Women – too often don’t feel entitled to what they do deserve

Men – too often men feel entitled to what they don’t deserve

What’s behind this and why are so many women afraid to ask for what they want, need and deserve in the work place?

Neurochemistry

A big part of a women’s identity is tied to both her estrogen and oxytocin.  Her estrogen is what causes her to feel more feminine and her oxytocin is about what causes her to feel that connecting, nurturing and bonding are so important.

A big part of men’s identity is tied to both his testosterone and adrenaline.  His testosterone is what causes him to feel aggressive and his adrenaline is what causes him to feel powerful.

Both women and men are also frequently dopamine junkies where dopamine is what cause both of them to feel pleasure and even intense pleasure.

When women are coming from their estrogen/femininity and it succeeds in attracting men to bond with and cherish them, that releases a dopamine rush. When men are coming from their testosterone/male aggressiveness and it directs their adrenaline to fight (instead of flight) and they win something, that also releases a dopamine rush.

Pushing, asking and demanding are more in line with testosterone and adrenaline.

Giving and being given, caring and being cared about , loving and being loved are more in line with estrogen and oxcytocin.

Psychology

When a women asks or demands something at work (all bets are off at home) she is often perceived as a “b*tch” and at the very least as unfeminine, because those appears to be testosterone/adrenaline type behaviors.

Perhaps the greatest deterrent to asking for what they want, need and deserve is the fear that if they are perceived as the “b” word, they will be rejected by a man and then as the office buzz grows, by all the men in her office (as in, “She’s such a b*tch!”).  Rejection is the opposite of bonding and it is an affront to the oxytocin driven part of a woman’s identity.  That may explain why so many women don’t know how to behave in the office.  If they wait for the kindness and generosity of men, it usually doesn’t happen, because men tend to hoard power and feel that giving away anything diminishes it (that may explain why it is so difficult for men to say, “Thank you” or “Congratulations” and even more hard to say sincerely, “I’m sorry”).  On the other hand if women push for what they want they risk both: a) not receiving it which can make an already awkward situation worse and b) men pulling back and away from them which causes their oxytocin driven identity to take more of a hit.

What’s a Woman to Do – Focus on the Future

One of my favorite people is executive coach extraordinaire, Marshall Goldsmith.  He is the creator of “feed forward coaching” because he knows that it is much less likely to cause trouble to focus on a future that people have not yet messed up, than to get into a “pissing match” rife with ‘he said/she said’ escalation about something that has already happened.

Example 1: Regarding asking for help on a project.

If you can, at the beginning of any project where you might need help (doesn’t that mean all projects?) down the road, say to your boss or peer, “Going forward, in the event I need your assistance in either providing me with direct help or supporting me in accessing it from somewhere else, what is the best way to get that from you?”  Don’t feel guilty. Just be quiet. Remember, you’re not asking for it now.

Then listen to whatever they say and respond, “This is really important for me to get clear, because you know how awkward asking for help can be, so I just want to be certain I heard what you said.  You said the best way to approach you in the future is (then say exactly what they said).  Is that correct?” Wait for them to give a confirmatory, “Yes,” which according to influence guru, Robert Cialdini, will deepen their commitment to doing it in the future.

Example 2: Regarding asking for more pay and/or a promotion

You can certainly discuss it when your review comes up, but if that is likely to cause real awkwardness and end poorly here is an alternative. Say to your boss, “Are any of those (raise, bonus or promotion) negotiable?”

If they say, “No,” retain your composure (even if you’re boiling inside and whatever you do, don’t cry, because it makes men nuts), pause and reply, “Just so I’ll know for future reference and future reviews for more pay, bonuses and promotions, help me to understand what you evaluate in order to arrive at those assessments.”  Then again, be quiet. If he becomes uptight say, “I’m not trying to be difficult I’m just trying to understand your criteria for giving a raise, bonus and/or promotion so that I can be sure to meet them so that next time, if raises, bonuses and promotions are being given, that I will be in the best position to receive one.”

 Also:

• Calling All Women Executives: Part 1 – How to Win (Male) Friends and Influence Everyone
• Calling All Women Executives: Part 2 – Be a Little More Paranoid
• Calling All Women Executives: Part 3 – Turn Off Your B.S. Detectors
• Calling All Women Executives: Part 4 – How to De-Fang a Bully

(Click twice s-l-o-w-l-y on image below to expand)

Twenty years ago a man from a primitive tribe in South America came to New York City and was asked, “What do you think?”

