Women & Men In Business

December 9, 2009

Interview with Michael Johnson, author of the book Cracking The Boy's Club Code: The Woman's Guide to Being Heard and Valued in the Workplace

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Mike Carruthers:
In the workplace men and women have very different rules.

Michael Johnson:
And the men’s rules are, "I win, you lose, next game" - and we like that. It’s a game of competition.
 

Michael Johnson, author of the book Cracking The Boy's Club Code Workplace…

Women, on the other hand, are very relationship based. Their motto is, "Together we win, we all win or it’s a problem."

These two different styles are often not compatible and since men still tend to set the tone in the workplace it can leave women feeling left out.

When I ask women, “What is it that bothers you about men?” The women say it’s either, They don’t take me seriously or they don’t listen – I don’t feel like I’m a value to the organization." And that’s a big deal for corporations because women are leaving – big time.

Michael’s advice for women is to understand how men think, work, and act and use that information. For example…

Men are very linear thinkers and their brains are wired to handle one subject at a time and not bounce around to a whole bunch of different subjects. Because what women tend to do, because they are very good at this, they’ll go to topic A and do that for awhile and then go to topic C and come back to A and maybe lace B in there - and they can hold all this together. But for men, we hear that as scattered, not a good team member, well that’s not true but again perceptions reality.

To hear the complete unedited interview, click here