How do you measure up?

by Richard L. Weaver II

I have discovered a brilliant way to begin the New Year.  This does not include the traditional celebration, gorging on food that you will have to work hard to remove from your waistline, clinking glasses of champagne at midnight, or even partying with friends.  My way to begin the New Year has the potential of making you very happy or very sad.

Here it is in a nutshell.  I am going to give you the top ten most often used New Year’s resolutions.  All you must do is assess your personal status on each one.  That is, if it is one that you KNOW you need to work on, give yourself ten points.  That’s all there is to it.

Here, then are the top ten New Year’s resolutions:\
        1.    I need to spend more time with family and friends.
        2.    I need to engage in a regular program of exercise.
        3.    I need to lose some weight.
        4.    I need to quit smoking.
        5.    I need to enjoy life more.
        6.     I need to seriously cut back on my drinking.
        7.    I need to get out of debt.
        8.    I need to learn something new.
        9.    I need to help others.
             10.    I need to get organized.

There are obviously many other possibilities like: I need to take better care of myself, I need to stick to a budget, I need to find a soul mate, or I need to find a better job.  But, for the purposes of this essay, let’s just stick to those numbered above.

Did you give yourself ten points for each one of the ten that applies to yourself?  That is, ones that would make a difference right now in your life?  Okay, add those together and subtract from 100.  Now you can see how your quality of life measures up on the scale below:
        90-100     =    A    One or zero applies right now.
        80            =    B    Two apply right now.
        70            =    C    Three apply right now.
        60            =    D    Four apply right now.
        0-50        =    F    Five or more apply right now.

How do you measure up?  As I said in the first paragraph, this could be a rewarding exercise, or it could be completely frustrating.  When I originally thought of this, I rated myself on the top ten resolutions, and I came out with a 90.  Had it been a disaster for me, I probably wouldn’t have suggested doing it at all!  ( :-) - smiley face emoticon needed here!)

As you might imagine, there are hundreds (probably more like thousands) of websites that not only list New Year’s Resolutions, but give advice as to how to accomplish what you plan to do.  One website makes it very clear that most resolutions are broken within 48 hours of when they are made.  That can be easily explained by talking about laziness, habits, and comfort zones — but everyone already knows this.  Changing any of the ten areas where you realize you could use some change requires huge amounts of planning, persistence, and patience, not to speak of time and effort.  Most people just say to hell with it and live their lives the same way they have been living it.

How did I pull a score of 90 on the exercise?  It is quite simple actually.  I already spend a great deal of time with family and friends, I engage in a rigorous and regular exercise program (have for nearly 40 years), I do not need to lose weight (I weigh just 10-15 pounds more than when I graduated from college), I do not smoke, I really enjoy all aspects of life (and write about them often), I do not drink (except, perhaps, for one beer a day for my health), I am not in debt (have no outstanding debts of any kind), I am constantly engaged in learning new things (I read often, and widely), and I am about as organized as I need to be to accomplish what I need to do.  Some might even label me excessively (ridiculously, unreasonably, impossibly!) organized.

Notice in this list that I left out one item: number nine.  “I need to help others.”  I have always felt that I help others through my writing.  If you have read my book, You Rules, or my books Public Speaking Rules, Relationship Rules, or even SMOERs, you might come to the same conclusion.  Writing takes an enormous amount of time, and I feel my contribution through writing is significant.

Also, as most of you know, I have written a textbook (actually a large number of them) that is now going into its tenth edition (Communicating Effectively, 2009, McGraw-Hill), and, once again, I feel that this makes a worthwhile contribution to helping others.

These are not excuses, however.  I realize there is a profit motive behind much of my writing, and there is no doubt about it.  I could not continue writing actively is there were not some remuneration involved.  But, that is why I gave myself ten points for number nine: “I need to help others.”  I could be much better, and I could do much better in this area.  Because of my active and persistent involvement in writing, I have never made this a resolution because I always feared I could not do it (right now).