He replied, “They don’t see the sky.”

He recently returned and was asked the same question.

This time he replied, “They don’t even see each other.”

Transactional myopia, i.e. get the deal, do the deal, next deal, may bring you fun and excitement, but it will never make you happy or bring you joy.

How important are the presence of the following in your life to your feeling happy?

Little = 1; Somewhat = 2; Very = 3

1. Warmth*
2. Tenderness
3. Lovingness
4. Caring
5. Kindness
6. Acceptance
7. Generosity
8. Patience
9. Satisfaction
10. Fulfillment
11. Meaningfulness
12. Joy

How present are the above in in your life?

Little = 1; Somewhat = 2; Very = 3

If there is a gap, when are you going to begin to close it?

Why not talk to the people closest to you about the first steps you and they should take to do that?

If you are willing, share your two scores in the comments section or email them to me at: mgoulston@markgoulston.com

Also:

* Huffington Post: Human Cooling, Global Warming and Childhood Obesity

And now for your viewing and listening pleasure:

And there are few things that cause a wife to lose trust and confidence in her husband than when someone is obviously and successfully b.s.ing him and he totally drinks the Kool-Aid.

This may explain why many husbands are uncomfortable bringing their wives to situations where the b.s. is so freely flowing in both directions and the bravado runneth over.

Cut to the corporate executive or management meeting that is 90 % male, 10 % female.  In that meeting, a psychological process called “projection” is rampant.  In such a case many of the men are projecting on the women that the women are judging the men similar to the way those men feel their wives often judge them.  Believing they are being judged in that manner causes the men to feel nervous, uptight, resentful and because of all these to become brittle.  It is on a shaky foundation of brittleness that men often behave is such a childish and testy way, which then compounds their feeling judged and being even more paranoid.

If you read Calling All Women Executives: Part 1 – How to Win (Male) Friends and Influence Everyone you will get a sense of what lies beneath the behavior between men and women that on the surface so offends each other.

Reading both of those descriptions may go a long way to diminish the reactivity that men and women have towards each other, but what next?

Women might simply say, “If men would just stop b.s.ing others and themselves, everything would get much better.”  In actuality when you find such men, there really is less contention between them and women, because a) the women admire, respect, trust and have confidence in them and b) feeling such positive regard from women the men feel respect, appreciation and admiration towards the women.

Why doesn’t this happen more?  Why are so many men so insecure?  A man’s sense of confidence is directly tied to how competent he feels and how much in control of his life he feels.  One of the realities of our complex and complicated lives is that men feel increasingly less or even completely incompetent in many of the situations they find themselves in and in the abilities that others think they have that they know they don’t.  The less competent and less in control a man feels, the more insecure and paranoid he becomes that he will be exposed as the incompetent and out of control person he feels he is inside.

Why don’t men simply say, “I don’t know that” or ask for help.  Well why is it that men don’t ask for directions? For some reason, probably built into them they feel that expressing either of those is humiliating and is admitting to the world that they are stupid or inadequate.  And there is a fear that admitting those in the open will cause people to ridicule you (again you are projecting on others that they will berate you just as you are doing to yourself at that exact moment).  Ironically, to say those two things without a hint of a whine, complaining or excuse making actually triggers the exact opposite response from people.

Years ago I did a forty person workshop with a $50 million security company that included people from sales and operations.  As I often do in such a workshop, I handed out index cards and had people anonymously write down what would be an amazing outcome from spending three hours with a specialist in human behavior and human communication.  I then began to read the cards aloud.  The answers were what you might expect.

The sales people wanted help with difficult customers that squeezed them on price and help in dealing with operational people who were always slowing down sales by refusing to give them inferior items they had sold that would break down and hurt the reputation of the company.  The operations people wanted to find out a way to deal with the Type A aggressive sales people that always seemed to be condescending, angry and impatient with them.

A heated debate followed where each side kept yelling at the other.

Then I read this card aloud: “Sales think operations are gutless; operations think sales are mindless.  We’re all on the same team, can’t we find a way to work together.”

There was a silence where you could hear a pin drop.

One man from operations raised his hand and said, “I never have problems with sales.”  The room fell silent and then someone asked, “How do you do that?”  And he calmly responded, I simply call them and say, “Hi this is Rob in ______, I need your help with something.  And they always help me.”

The room went quiet again and then one of the more aggressive women in sales piped up, “You know, I hate being part of the negativity all of us get into about operations.  We are all on the same team and I for one am stopping.”

