communication where it felt as if they thought of everything, was breathtaking in comparison. Because of my experience, I will buy Canon again. It makes sense to me because since electronics break down or get damaged easily, I want to be able to repair them just as easily. As I sigh with pleasure over Canon, I am plotting my escape from the other companies.

When it comes to customer service, why don’t businesses get it? It’s not difficult to make the business case for it: treat customers well and make communication easy and they become repeat customers, recommend them to friends and family, write about it in Fast Company…

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates LLC • High Stakes Communications • Greenwich, CT • www.ruthsherman.com

Topics:

Leadership, Canon Inc., Science and Technology, Technology, Cameras, Consumer Electronics

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Leadership: Directors of First Impressions

A couple of months ago, I was a visitor at the New York headquarters of a big international law firm. When I walked into the firm’s beautiful offices, I was greeted by an impressive woman of years. I handed her my pass, which had my name on it and she smiled and welcomed me by name. She then offered to take my coat and showed me to a comfortable chair in the reception area. She asked if I wanted to visit the rest room. I did and when I returned, she welcomed me back.

I took my seat and picked up something to read. The receptionist came out from behind the large reception desk and walked over to me. Speaking softly, she told me my appointment was running about 15 minutes late and would I like something to drink while I waited? Did I have enough reading material? I felt very relaxed and content sitting and waiting for my appointment. My impression of the law firm? A classy place with, I was sure, classy people. On the way out, I told the receptionist that I thought she was the best I had ever seen.

A few weeks later, I had an appointment at an international financial services giant also in New York. Upon my arrival, the receptionist smiled warmly and asked me if I wanted to hang up my coat. She also asked if I would like to visit the rest room. She directed me to both and when I returned, she let me know she had alerted the client I was there to visit and that the client’s assistant would be out to escort me shortly. We made some pleasant small talk and I took out my Wall Street Journal and started reading. As I waited, I observed something remarkable: This woman greeted by name every person who came through the doors or who walked by her desk. Her exchanges were uniformly warm, kind and cheerful.

How are you today, Janet? Oh, Steve, I wanted to thank you again for Friday. Samantha, how did it go last weekend...I know you had some concerns?

Greeting after greeting, she seemed to gain more energy with each one. The truly great thing, however, was that everyone she conversed with seemed to have their day brightened, as well.

We often take these positions for granted and regard them as unimportant, easy and easily replaceable. They are, however, extraordinarily important for many reasons, not least of which is delivering that all-important first impression. They require a unique skill set. I can imagine because these two women immediately set the tone and lift moods, any business that transpires afterward has a better chance of success.

It’s a reminder that everyone is in sales – everyone.

What is your experience with “Directors of First Impressions?”

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates LLC • High Stakes Communications • Greenwich, CT • www.ruthsherman.com

Topics:

Leadership, Greenwich (Connecticut), Ruth Sherman, The Wall Street Journal, Ruth Sherman Associates LLC, High Stakes Communications

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Leadership: In Iowa, The Best Communicators Won!

The results of the Iowa caucuses are in and, no surprise to me, the best communicators won.

Both Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee may have thin resumes, but their ability to inspire, motivate and persuade are unparalleled among the entire field of candidates, Republican and Democratic alike.

This type of oratorical skill is routinely dismissed by officeholder wannabes and their campaigns as not meriting much attention. (It’s also dismissed in the business world.) The only thing that should count, they think, is intellectual skill, political achievements and, perhaps, experience. As we see with the rest of the candidates, especially Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney, they ignore communication skill and style at their peril.

Looking back forty years, my analysis has shown that in each presidential race, the better communicator has won. The winner, by the way, does not have to be a great communicator, just better than his opponent; witness George H.W. Bush v. Michael Dukakis, neither one possessing good communication skills.

Today, such skill is even more important. Candidates are covered and scrutinized relentlessly, their every utterance captured for dissemination to voters. We are persuaded by a candidate’s “likeability,” the elements of which are delivered almost entirely nonverbally, i.e., by the way they look and sound.