I have delivered hot meals to shut-ins, I have given extensively to church causes, and I make regular contributions to our church — all in the spirit of helping others.  But, there is no doubt about it, I could do much more.
- - - - - - - -
Psych Central has a wonderful website.  It includes an essay, “New Year’s Resolutions: Role-Modeling the ‘How’ of Making Change,” by Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker.  The beauty of what she says in her essay is something many people forget — how you can use making and achieving resolutions a family learning experience.  Great essay here!

The Washington University School of Medicine: Environmental Health and Safety website, includes an essay on “Health & Safety Topic of the Month” for January, 2002, entitled, “Keeping your New Year’s resolutions.”  This essay has excellent, well-researched tips, for making and keeping resolutions.  Valuable information here.
- - - - - - -
Copyright December, 2010, by And Then Some Publishing, L.L.C.

Christmas jokes

I decided to compose a different kind of essay to celebrate Christmas this year.  Here, then, I have listed some of my favorite Christmas jokes.  Although some of the jokes are clearly better than others; there is no order in their presentation here.  Some are a little more sophisticated than others, but most are quite silly.  I begin with one that fits the “silly” category very well—and I apologize in advance. 

A Russian couple was walking down the street in St. Petersburg the other night, when the man felt a drop hit his nose. "I think it's raining," he said to his wife. 

"No, that felt more like snow to me," she replied. "No, I'm sure it was just rain, he said." Well, as these things go, they were about to have a major argument about whether it was raining or snowing. Just then they saw a minor communist party official walking toward them. "Let's not fight about it," the man said, "let's ask Comrade Rudolph whether it's officially raining or snowing." 

As the official approached, the man said, "Tell us, Comrade Rudolph, is it officially raining or snowing?" 

"It's raining, of course," he answered and walked on. But the woman insisted: "I know that felt like snow!" To which the man quietly replied: "Rudolph the Red knows rain, dear!"  

A second joke.  On Christmas morning a cop on horseback is sitting at a traffic light, and next to him is a kid on his shiny new bike. 

The cop says to the kid, "Nice bike you got there. Did Santa bring that to you?" 

The kid says, "Yeah." 

The cop says, "Well, next year tell Santa to put a tail-light on that bike." 

The cop then proceeds to issue the kid a $20.00 bicycle safety violation ticket. 

The kid takes the ticket and before he rides off says, "By the way, that's a nice horse you got there. Did Santa bring that to you?" 

Humoring the kid, the cop says, "Yeah, he sure did." 

The kid says, "Well, next year tell Santa to put the stupidity in the horse's brain instead of on his back."  Now, I like that joke, and for much the same reason, I like the next one, too. 

A third joke.  Three men die in a car accident Christmas Eve. They all find themselves at the pearly gates waiting to enter Heaven. On entering they must present something relating or associated with Christmas. 

The first man searches his pocket, and finds some Mistletoe, so he is allowed in. 

The second man presents a cracker, so he is also allowed in. 

The third man pulls out a pair of stockings. 

Confused at this last gesture, St. Peter asks, "How do these represent Christmas?" 

The third man answers, "They're Carol's." 

Christmas jokes would not be complete without at least one stupid one.  One evening, in a busy lounge in the deep south, a reindeer walked in the door, bellied up to the bar and ordered a martini. Without batting an eye, the bartender mixed and poured the drink, set it in front of the reindeer, and accepted the twenty-dollar bill from the reindeer's hoof. 

As he handed the reindeer some coins in change, he said, "You know, I think you're the first reindeer I've ever seen in here." 

The reindeer looked hard at the hoofful of change and said, "Hmmmpf. Let me tell you something, buddy. At these prices, I'm the last reindeer you'll see in here." 

I would love to say this next joke is original, but it isn’t.  None of them are; however, this one reveals my respect for proper pronunciation.  In a small southern town there was a "Nativity Scene" that showed great skill and talent had gone into creating it. One small feature bothered me. 

The three wise men were wearing firemen's helmets. 

Totally unable to come up with a reason or explanation, I left. 

At a "Quik Stop" on the edge of town, I asked the lady behind the counter about the helmets.

She exploded into a rage, yelling at me, "You stupid Yankees never do read the Bible!" 

I assured her that I did, but simply couldn't recall anything about firemen in the Bible. 

She jerked her Bible from behind the counter and ruffled through some pages, and finally jabbed her finger at a passage. Sticking it in my face she said, "See, it says right here,  The three wise man came from afar.'" 

