Why Does Gender Intelligence Matter In The Workplace?

In this continued conversation on Gender Intelligence, Barbara Annis, author of Same Words Different Langauge, and CEO of Gender Intelligence Group (GIG) examines the role of gender intelligence in the workplace.  Topics include blindspots in the workplace and the need for gender intelligence to be a "business imperative." 

Find out why it’s absolutely imperative that businesses understand gender intelligence if they want to create effective teams and produce extraordinary results. Learn how gender intelligence impacts the workplace as well as what blindspots we have about the opposite gender that are holding us back and how to overcome them.

• There is an important difference between gender equality and gender intelligence. In the course of 30 years of research and results from implementation, we are seeing major impacts on many different areas of business.
• An inclusive culture in a business is a major asset. When you have men and women at the table practicing gender intelligence it increases innovation and improves decision making.
• There is $8 billion a year spent in corporate America on diversity training, and it has no correlation to any impact whatsoever. It actually creates education apathy, whereas by applying gender intelligence training many companies have reported massive declines in incidences of harassment.
• The neuroscience of gender intelligence has been around since 1990 but it’s still surprising how many people do not understand or deny the evidence of gender differences.
• Understanding the reality of gender differences and the neuroscience involved allows us to appreciate our differences instead of ignoring or tolerating them.
• Just recruiting additional women into a work culture of men is futile. Women value different things and creating a gender intelligent culture is how a business can reduce turnover.
• In the process of studying the sustainable impact of gender intelligence, Barbara found that companies that implemented gender intelligence made more progress in a handful of years than they did in a decade and a half with diversity and inclusivity training.
• Bringing women into a sales call can open up a whole new avenue of understanding. Women tend to notice things that men don’t focus on which can lead to insights into what a customer wants and feels that would be otherwise missed.
• Women weigh options and ruminate more than men, which is often at odds with the way men think and take action quickly. Finding a balance between the two approaches leads to better results.
• Girls develop their prefrontal cortex earlier than boys, which is why they tend to be more risk-wise than boys the same age.
• Neuroscience has proven that men and women think differently. It becomes a business imperative to see both perspectives and get better results, the key is in avoiding the blind spots that prevent us from taking the next step.
• Women have a blindspot in the belief that men don’t care. Men do care and want women to succeed, the challenge is in the comfort level within the #metoo era. A powerful conversation occurs when men say they do care, but they don’t know what the next step is or how to express that.
• For men, the blind spot is the belief that women aren’t ambitious, which couldn’t be further from the truth, but you can hamper women’s ambition if the culture is lacking. If you don’t provide a means for the ambition to be fulfilled inside of your own organization, it’s going to be fulfilled elsewhere.
• Another big assumption on men’s part is that women are fragile. The truth is that women negotiate differently, they tend to negotiate poorly for themselves but more effectively for other people. This is often interpreted by men as a weakness or fragility of women in the workplace.
• Gender intelligence applies beyond the workplace, parents need to realize the sons and daughters require a different approach to parenting. One size does not fit all. It’s the same with health differences and conflict in relationships, gender differences require a better understanding of gender intelligence in order to thrive.
• Be curious, learn something of the other gender and then ask. Make no assumptions and be curious about new learning.