Obama, for his part, is untested and has served in the Senate for only a couple of years. His oratory is light on detail and issues, preferring to rely mostly on broad, inspirational and aspirational topics such as hope and change. I have often said about Obama that were it not for his tremendous speaking skill, he would not be on anyone’s radar. Despite his deficiencies, however, voters believe he can be a great president because his speeches are brilliant and soaring, lifting people’s spirits and lifting him into the role of frontrunner for the most important job in the world. He also speaks beautifully, his voice and expression the type we long to hear and see in the leader of the free world and that have, unfortunately, been lacking for the past 8 years. Obama’s skill as a speaker and communicator has changed his life and may change ours.

Huckabee has a vastly different style, but is equally effective. An affable and quick-witted communicator, Huckabee’s brilliance is in his ability to persuade voters that he’s one of them, a regular guy, sensitive to the average American’s needs and plight. He’s also very funny and seems like he'd be fun to be with. We like Mike a lot, and because of this, voters are willing to ignore some of his positions that may not be so much to their liking such as his lack of foreign policy experience and very socially conservative positions. We feel a connection, as we do with Obama, and this connection supercedes any doubts we may have.

My clients and I always get into a discussion of the immense power of nonverbal communication. They are almost universally frustrated that their physical presence has so much influence; they argue with me that it shouldn’t be so, it’s not fair – the only thing that should count is the ability to do the work. My response is always the same: The words they speak are important, but the way they look and sound is equally important. It’s one thing to have a message and another entirely to deliver it with the degree of passion and conviction necessary for it to hit its target.

This is a painful reality for Hillary and Mitt, who must be feeling pretty low right about now. Of course, Iowa is just a blip on the political radar and the New Hampshire results remain to be seen. But if Iowa means anything, it is the continuing and increasing significance of having solid speaking and communication skills. They elevate. They anoint. They're fair. They matter a great deal.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates LLC • High Stakes Communications • Greenwich, CT • www.ruthsherman.com

Topics:

Leadership, Barack Obama, Iowa, Mike Huckabee, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney

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Leadership: Show, Don't Tell -- The Professor v. The Candidates

Happy New Year!

I had a chance to catch up on some reading over the holidays and one thing I had set aside was an article in the New York Times about Professor Walter H.G. Lewin, a physics professor at MIT who has become known for his lively and engaging lectures. Professor Lewin is quite the performer, apparently, rigging cans of water to demonstrate how to make a simple battery, beating a student with cat fur to build up a static electricity charge powerful enough for the student to light a neon light tube just by touching it, and swinging on stage to demonstrate the physics of a pendulum. (You can check out his lectures, available for free at http://ocw.mit.edu/. You can also find a few clips on YouTube.)

As with all great teachers, Professor Lewin knows the best way to engage students is to show them how complex concepts work, not just tell them. This requires some planning including building demos, acquiring props and preparing remarks. Professor Lewin is a spry 71 and owns the stage he occupies. He looks like he’s really enjoying himself and his students are rapt. Lewin says it takes him about 25 hours to prepare one lecture. Assuming the lecture is about an hour and a half or less, that’s about a 20:1 ratio, which is about right. Professor Lewin is the epitome of “show, don’t tell.”

“Show, don’t tell” is a tried and true communication tool that helps audiences and listeners more easily grasp what a person is saying. It engages the senses, encouraging learning. It can be exemplified by doing demonstrations, as professor Lewin does, by creating exercises whereby stakeholders learn by doing, by telling stories and giving examples, using props that people can touch and feel. “Show, don’t tell” makes concepts come alive.

With the Iowa Caucuses occurring today (and, blessedly, finishing), it is remarkable to watch the candidates who tend to “tell, not show” and, thus, present a striking contrast to Professor Lewin. Almost all of them stand on a platform, microphone in hand and tell about what they would do if elected. Sometimes they move. Now you could ask how can they show? After all, the issues they’re talking about by their very nature are esoteric and difficult to demonstrate. I say that’s all the more reason to find a way to show, instead of just tell.

For example, a candidate who wants to be seen as “regular folks” needs to dress and act like regular folks. Mitt Romney finally took off his suit and tie, but he still doesn’t fit in, what with his starched and pressed khakis, button-down oxford shirt and sweater. Barack looks completely non-Iowa in his suit-with-no-tie and Hillary Clinton needs a new stylist in the worst way. I’m not saying they should dress in overalls and work boots, but if they want people to relate to them more readily, they need to show, not just tell.