Sometimes the short Christmas jokes work well to grab attention and provide a quick guffaw. What do you get if you cross Father Christmas with a detective?  Santa Clues! 

Let me end with a politically correct Christmas:  On the 12th day of the Eurocentrically imposed midwinter festival, my Significant Other in a consenting adult, monogamous relationship gave to me: TWELVE males reclaiming their inner warrior through ritual drumming, ELEVEN pipers piping (plus the 18-member pit orchestra made up of members in good standing of the Musicians Equity Union as called for in their union contract even though they will not be asked to play a note), TEN melanin deprived testosterone-poisoned scions of the patriarchal ruling class system leaping, NINE persons engaged in rhythmic self-expression, EIGHT economically disadvantaged female persons stealing milk-products from enslaved Bovine-Americans, SEVEN endangered swans swimming on federally protected wetlands, SIX enslaved Fowl-Americans producing stolen non-human animal products.

FIVE golden symbols of culturally sanctioned enforced domestic incarceration, (NOTE: after members of the Animal Liberation Front threatened to throw red paint at my computer, the calling birds, French hens and partridge have been reintroduced to their native habitat. To avoid further Animal-American enslavement, the remaining gift package has been revised.) 

FOUR hours of recorded whale songs, THREE deconstructionist poets, TWO Sierra Club calendars printed on recycled processed tree carcasses and...ONE Spotted Owl activist chained to an old-growth pear tree. 

Merry Christmas Happy Chanukah. Good Kwanzaa. Blessed Yule. Happy Holidays! (unless otherwise prohibited by law)

*Unless, of course, you are suffering from Seasonally Affected Disorder (SAD). If this be the case, please substitute this gratuitous call for celebration with suggestion that you have a thoroughly adequate day. 

----- 

At this web site, you will find a wide variety of Christmas jokes.

At About.com , there are a large variety of Christmas jokes.

The Family Yak web site, Bernadette Dimitrov has an essay in which she includes, “7 Classic Christmas Jokes: Guaranteed to Get a Laugh!”  One of them is a “knock-knock joke,” and the other six are standard two-liners.  Then she goes on in her essay to talk briefly about laughter.
-----

Copyright December, 2010, by And Then Some Publishing, LLC.

How do you deal with people different from you?

Sometimes in a new communication situation with a person different from us, we may interpret the other person as abnormal, weird, or simply different.  It is important to learn to control the human tendency to translate “different from me” into “less than me.”  Rather, we need to raise questions.  Are there effective ways of dealing with different kinds of people?  Can I develop a repertoire of five or six approaches that will help me reach others in real and meaningful ways?  I will discuss seven different ways taken from the book, Communicating Effectively by Hybels and Weaver. 

Engage in mindfulness.  Mindfulness means paying attention to what is going on in the present moment without judgment.  To do this, you must trust your direct and immediate experience.  Second, you must show patience — a willingness to observe and describe what is happening without bias.  You simply throw yourself into the present moment and glean wisdom through the trial and error of learning by direct experience.  Third, you must accept “what is, as it,” in other words, accept whatever it is that the universe serves up.  It means accepting life on life’s own terms, regardless of your feelings about it and discovering effective strategies to cope with and eventually appreciate whatever is happening. 

Pay attention to your words and actions.  It is only through your thoughtful communication with others that you become aware of your own thinking patterns, assumptions, perceptions, prejudices, and biases.  When students come to Cruz-Janzen’s classes expecting to learn how to communicate with nonwhites, she tells them they are first going to study themselves, their gender, racial, ethnic, cultural, socioeconomic, and physical (ability, disability, and appearance) socialization.  Cruz-Janzen has a very clear motive to this: “As long as whites  continue expecting others to explain themselves whites are setting themselves as the norm, the normal ones, against whom all others must be judged and measured.” 

Control your assumptions. For example, don’t assume that there is one right way (yours) to communicate.  Don’t assume that breakdowns in communication occur because others are on the wrong track.  Don’t assume that the preferred rules of interpersonal relationships you have learned in your culture apply universally across all cultures.  Don’t assume that your cultural definitions and successful criteria or conflict management apply universally across all cultures.  Don’t assume that because another’s values and beliefs differ from your own that you are being challenged.  Don’t assume that you can learn about others who may be different from you by staying in your comfort zone.  Don’t assume you know what is best for someone else.   

