Be Gender Smart by Inge Woudstra

Author:Inge Woudstra
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781784522049
Publisher: Panoma Press

When buying, it is the same. It’s key to be able to put yourself in the shoes of the supplier and interpret their signals. Often, it is important to build a lasting relationship with a supplier and understand how far you can bring the price down before it becomes uneconomic for them.

Strong position

Men’s speciality in picking up signals of anger, danger and fear, and using those to build their position of power, brings advantages as well. It’s important for your success and that of your organisation to be vigilant and not get played or taken advantage of.

For managers it can be vital to protect their team against other teams. The new manager of my department focused on our future, and she built relationships with colleagues across the company. At the end of the year, the departments’ financial results were presented. Our results were shockingly low, as it turned out there was a rogue post of ‘pensions of former employees’. She had missed the signals and hadn’t been able to protect our department from tactical moves by others. It wasn’t good for her career, and having to adjust to a new leader once again wasn’t good for our department either.

Picking up threats can be vital in understanding the competition and anticipating their moves. In addition, it can be key when negotiating with suppliers. Signals of weakness given by them can be used to drive down the price and get a better deal for your organisation.

Then there is another advantage. Being less empathetic and focused on others may sound selfish to you, but it definitely brings some advantages too. It gives men a tendency to abstraction and to see things clearly. Men tend to be more detached and honest when assessing a situation, which can be very powerful in many work situations.

Recently, Amit, a senior executive, shared an example with me, “I had just done a deal that had some painful, negative consequences. So I joked to my fellow executive that it was a good strategy. I said it in such a way that it showed I knew I had made a mistake, but it also made clear that I wouldn’t allow him to rub it in. My colleague understood this as a danger signal of ‘Don’t go there’, and did not elaborate further on how bad the deal actually was or why. Instead he said that there are many deals where the logic and strategy is sound, but the subsequent situation turned out differently.

He added that there are, however, plenty of examples on how to recover and he related an anecdote about recovery. His remark helped change the dynamic. It was clear to both of us that a mistake had been made, and it was quietly agreed not to talk about it, but to focus instead on solving and improving the situation.”

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