They all do try to show their values by getting their families involved. This can be both a blessing and a curse. For example, Rudolph Giuliani has issues in that department, so if he wants to be seen as a “family values” type of person, he’s limited in whom he can trot out. He tried having his current wife, Judi, call him during a speech to the NRA, but that was a staged, phony and ultimately failed attempt to show instead of tell. Bill Clinton has been stumping for his wife, but he can only do that so much before it starts to have diminishing returns. Bill may be a rock star, but it’s Hillary who wants to be president. One thing no one can do is “show” for someone else.

And speaking of Hillary, if she wants to show her softer side by enlisting her daughter and her mother, she ought to do something other than have them stand idly by as she “tells” about what they mean to her. A hug or a gentle touch would speak volumes about their relationships with each other and work wonders for her campaign.

In today’s busy workplace, with so many distractions, we are challenged to engage others quickly and creatively. We only need ask ourselves, as the candidates should be, do we want to win? If the answer is yes, “show, don’t tell” is the way to go.

It's one of my New Year's resolutions.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates, LLC • Greenwich, CT • www.ruthsherman.com

Topics:

Leadership, Walter H.G. Lewin, Hillary Clinton, The New York Times Company, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Greenwich (Connecticut)

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Leadership: 2007 Communication Successes Hall Of Fame

Last week, I posted my Communication Faux Pas Hall of Fame. This week, it’s the successes that get the ink, profiling those who went the extra mile and communicated well. Unfortunately, to come up with my 11, I really had to look since there are not nearly as many to choose from to induct into the Successes HOF than the Faux Pas HOF. This is no surprise, but disappointing and depressing nonetheless.

So, here goes. As with the last post, if there is someone or some act I overlooked and you think should be included, let me know and I'll see about including it in updates with appropriate attribution.

1. Hillary Clinton at the November 15 Democratic debate where she looked like she was actually having fun.

2. Rudy Giuliani for demonstrating that a candidate does not have to pander to the base about every single thing to get ahead.

3. Mike Huckabee for showing the country that communication style matters.

4. Winston Ma for being a creative and generous networker.

5. Steve Jobs for giving a great presentation, like he does every year, at MacWorld, and selling tons of product as a result.

6. Kelley Flatley, CEO of Bear Naked Granola, for zeroing in on the fact that people who eat granola are buying into a lifestyle. She built this lowest of low-tech companies from scratch, made it a fun place to work and sold it for 100 million after just 5 years.

7. Life is Good clothing line for showing simple ideas that work.

8. Blendtec blender manufacturer, which, through creative use of YouTube, showed the world what a great blender should be able to do (like blend glass marbles into powder) and sold a lot of blenders as a result.

9. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Facebook for his straightforward apology for its handling of “Beacon,” an application that purported to do subscribers a favor, but in fact was more about spying on them for the benefit of advertisers.

10. Captain Denny Flanagan, United Air Lines pilot orders 200 MacDonalds meals for stranded passengers, sends pix of pets in the cargo hold to their owners and calls anxious parents of children flying alone to update them on flight status.

11. Fastcompany.com and Fast Company Magazine for revitalizing a great brand and making it the source for business people the world over.

I won’t be writing next week. Have a great holiday and Happy New Year.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates, LLC • Greenwich, CT • www.ruthsherman.com

Topics:

Leadership, Greenwich (Connecticut), Ruth Sherman, Ruth Sherman Associates LLC, Hillary Clinton, Rudolph Giuliani

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Leadership: 2007 Communication Faux Pas Hall Of Fame

As of this post, I will have been a Fast Company blogger for exactly a year. It’s been a great ride, working with the folks at Fast Company, especially Lynne d Johnson, who has been an enormous help from he very beginning. It’s also been fantastic, eye-opening and enlightening to hear from so many readers. This is the kind of dialogue people like me dream about. Thank you all and I’m looking forward to another great year.