Engage in transpection.  Instead of assuming — a process most people begin quickly, naturally, and often subconsciously — take a moment to relax and reflect.  Transpection is the process of empathizing across cultures.  In transpection, you try to see the world exactly as the other person sees it.  It involves trying to learn foreign beliefs, foreign assumptions, foreign perspectives, and foreign feelings in a foreign context.  It can only be achieved by practice.  Striving toward transpection can help you avoid assumptions and move you closer to tolerance, sensitivity, respect, empathic listening, and effective communication responses. 

Gain knowledge.  The greater your cultural and linguistic knowledge, and the more your beliefs overlap with those from other cultures, the less likelihood for misunderstands.  You need to read, observe, ask questions, and visit places where there are people from different races and ethnic backgrounds. 

Gain experience.  You cannot learn how to be a good communicator just by reading, observing, asking questions, or doing research on the Internet.  But gaining experience doesn’t require making actual visits to foreign countries or foreign cultures.  Find an individual of another culture, and ask if the two of you could have a conversation bout intercultural communication.  With that as your focus, ask some pointed, specific questions designed to help you better understand him or her, and others of the same culture.  For example, ask him or her how they cope with and adapt to unfamiliar cultural environments, the best ways for members of other cultures to communicate with them, factors that can increase effectiveness in communication, strategies used for successfully managing conflict, some of the worst offenses people outside your culture make in communicating with you or with members of your culture, and some of the worst offenses they have made as they have become acclimated into your/our culture. 

There are other ways to gain experience in intercultural communication — communicating with those who may be different from you — that will help you gain a broader worldview.  Frequent ethnic restaurants, watch world news in addition to local news, read books written by authors from other countries, learn another language, and when countries with which you are unfamiliar are mentioned, find them on a map, look them up on the Internet, and find out as much as you can about them.   

Other ways to gain experience in dealing with those different from you is to listen to world music, rent foreign films, and travel — whether it is in person or though videos.  Your local library has dozens of videos on foreign countries.   

But don’t just observe.  Converse with people of other cultures.  Take part in cultural celebrations that differ from your own.  Volunteer to serve on committees, teams, or groups in which members of other cultures will be serving.  Listen, engage, and keep asking questions.  Take time to understand what people believe about childrearing, educational opportunities, world politics, and life in general. 

How you learn to deal with people who are different from you depends entirely on your willingness to seek, discover, and experience.  Today, the Internet is one of the most important influences on the knowledge and information at our disposal.  We are increasingly linked together across the globe, and we can connect with people on the other side of the world as quickly as we do with friends and family at home.  You will quickly find out that the knowledge and understanding you gain is well worth any effort you put forth.

----- 

At the website, Success Mantras   Nahush Khubalkar, in his essay “Art of Dealing with People Effectively,” offers personal insights for dealing with people effectively.  Khubalkar discusses love yourself first, your self-esteem level, each and every person is different, accept the difference, and respect the difference. 

At David Maister’s website Maister writes about “Passion, People and Principles: The Mysteries of Dealing With People - A Few Pointers.”  Although Maister offers no new earthshaking ideas, he does offer some thoughts to make you pause and consider.  He ends his essay in this way: “Want to know how to deal with others? As a good first approximation, think of others as like you, not as ‘them’ If you want to influence someone, ask: Would it work on me? Figure out how you like to be dealt with. Draw up your own list of how you expect to be treated. Treat others that way.
Are these old, unoriginal thoughts? Of course, but still worth asking ourselves how well we actually apply them in our lives.” 

----- 

Copyright December, 2010, by And Then Some Publishing, LLC.

At what point do customers have choice overload?

When our family returned from a six-month sabbatical in Australia, our friends who met us for our “Welcome Home” celebration, offered us necklaces made from strings of Cheerios.  That present represented how much we missed that cereal treat while away.  But, even more important, it represented the limited choices Australians have when compared with those of Americans. While we have hundreds, they may have a dozen.  Their cereal of choice is Weet-bix, a whole grain breakfast biscuit they spread with vegemite (made from leftover brewers’ yeast extract, a by-product of beer). 

