BOB HOOVER of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was interviewing
me when he remarked that after years of coaching boys' softball
teams, he was now coaching girls and they were very different.
I immediately whipped out my yellow pad and began interviewing
him -- and discovered that his observations about how girls and
boys play softball parallel mine about how women and men talk at
work.
Hoover told me that boys' teams always had one or two stars whom
the other boys treated with deference. So when he started coaching
a girls' team, he began by looking for the leader. He couldn't
find one. "The girls who are better athletes don't lord it
over the others," he said. "You get the feeling that
everyone's the same." When a girl got the ball, she didn't
try to throw it all the way home as a strong-armed boy would; instead,
she'd throw it to another team member, so they all became better
catchers and throwers. He went on, "If a girl makes an error,
she's not in the doghouse for a long time, as a boy would be."
"But wait," I interrupted. "I've heard that when
girls make a mistake at sports, they often say 'I'm sorry,' whereas
boys don't."
That's true, he said, but then the girl forgets it -- and so do
her teammates. "For boys, sports is a performance art. They're
concerned with how they look." When they make an error, they
sulk because they've let their teammates down. Girls want to win,
but if they lose, they're still all in it together -- so the mistake
isn't as dreadful for the individual or the team.
What Hoover described in these youngsters were the seeds of behavior
I have observed among women and men at work.
The girls who are the best athletes don't "lord it over" the
others -- just the ethic I found among women in positions of authority.
Women managers frequently told me they were good managers because
they did not act in an authoritarian manner. They said they did
not flaunt their power, or behave as though they were better than
their subordinates. Similarly, linguist Elisabeth Kuhn found that
women professors in her study informed students of course requirements
as if they had magically appeared on the syllabus ("There
are two papers. The first paper, ah, let's see, is due ... . It's
back here [referring to the syllabus] at the beginning"),
whereas the men professors made it clear that they had set the
requirements ("I have two midterms and a final").
A woman manager might say to her secretary, "Could you do
me a favor and type this letter right away?" knowing that
her secretary is going to type the letter. But her male boss, on
hearing this, might conclude she doesn't feel she deserves the
authority she has, just as a boys' coach might think the star athlete
doesn't realize how good he is if he doesn't expect his teammates
to treat him with deference.
I was especially delighted by Hoover's observation that, although
girls are more likely to say, "I'm sorry," they are actually
far less sorry when they make a mistake than boys who don't say
it, but are "in the doghouse" for a long time. This dramatizes
the ritual nature of many women's apologies. How often is a woman
who is "always apologizing" seen as weak and lacking
in confidence? In fact, for many women, saying "I'm sorry" often
doesn't mean "I apologize." It means "I'm sorry
that happened."
Like many of the rituals common among women, it's a way of speaking
that takes into account the other person's point of view. It can
even be an automatic conversational smoother. For example, you
left your pad in someone's office; you knock on the door and say, "Excuse
me, I left my pad on your desk," and the person whose office
it is might reply, "Oh, I'm sorry. Here it is." She knows
it is not her fault that you left your pad on her desk; she's just
letting you know it's okay.
Finally, I was intrigued by Hoover's remark that boys regard sports
as "a performance art" and worry about "how they
look." There, perhaps, is the rub, the key to why so many
women feel they don't get credit for what they do. From childhood,
many boys learn something that is very adaptive to the workplace:
Raises and promotions are based on "performance" evaluations
and these depend, in large measure, on how you appear in other
people's eyes. In other words, you have to worry not only about
getting your job done but also about getting credit for what you
do.
Getting credit often depends on the way you talk. For example,
a woman told me she was given a poor evaluation because her supervisor
felt she knew less than her male peers. Her boss, it turned out,
reached this conclusion because the woman asked more questions:
She was seeking information without regard to how her queries would
make her look.
The same principle applies to apologizing. Whereas some women
seem to be taking undeserved blame by saying "I'm sorry," some
men seem to evade deserved blame. I observed this when a man disconnected
a conference call by accidentally elbowing the speaker-phone. When
his secretary re-connected the call, I expected him to say, "I'm
sorry; I knocked the phone by mistake." Instead he said, "Hey,
what happened?! One minute you were there, the next minute you
were gone!" Annoying as this might be, there are certainly
instances in which people improve their fortunes by covering up
mistakes. If Hoover's observations about girls' and boys' athletic
styles are fascinating, it is even more revealing to see actual
transcripts of children at play and how they mirror the adult workplace.
Amy Sheldon, a linguist at the University of Minnesota who studies
children talking at play in a day care center, compared the conflicts
of pre-school girls and boys. She found that boys who fought with
one another tended to pursue their own goal. Girls tended to balance
their own interests with those of the other girls through complex
verbal negotiations.
Look how different the negotiations were:
Two boys fought over a toy telephone: Tony had it; Charlie wanted
it. Tony was sitting on a foam chair with the base of the phone
in his lap and the receiver lying beside him. Charlie picked up
the receiver, and Tony protested, "No, that's my phone!" He
grabbed the telephone cord and tried to pull the receiver away
from Charlie, saying, "No, that -- uh, it's on MY couch. It's
on MY couch, Charlie. It's on MY couch. It's on MY couch." It
seems he had only one point to make, so he made it repeatedly as
he used physical force to get the phone back.