Now for my 2007 Communication Faux Pas Hall of Fame. Throughout the year, I tried to be on the lookout for the most egregious errors. There were many, some of which I wrote about and some I did not. Following are my picks:

1. Steve Jobs for his iPhone (non) apology.
2. MoveOn.org for their ridiculous and unproductive “General Petraeus, General Betray Us” campaign.
3. Lee Bollinger, president of Columbia University for giving the most unwelcoming welcome speech in history to President Ahmadinejad of Iran. This was completely self-serving, missed the mark and while Ahmadinejad may be a demagogue, enemy of the United States, and undeserving of even the time of day, they invited him which presented an opportunity to be much more effective.
4. Hillary Clinton for her staged laughing on all 5 Sunday morning news programs one Sunday in late September.
5. Rudolph Giuliani for his staged phone call from his wife, Judi, during his NRA speech.
6. Isiah Thomas and James Dolan for their arrogant performances during the Anucha Brown Sanders sexual harassment trial.
7. President Bush for many, many things including saying to Queen Elizabeth she had helped the United States “celebrate its bicentennial in 17…1976.”
8. Interference, Inc.'s leadership for their silly stunt that had the people of Boston thinking they were under attack and, worse, its handling of the ensuing brouhaha by hiding.
9. Barack Obama for every speech or appearance that is not planned or before a friendly audience.
10. The entire roster of presidential candidates for thinking and behaving as if voters are stupid.
11. Toymakers who failed to get in front of the lead paint debacle.

If you have any that I neglected to mention, please let me know. If appropriate, I'll add them to the column with attribution.

Next week, my 2007 Communication Successes Hall of Fame.

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates, LLC • Greenwich, CT • www.ruthsherman.com

Topics:

Leadership, Fast Company Magazine, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, United States, Apple iPhone, U.S. Politics

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Leadership: Have Patience

First, an update to my blog post of October 17, “Bear Naked Entrepreneurship,” about Bear Naked Granola’s Kelly Flatley and how she built her company. Kellogg’s just bought Bear Naked for something approaching $120 million! (That was the total for 2 companies; no breakout for Bear Naked alone.) All you techies out there looking to make a killing, this business is about as low tech as you can get. People will always need to eat and they’re looking for products that are not only delicious and nutritious, but cool. Kelly and company made granola, surely an old-fashioned food, way cool. Yay, Kelly!

I am not a patient person. This creates huge problems for me because a lot of the time, business moves at the speed of a glacier. I’ll tell you this, if I didn’t counsel myself to be patient as frequently as I do, I’d be out of business.

Almost everything you have to do in business requires patience. From waiting on suppliers to motivating employees to eliciting responses from clients and customers, to writing this blog, patience is required. The most frustrating aspect of business and the one requiring the most patience, of course, is booking business. Since everything else depends on this, it contains an emotional element, making the passage of time slow down even more.

Unless there is money is coming in, in fact, you can’t even really call your business a business. For those of us who are established in business and (hopefully) generating income, we’re in a constant race against time to meet financial goals.

The selling cycle is what gets to me. Now that I have a marketing person working for me, he generates a lot of leads and I just have to follow up. It’s a numbers game: the more leads he generates, the more opportunities I have to sell, the more likely it is something will stick – eventually. I’m religious about follow-up and unless clients or customers tell me point blank that they don’t want to hear from me ever again, they can count on periodically receiving a call or contact of some nature.

Still, a year from first contact to contract is not uncommon, and I’ve had cycles that have gone as long as 3 years. Thing is, many, many business owners don’t have patience and are not persistent. (Click here to read my post on persistence.)

The first thing to understand is that it’s not personal. There are numerous obstacles standing between you and clients. The most common ones are:
1. They don’t have an immediate need for your product or service.
2. They have someone else they’re working with.
3. They are dealing with one crisis after another.
4. They have other priorities.
5. They don’t have a budget.

These are the objections sales trainers tell you to watch out for and insist you can surmount. I think they are part of the natural business sales cycle. Over time, they change and evolve and you want to be there when they do. Like you, I’ve seen many people who are just ok at what they do with more business than they can handle and some really brilliant people who have difficulty paying the rent. Could it be that the “ok” people are just more persistent and patient?

I think so. I have seen my patience pay off time and time again. But I need to work on becoming more patient, still. As an old Dutch proverb says, “A handful of patience is worth more than a bushel of brains.”

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates, LLC • Greenwich, CT • www.ruthsherman.com

Topics:

Leadership, Bear Naked Inc., Kelly Flatley, Greenwich (Connecticut), Ruth Sherman, Ruth Sherman Associates LLC

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What's In A Name? A Lot, It Turns Out

Back in August, I wrote a post on the re-branding of Washington Mutual as WaMu. I didn’t like the way the new name sounded and still don’t. More recently, there has been a blast of ads from the pharmaceutical industry for new medications whose names sound just awful. And last week, Ad Age columnist Jonah Bloom wrote an interesting and I think on-target column about efforts at naming products and companies.