The result was that both sides committed to stopping the name calling and agreed to “ask for help” when they needed something from the other side.  And that has continued to this day.

There is something there for men and women and for that matter all teams to emulate and learn.

As for me.  I now bring my wife to all my business meetings where a negotiation might take place.  She is much better at detecting when someone is b.s.ing me, I am b.s.ing them or I am b.s.ing myself.

My only request to her, “I know that in the past I was very capable of making foolish choices that worked against me and now you’re going to help prevent that.  When you do however, I’m okay with your thinking or telling me I was or was about to be foolish, just please don’t tell me I’m stupid.”

#1 in Six Kindle Categories

#1 best selling book from American Management Association (out of 3400+ books)

“Just Listen” – Chapter 1: Who’s Holding You Hostage? (click here for PDF)

(Double click image below s-l-o-w-l-y to read expanded view)

1. Awful People: Part 1 – Bullies
2. Awful People: Part 2 – Whiners
3. Awful People: Part 3 – How to Deal with Them
4. Close Encounters of the Worst Kind
5. Beware of High-Maintenance People
6. Know Any Opinionated People?
7. Know Any Jerks?
8. Top 10 Ways to Recognize a Jerk
9.  My Dinner With a Bully
10.  Know Any Zero Sum Personalities?
11. Doing a Jeckectomy
12. Jerks at Work: A Survival Guide
13. Jiu-Jitsu for the High-Maintenance Crowd
14. “Is Daddy an A-hole?”
15. Does Your Boss Need Professional Help?

- COO of early stage company expressing his concern about hiring consultants

from Wikipedia – Mission creep is the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals,  often after initial successes. Mission creep is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs.

Many companies are reluctant to hire consultants because they fear “Consultation Creep” where after a consultant comes in and does a diagnosis and some initial work, that they will find too much that needs fixing at too great a cost and that will require a commitment and focus from people inside the company that is unrealistic.

From the consultant’s side, he or she is concerned with making the proper recommendations for which they have been engaged and with the success of those recommendations.  As a consultant does a diagnosis, he or she will often uncover key factors that if unaddressed will make the consultation ineffective.  In other words, the consultant will discover that what a company wants is not what it needs and if it fails to address what it needs, not only will the consultation not be a success, but the company may not succeed.

What is needed to correct this?

After the failure of the Bay of Pigs, J.F.K. apparently spoke to President Eisenhower and asked his input on why that incident failed so miserably.  Eisenhower said something to the effect of: “Your goal was okay, but you didn’t have a process for making sound decisions under pressure.”  Supposedly J.F.K. took these words to heart and because of them was better able to make it through the Cuban Missile Crisis.

To be effective, consultations need a process as well, or else they are likely to “creep” and end up in failure.  For that process to be successful, it requires full buy in and commitment from a decision maker and one or several influencers within the company (i.e. individuals that others will follow).

I have called the process the 12 Steps of Consultants Synonymous, because similar to the 12 Step of Alcoholics Anonymous, they represent a step by step approach that if followed will prevent the consultation from falling “off the proverbial wagon” into high cost, time delays and unsustainable results. Because just like Mission Creep, Consultation Creep is an addiction to doing much more than is asked of them.

These 12 Steps of Consultants Synonymous will help any company and consultant keep a consultation on track. Don’t hire one without them.

Step 1. Problem Definition
What’s going on in a company? The consultant meets with the principle decision makers and key executives to see what they feel their biggest challenges (problems) are, what they think their greatest opportunities are, what they think their greatest strengths and weaknesses are, and what they think needs to change to meet their challenges effectively and take advantage of their opportunities.

Step 2. Assessment of Outcomes
What outcomes does the company want to achieve? The consultant puts together the input from Step 1 and reaches a consensus about these outcomes with the principle decision makers.

Step 3. Available and Not Available Approaches
Consultations/actions are selected that are necessary to reach those outcomes, e.g. structural reorganization, team building, strategic planning, business planning, financial planning, etc. and the availability and accessibility of the resources to achieve those within the company and what will need to be added?

Step 4. Strategic Planning of Consultation
The order and sequence of different consultations/actions is established. Who is going to do what, when, and where is determined.

Step 5. Education and Involvement of Key Executives
The consultant educates the main decision makers on agreed upon outcomes, agreed upon strategies to achieve those outcomes and the people within company best suited to execute those strategies and then obtains a commitment to action from these decision-makers.

Step 6. Education and Involvement of Relevant Staff
The key executives and/or consultant explain what is going to happen and why and why now and then obtains a commitment from the people who are going to do what is called for.