One lasting and riveting impression when we were there was entering their “super” markets, and being faced with such limited choices.  We recognized that many of the products to which our family had become accustomed in the U.S., were not available. 

There is something, of course, to simplicity.  It doesn’t really challenge your brain; it takes less time; and the results are, generally, predictable. 

Many people have solved the choice dilemma in the U.S.  They know exactly what they want, and they work carefully to just get in and get out of a store.  40 kinds of toothpaste?  They have stuck with one brand for over 25 years.   

One way for dealing with a large number of choices is not to deal with them at all. 

The U.S. supermarket, on the other hand, causes people to burn their brain choosing between 40 toothpastes, 75 iced teas, 175 salad dressings, and 285 brands of cookies.  

This isn’t the end of it.  There are 85 types of crackers, 285 types of cookies, and 80 pain relievers.  And this is a small percentage of the supermarket. 

There are thousands of mutual funds, hundreds of cell phones with dozens of calling plans, thousands of insurance policies, medical plans, and investment opportunities.  There are so many TV shows that people tape the ones they don’t have time to watch—and never have time to watch the ones they tape.  In every way we turn, we face mind-boggling choices. 

If you go out to buy a pair of jeans today—size 34-33—you are likely to face many decisions.  Do you want them slim fit, easy fit, relaxed fit, baggy or extra baggy?  Do you want them stone-washed, acid-washed, or distressed?  Do you want them button-fly or zipper-fly?  Faded or regular?  Sorry, there is no thing as regular jeans any more. 

People choose from 1,500 drawer pulls at The Great Indoors.  Amazon gives every town a bookstore with 2 million titles, and Netflix promises 35,000 different movies on DVD.  Choice is everywhere. 

“As the number of choices grows further,” writes Swarthmore psychologist Barry Schwartz in The Paradox of Choice, “the negatives escalate until we become overloaded.” 

At what point do we become a prisoner of too many choices?  Too many choices produce
paralysis, not liberation.  At this point, Schwartz writes, “It might even be said to tyrannize.” Americans are facing a crisis of choice. 

By creating many options, industries have done a favor for customers with varied tastes and body types.  Average Americans, for example, order nonfat decaf iced vanilla lattes at Starbucks.  For some customers, however, what was a very simple decision—buying a cup of coffee, for example—that required but a brief moment, has become a complex one in which they are forced to invest time, energy, no small amount of self-doubt in some cases, as well as anxiety and dread over the ordeal.  And this goes on with reference to numerous products in countless shopping experiences. 

The fact that some choice is good doesn’t necessarily mean that more choice is better.  For many of us, increased choice means decreased satisfaction. 

Does anyone have to wonder why there has been a 75 percent increase in Americans being treated for clinical depression over the last 25 years?  “[Americans] are increasingly unhappy, riddled with anxiety and regret, because we have so much freedom to decide what to do with our money and our lives,” writes Virginia Postrel in an online article entitled “Consumer Vertigo.” 

Choice produces paradoxical effects.  For example, people feel an enormous burden to get enough information to make good decisions.  Do they have the time to find the best digital camera, the best cell phone plan, the best 401(k), the best health insurance, the most economical automobile? 

Even when choices are relatively simple, getting the right information isn’t easy.  One problem is with the way options are presented or “framed.”  For example, we accept a “discount for paying cash” but reject a “surcharge for using credit cards,” even though the two mean the same thing.  We spring for a “bargain” sweater marked down from $200 to $100 when normally we never spend that much for a sweater.  We instantly turn against the inheritance tax when it is relabeled “death tax,” even though most of us will not be leaving enough behind to be affected. 

If you’re a person who wants the very best, you’re likely to be disappointed.  You check out all the alternatives to feel you got the best.  But, in a world of 80 pain relievers and thousands of mutual funds, it’s just not possible.  So, even after you’ve made a decision, you end up miserable.  Why?  Because you’re absolutely convinced that had you looked longer, you would have done better. 