Lately, naming has stunk. No more are we hearing graceful, even beautiful sounding brand names like Omnicom, Aeron or Zithromax. Today it’s Google (and a slew of “oo” imitators), Aflac or Byetta (it’s a drug even though it sounds more like a small town in the deep south).

According to Dean Crutchfield of London branding agency Wolff-Olins, it’s important to name carefully. Says Crutchfield, “The best names communicate who, what, why or an attitude. They’re critical, a cornerstone of a brand.” He goes on to say that finding just the right name is more difficult than ever and because people don’t want to pay much or have the process take too long. Fees of $2 million used to be common for naming, which gives us an idea of the importance with which it was viewed.

A bad name for a company or product can derail its chances for success. One that comes to mind is Orudis, an over-the-counter version of a prescription pain medication. When I first heard the name, I told the powers-that-be that it was a bad choice for a name and would hurt the launch. Despite proven efficacy, tons of money and some very good advertising, it never became the hoped for competitor with market leaders Tylenol, Advil and Aleve – good names all. In fact, this was a case where the generic pharmaceutical name, ketaprofen, was actually better than the brand name.

According to the NameLab, a San Francisco name development firm, a name should have the qualities Dean Crutchfield mentioned above and also be linguistically and phonetically transparent, which means spoken-as-spelled and easily pronounced. To me, that translates as appealing, attractive and gets the synapses firing. It should roll off the tongue. People should like saying it.

I know I'm going to get pounded again by comments admonishing me to be open-minded about brands that sound too "kid-ish" and consider that we live in a "global village" so not to be glued to my U.S. English ear for sound. There is merit to these arguments, and such commentators should rest assured that I do come at this with an open mind, but as Arthur Hays Sulzberger (former publisher of New York Times) once said, not so open that my brains fall out.

Taking care to name your product or service well is not easy to do. No pain, no gain.

What names do you like or dislike and why?


Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates, LLC • Greenwich, CT • www.ruthsherman.com

Topics:

Leadership, Washington Mutual Inc., Dean Crutchfield, Jonah Bloom, Omnicom Group Inc., Aflac Inc.

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Leadership: Getting Noticed by Giving Thanks

My favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. It’s always felt to me like the one, true American holiday. Almost everyone celebrates it and for these reasons, it is appropriate to discuss the critical communication skill of saying thank you.

Most people, including myself at times, are guilty of emailing thank yous. It’s understandable. Someone does something nice and the immediate reaction is to thank the person. The quickest way to do it is to fire off an email. Showing gratitude, however, is a key interpersonal skill. I see it as a leadership skill. At the very least, it demonstrates that the thanker has good manners. As such, it takes some thought.

The problems with saying thank you by email, txt or IM, are legion, but chief among them is that such messages get buried in the hundreds of communiqués we all receive every day. In addition, there is something terribly impersonal about emailed thank yous.

So I’m pleased to report there is a better way: A handwritten thank you note.

I have been preaching about handwritten thank you notes for years. A handwritten note rises above the clutter of email so effectively. Think about it: You may not respond to most of the hundreds of emails you get each day. But I’ll wager you immediately open a piece of mail with a handwritten address and that doesn’t come in a #10 envelope. I know I do.

I love getting these thoughtful notes.The act communicates so much: The writer took time, she or he cares, the receiver is important. When was the last time an email made you feel that way?

Marc Halpert of Your Best Interest LLC, has begun to send out handwritten thank you notes to all his clients at Thanksgiving instead of sending Christmas cards. The note is simple:

Dear ____

There is no better time to say thank you to our loyal customers than during this early holiday season.

We appreciate working with you and would like to take this opportunity to wish you and yours good health and happiness in the coming year.

Sincerely,
Marc W. Halpert

Last year Mark sent about 110 cards and received 3 new pieces of business. Clients felt so good about him as a result of receiving his note, they referred him to others. This year, he tells me, he sent out 200 – that’s 200 handwritten and addressed notes. It’s time consuming so requires planning. But the results speak for themselves. Marc told me that he dropped in on a client this week and the client said, “Oh, it’s the thank you note man.”

Marc and I agree that sending handwritten notes is so rarely done, it always gets noticed and – this is key – the reaction is always positive.