Charlie ignored Tony and held onto the receiver. Tony then got
off the couch, set the phone base on the floor and tried to keep
possession of it by overturning the chair on top of it. Charlie
managed to push the chair off, get the telephone and win the fight.
This might seem like a typical kids' fight until you compare it
with a fight Sheldon videotaped among girls. Here the contested
objects were toy medical instruments: Elaine had them; Arlene wanted
them. But she didn't just grab for them; she argued her case. Elaine,
in turn, balanced her own desire to keep them with Arlene's desire
to get them. Elaine lost ground gradually, by compromising.
Arlene began not by grabbing but by asking and giving a reason: "Can
I have that, that thing? I'm going to take my baby's temperature." Elaine
was agreeable, but cautious: "You can use it -- you can use
my temperature. Just make sure you can't use anything else unless
you can ask." Arlene did just that; she asked for the toy
syringe: "May I?" Elaine at first resisted, but gave
a reason: "No, I'm gonna need to use the shot in a couple
of minutes." Arlene reached for the syringe anyway, explaining
in a "beseeching" tone, "But I -- I need this though."
Elaine capitulated, but again tried to set limits: "Okay,
just use it once." She even gave Arlene permission to give "just
a couple of shots."
Arlene then pressed her advantage, and became possessive of her
property: "Now don't touch the baby until I get back, because
it IS MY BABY! I'll check her ears, okay?" (Even when being
demanding, she asked for agreement: "okay?")
Elaine tried to regain some rights through compromise: "Well,
let's pretend it's another day, that we have to look in her ears
together." Elaine also tried another approach that would give
Arlene something she wanted: "I'll have to shot her after,
after, after you listen -- after you look in her ears," suggested
Elaine. Arlene, however, was adamant: "Now don't shot her
at all!"
What happened next will sound familiar to anyone who has ever
been a little girl or overheard one. Elaine could no longer abide
Arlene's selfish behavior and applied the ultimate sanction: "Well,
then, you can't come to my birthday!" Arlene uttered the predictable
retort: "I don't want to come to your birthday!"
The boys and girls followed different rituals for fighting. Each
boy went after what he wanted; they slugged it out; one won. But
the girls enacted a complex negotiation, trying to get what they
wanted while taking into account what the other wanted.
Here is an example of how women and men at work used comparable
strategies.
Maureen and Harold, two managers at a medium-size company, were
assigned to hire a human-resources coordinator for their division.
Each favored a different candidate, and both felt strongly about
their preferences. They traded arguments for some time, neither
convincing the other. Then Harold said that hiring the candidate
Maureen wanted would make him so uncomfortable that he would have
to consider resigning. Maureen respected Harold. What's more, she
liked him and considered him a friend. So she said what seemed
to her the only thing she could say under the circumstances: "Well,
I certainly don't want you to feel uncomfortable here. You're one
of the pillars of the place." Harold's choice was hired.
What was crucial was not Maureen's and Harold's individual styles
in isolation but how they played in concert with each other's style.
Harold's threat to quit ensured his triumph -- when used with someone
for whom it was a trump card. If he had been arguing with someone
who regarded this threat as simply another move in the negotiation
rather than a non-negotiable expression of deep feelings, the result
might have been different. For example, had she said, "That's
ridiculous; of course you're not going to quit!" or matched
it ("Well, I'd be tempted to quit if we hired your guy"),
the decision might well have gone the other way.
Like the girls at play, Maureen was balancing her perspective
with those of her colleague and expected him to do the same. Harold
was simply going for what he wanted and trusted Maureen to do likewise.
This is not to say that all women and all men, or all boys and
girls, behave any one way. Many factors influence our styles, including
regional and ethnic backgrounds, family experience and individual
personality. But gender is a key factor, and understanding its
influence can help clarify what happens when we talk.
Understanding the ritual nature of communication gives you the
flexibility to consider different approaches if you're not happy
with the reaction you're getting. Someone who tends to avoid expressing
disagreement might learn to play "devil's advocate" without
taking it as a personal attack. Someone who tends to avoid admitting
fault might find it is effective to say "I'm sorry" --
that the loss of face is outweighed by a gain in credibility.
There is no one way of talking that will always work best. But
understanding how conversational rituals work allows individuals
to have more control over their own lives.
Deborah Tannen is professor of linguistics
at Georgetown University. Tannen is best known as
the author of "You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men
in Conversation," which was on The New York Times Best Seller
list for nearly four years, including eight months as No. 1,
and has been translated into 24 languages. Tannen's insight brought
gender differences in communication style to the forefront of
public awareness, and her work has been featured in most major
newspapers and magazines, including The New Yorker, The New York
Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, USA Today, People, The
Harvard Business Review and Time.
copyright Deborah Tannen
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