Older people have learned two important lessons from life’s experiences.  They are less likely to seek out the very best.  The “tried-and-true,” even if only “good enough,” is good enough. 

Also, older people know that limited options can be liberating.  Forced to wear a seat belt, or sustain the idiotic, droning of a high-pitched, piercing noise, they wear the seat belt and seldom rebel.   Although it may seem like they’re in a rut, making the same old decisions on products over-and-over again simply means they don’t have to settle the same issue again and again.   

Settled issues save the time and energy that are needed to make the intelligent choices when they are required. 

Studies have proven that when customers are given a narrow-range of choices, they are more likely to make a purchase.  In one study, significantly fewer choices increased purchasing propensity by ten times. 

It is true that without any freedom of choice, life would not be worth living.  But, it is also true that more choice does not necessarily mean greater happiness.  You do wonder, at what point customers have choice overload?  

----- 

At the website, CustomerInnovations, Frank Capek has written a long article entitled, “Optimizing the Most Critical Elements of the Customer Experience: Customer Choices.”
The best part of it is the section, “Understanding how customers make decisions.”  Capek ends his article saying: “In summary, from a business perspective, the most critical elements of the customer experience involve the choices that customers make:  the choice to buy; the choice to recommend; the choice to continue as a customer.” 

Another long article at The Conference Board, in an article by Sol Hurwitz, “Making Things Simple: The marketing of complexity.,” suggests that the key to “choice overload” is to make things simple, and in the article Hurwitz makes a number of interesting and valuable alternatives.  This is another useful and worthwhile article that pertains to the world of business. 

----- 

Copyright December, 2010, by And Then Some Publishing, LLC
    
   

Women have superior leadership traits

One of the lectures I gave toward the end of my career as a basic-course director had to do with leadership in which I provided some of the latest findings regarding gender differences and leadership styles.  At that time — more than fifteen years ago now — the research regarding gender differences was in its infancy; thus, it was more difficult to make the case that Dee Dee Myers makes in her book, Why women should rule the world  (HarperCollins, 2008).  Although her conclusion resides in the title of the book, in this essay I am more interested in the research that supports her conclusion.   

Look at some of the research Myers offers in her book, then you can make up your own mind regarding the strength of female leadership.  Scientists have found structural, chemical, genetic, hormonal, and functional differences in male and female brains, but it is the way these differences affect the way they process language, solve problems, and remember emotional events that, in the end, affect the way they lead. (p. 63) 

From her own experience, Myers commented on the sixteen women in the Senate.  From her observation she states, “Women do seem more interested in consensus.  They do seem less consumed by the constant who’s-up-and-who’s-down score-keeping aspect of the political game.  They do seem more willing to listen to other people’s opinions” (p. 8).  Myers offers one caveat, however, when she says, “That’s not to say that all women fit this model; they don’t” (p. 8). 

“According to studies,” Myers writes later in her book, “men’s self-esteem derives more from their ability to maintain independence from others while women’s self-esteem is maintained, in part, by the ability to sustain intimate relationships” (p. 76). 

The problem that women have — despite the limited amount of progress they are making — is the double standard.  “Male attitudes, ideas, interests, views, values, and voices are the norm.  And since females don’t necessarily share them, it’s still too often seen as proof positive that they don’t quite get it” (p. 41).  Why does this double standard exist?  Because for several millennia women were responsible for raising children and managing domestic matters.  “Public life,” says Myers, “was the province of men, created by and for men.  When women started moving into this traditionally male bastion, they had to take that world as they found it” (p. 41). 

Visit the Catalyst Press Room web site, to read the essay, “Damned or Doomed — Catalyst Study on Gender Stereotyping at Work Uncovers Doublebind Dillemmas for Women.”  The Catalyst research reports that women are viewed by both men and women as better at team building and encouraging others while men are perceived better at influencing superiors, solving problems, and making decisions. 

In another Catalyst study, researchers looked at Fortune 500 companies with the highest representation of women on their boards.  When compared with companies with the fewest women in the board room, these companies performed better financially, had a higher return on equity, a higher return on sales, and a higher return on invested capital as well.   