I don’t do Thanksgiving notes the way Marc does, but I always write a note when someone does something nice for me. I sometimes write them at other times such as when I see someone I know mentioned in the news or, of course, to express sympathy or good wishes when someone is ill. Some people have personalized cards printed with their business logo or initials. My preferred method is to use art cards (I’m currently into the impressionists). I write 2 or 3 sentences, address the envelope including my return address and – this is worth the price of admission – use a nice stamp. They cost exactly the same as the boring stamps. (NEVER use the postage meter – way to ruin the moment.) In certain cases, I include my business card.

Anyway, I would love to hear your stories of sending and receiving thank yous, both handwritten and not.

FC%20Happy%20%20Thanksgiving3.jpg

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates, LLC • Greenwich, CT • www.ruthsherman.com

technorati tags: communication, leadership, Thanksgiving, giving thanks, handwritten notes

Topics:

Leadership, Marc Halpert, Greenwich (Connecticut), Ruth Sherman, Ruth Sherman Associates LLC, Best Interest LLC

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Leadership: Does Hillary Play Like A Girl?

Since the Democratic debate on October 30, there has been a veritable media hissy-fit over Hillary Clinton’s purported stumbles as well as her resorting to the gender card when her campaign labeled the attacks by her competitors and the moderators – all men – as “the politics of piling on.”

Pundits male and female, on the left and right cannot seem to stop criticizing and complaining that Hillary is taking it all too personally, that if she wants to fight in that ring, she’s got to be able to take a few on the chin and she shouldn’t whine that the boys are attacking her unfairly.

Welcome to the girls’ club, Hill.

As any woman who has spent time in conference or board rooms populated by men knows, women are attacked more frequently and over less significant issues than the men in the room are. That’s if they’re not ignored entirely or having their ideas co-opted by a more aggressive male colleague or boss. (By the way, men don’t necessarily intend to sabotage women in business nor may they even see such behavior as a barrier to women’s success, if they are conscious of it at all. Of course, this being presidential politics, one can never be certain about such things.)

This all goes to gender differences in communication: Men are socialized to jockey for status, to speak up even when there is little of importance to say –- just to be heard, to stake their claim, to be identified as a player. Women, on the other hand, are socialized to be collaborative, to play nice, to keep things level with everyone on the same plane and to speak up only when there is something really important to say. The result is they speak up less and thus the percentage of times their ideas are shot down is greater. They are also less likely to argue, to fight for what they believe and to stand up for themselves. This is all well and good in social situations around other women, but it doesn’t work at work.

So was Hillary guilty of any of that stereotypical female communication behavior during the debate? I don’t think so. The punditocracy is wrong. She gave a strong performance. She took a lot of punches and remained upright. She didn’t get ruffled and her tone remained measured and even. She had a couple of material stumbles, yes, but not serious enough to warrant the relentless criticism that has resulted. We must be having some slow news days.

Were the men “piling on?” You bet they were. We can argue about whether it was because she is the frontrunner or because she’s a woman. (My opinion? Both.) Her opponents and the moderators, especially Tim Russert, roundly attacked her constantly and without mercy in a way that no male candidate was and usually isn’t.

But she shouldn’t have complained about it and that’s where Clinton and her campaign went wrong. That tactic never has worked very well and women are tired of the victim label, anyway. That’s playing like a girl. Instead, women have quietly, subtly been adapting the rules of the communications game to fit within their stylistic parameters. And what does that look like? I’ll tell you this much, it doesn’t look like the way men do it.

Professional women –- and I suspect even non-professional women –- felt something very unpleasantly familiar while watching this debate unfold. They said to themselves, “Here we go again. Well, guess what, guys, I’m voting for her and aren’t you going to be stunned when she wins. You never saw it coming. We may not complain about this type of treatment, but boy, when I’m alone in that voting booth, the joke’s on you.”

Not playing like a girl. Playing like a woman.

What’s your experience with gender differences in workplace communication?

technorati tags: communication, gender differences, Hillary Clinton

Ruth Sherman • Ruth Sherman Associates, LLC • Greenwich, CT • www.ruthsherman.com

Topics:

Leadership, Hillary Clinton, Hillary Clintona, Special Interest Groups, Women's Issues, Greenwich (Connecticut)

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