Step 7. Fine Tuning
The consultant assists the company in adjusting and modifying approaches to fit the situation as it evolves.

Step 8. Does the Consultation Work?
The consultant checks to see that the approach(es) is producing the desired results (i.e. moving the company towards agreed upon outcomes).

Step 9. Monitoring Mechanism
The consultant determines a way to periodically measure and make changes to keep everything on course and gains commitment from key executives and managers with implementing that monitoring system.

Step 10. Continuity
The consultant assists the company to develop a program to keep the company continuing and following through with changes. There needs to be some kind of scheduled periodic follow-up to ensure follow-through (turning changes into habits).

Step 11. Maintenance
The consultant helps the company to develop a way to make necessary changes when called for part of corporate culture (turning changes into culture), so that the company is self-reliant.

Step 12. Disengagement
The consultant helps the company to develop a way to know when the company is using changes on their own without the consultant’s help. An early warning system is developed for a company to know when problems are arising, to nip them in the bud and address them.

Additional Resources:

• Kennedy Consulting Research & Advisory

Being a successful Founder doesn’t necessarily a successful CEO make.  If after going through multiple vetted, seasoned, executives who come and go, the only thng all of them had in common beside their not working out is the founder.  It is very difficult for many founders to realize this because they are usually incredibly smart and things are incredibly clear at the moment in their heads.  But smart and clear at the moment in their heads although great qualities also do not a CEO make.  Jeff Immelt, CEO of GE, offered a great piece of advice when he said to do your job as if you’ll be doing it all your life.  Stay focused, become excellent at what you’re doing now, instead of continuing to jump to something that seems better for the moment.

Here are 10 signs that a Founder is not going to bring in a CEO to run the company while the Founder goes out to be its chief evangelist and strategic deal generator:

1. Poor Say/Do ratio: What they say about bringing in a CEO compared to what they do shows they’re not even close to taking action.
2. “Yes, but” every suggestion: They consistently point out why each possible candidate won’t work and insist the company doesn’t need one and that the problem lies with their team and not them.
3. Don’t initiate discussions about bringing in a CEO: Those who resist bringing in a CEO rarely initiate a discussion about stepping down, much less provide action steps with a time line.
4. People are afraid to bring up bringing in a CEO to them: These Founders are often domineering by nature, which intimidates key executives.  Why in the world would people risk annoying them?
5. Work is their life: They don’t have any hobbies or anything that produces the same adrenaline rush as the power they wield at work.  One Founder told me, “When you go from a somebody (a CEO who is in the game) to an anybody (just another Founder/Evangelist) it’s the same as being nobody. There is no middle ground between being in control or out of control and you know which one I’m sticking with.”
6. Work is their family: They are usually not capable of giving their undivided attention to their children and certainly not their spouse.  Work is their priority.
7. Won’t listen at work: They won’t listen to anyone who brings up need for a change at the top.  They throw the focus back onto the bottom line and challenge people about that and then often change topics and focus frequently.
8. Overcompensated: They are frequently overcompensated for the value they bring to the company.  These Founders often have a fear of losing their perks and their prestige if the company is turned over to others and if their compensation becomes open to scrutiny.
9. Increasingly more irritable: The more they realize that perhaps they aren’t entitled to what they’re paid, the more irritable they become.
10. They have fearful aggression: The more fearful Founders are that their real value will be exposed, the more aggressive they become in order to protect themselves.

Such a person, especially if they are a domineering figure, can put their company at risk in a couple of ways.

First, promising employees will be tempted to go elsewhere.  If that happens, the company will be left with the less than stellar performers.

Second, if the Founder has done a great job of making people believe that the company needs them, others will lose confidence in themselves and in that state of mind be more vulnerable to being “beaten up” by the founder. So what should promising employees, who could be the future of the company, do?

They should confront the Founder with the following:

1. “How committed are you to bringing in an executive team that could make this company a success?”
2. “Please offer a plan of action that takes action on finding a CEO and that assigns role and responsibilities to people already here and a timeline.”
3. “If you are truly committed to finding a CEO, do I have your permission to seek out resources within and outside the firm to find such a person?”

If you are a Founder, what can you to do to make letting go of control more tolerable?

There are some great organizations including YPO, WPO, Vistage, Chief Executives Guild and Renaissance Executive Forums that can provide you with a group of peers who will be committed to you, have your backs and be candid with you.

Also check out: Can Your Company Succeed Once the Founder Leaves?