Myers delineates some of the specific differences researchers have found.  “Research shows there is no gender difference in general intelligence. [but]...Men are better at mathematical problem solving; women are better at mathematical calculation,” Myers writes.  “Men are better at mentally rotating shapes; women are better at visual memory....men and women are exactly the same in terms of average intelligence, and most cluster around the middle of the curve.  But...men show more variation; there are more men at both extremes of the curve; there are more boneheads and more geniuses,” Myers writes on pages 68-69. 

Citing research from Dr. Louann Brizendine’s book, The Female Brain, (Broadway, 2006) Myers notes that at eight weeks following conception, the dose of testosterone that male babies receive “kills off cells in the communication, observation and emotion processing centers of the brain — and growing cells in the sex and aggression centers” (pp. 70-71).  “The areas of men’s brains that control action and aggression are predictably larger....men devote two and a half times the brain space to their sex drives!” (p. 74) 

“According to Brizendine,” Myers writes, “women have ‘outstanding verbal agility, the ability to connect deeply in friendship, a nearly psychic capacity to read faces and tone of voice for emotions and states of mind, the ability to defuse conflict.  All of this is hardwired into the brains of women’” (p. 81). 

With respect to the number of neurons men and women have in their brains, they are the same, however, in the areas important to leadership qualities — those in the areas that control language and hearing — “women have on average 11 percent more neurons than men” (p. 71). 

The way these differences reveal themselves make an important difference.  As noted in a wide variety of research studies, men are more competitive and “according to one study, an astonishing fifty times more competitive,” and women are more cooperative.  Women, Myers notes, are “much more likely to seek consensus and be more concerned with fairness, rather than competition.  Studies show,” Myers writes, “that they take turns twenty times more often than boys.  The relationship — not winning — is the goal” (pp. 71-71). 

An important study at UCLA by Dr. Laura Cousino Klein and Dr. Shelley Taylor on the way men and women manage stress revealed that, “When men are stressed, they get in someone’s face — or retreat into their proverbial caves....Women were more likely to respond to stress in their own way: by hanging out with their kids or talking things over with a friend or family member” (pp. 86-87).  It is a “fight-or-flight” versus a “tend and befriend” set of responses. 

Later in her book, Myers cites studies that show women are better at creating and keeping the peace by “ratcheting down the violence, creating opportunities for reconciliation, and beginning the process of rebuilding” (pp. 110-111).  With respect to violence, men are the primary perpetrators of murder, forcible rape, armed robbery, aggravated assault, fraud, theft, vandalization, arson, and drug use. (p. 120). 

Whether liked or not, stereotypical males are “aggressive, ambitious, assertive, forceful, [and] self-confident” whereas stereotypical females are “helpful, kind, friendly, sympathetic, and affectionate” (p. 149).  Perhaps the key now is to redefine leadership and redefine power.  In the information age in which we are living, fortunately, that is already happening. 

----- 

At the Deccan Herald website, the essay is entitled, “Women paving way for superior leadership roles: KPMG study.”  The opening says: “Organizations are increasingly recognizing that women do bring substantive diversity to company boards in terms of their composition, skill sets and experiences.”  It is an excellent essay reporting important survey results.  Here is one comment from the essay: “KPMG Executive Director Human Resource in India, Sangeeta Singh, said, “Our research evidence reveals that women leaders are self-critical of their own strengths and weaknesses and tend to rebound gracefully from setbacks. They tend to be intuitive crisis managers enabling fair and sound judgment. Further, they drive a democratic and inclusive approach by building an ecosystem and nurturing talent.” 

“As leaders, women rule,” is an essay published at the businessweek.com website,  Rochelle Sharpe in Boston reports, in this excellent essay, that, ''Women are scoring higher on almost everything we look at,'' says Shirley Ross, an industrial psychologist who helped oversee a study performed by Hagberg Consulting Group in Foster City, Calif. Hagberg conducts in-depth performance evaluations of senior managers for its diverse clients, including technology, health care, financial-service, and consumer-goods companies. Of the 425 high-level executives evaluated, each by about 25 people, women execs won higher ratings on 42 of the 52 skills measured.”  This essay is valuable, specific, and definitely worth a read. 

----- 

Copyright December, 2010, by And Then Some Publishing, LLC.