Great Idea Ms Jones… Would a Man Care to Say It?
OK, I know it’s a cliché but sadly it’s a cliché that still rings true for women in the professional world. If we’re not careful we get overlooked and over talked. That’s not my prejudices coming out there; that’s the results of almost every piece of research looking at workplace interactions.
Why?
Every time I read something or hear someone I’m working with make that comment (or express that sentiment) I wonder how can this still be true? There are lots of differences in the way men and women communicate. One is not better than the other, at least not in my book; we need both styles to have a representative society that works for the majority, not 50% (Or only works when the other 50% adopt the style of the dominant 50%). The world is comprised of men and women, roughly in equal numbers, yet one style of communication has been set as the bar, the standard all are judged by.
Speak Up
I have read masses of research and books on this topic and generally speaking no great surprises are revealed. The circumstances vary but in summary, women talk less and get listened to less yet the perception is that women talk more! Which says volumes about how women’s talk is regarded.
So as a professional woman what can you do? Well, being aware is part of the answer. Take time to notice how you speak in mixed groups. Do you hedge your language with ifs, and buts and placatory ‘I’m sorry to interrupt’? Is ‘sorry’ an over used word in your repertoire?
You can’t control what others may do or say, but you can control you. Speak with confidence, expect to be listened to, give that message in all the language you use, bodily and verbally. Your words need to be congruent with every other piece of information you’re giving. And remember, if you don’t have confidence in yourself, and in what you’re saying, no one else will!
Working On Your Career
If you’d like to work directly with me on this or any other issue, simply give me a call to discuss it further. I’m on 01761438749 and I’m looking forward to hearing from you!
Photo Credit: Mjamesno
Try My Drains Diet and Lose What You Don’t Need!
What! I hear your shocked cry, Jane, the feminist, loud and proud on women’s issues and women’s career coach is now telling us to diet! Good grief!
Well, yes I am but this ‘diet’ is much better than never eating chocolate when there’s an R in the month or consuming so much fibre that you need a portable bathroom with you! This one will make you feel heaps better, not guilty and ashamed and reduced to midnight larder raiding and self loathing!
The Drain’s Diet!
Today we’re looking at getting rid of people. No, I haven’t gone all Mafioso on you; we’re not doing anything criminal but we are going to consider shedding the people in your life who add pounds to you. Pounds of gloom and doom, or guilt or angst or low self esteem or who sap your confidence, ounce by ounce (or gram by gram!).
Take a moment to think about your circle of acquaintances, friends, colleagues and family. Some of those will be true radiators (see Do You Radiate or Drain?). Those are your healthy friends; hang onto them, love and nurture them and give back what you can. They make you gorgeous!
But there’s another group of people that are much more dangerous to your health. Lack of confidence has been frequently cited as an issue for women at work and it’s not just your career that can get harmed. It can affect all areas of your life. And some people have a harmful effect on your confidence.
You probably already know what I’m talking about. It’s those people who, as they approach, cause your spirits to sink. A rictus smile appears on your face as you attempt to be pleasant. Before you’ve drawn breath they’ve launched into their standard spiel. It’s usually an extended moan about how awful ‘they’ are but with never a suggestion that anything can or will change; they are comfortable blaming others.
Or it may be much more subtle. It may be colleagues who are very good at eroding your confidence at work by commenting, in an apparently pleasant way, on your last presentation, yet as you walk away you feel uncomfortable. It may be something like “I was interested that you thought it useful to pick up on the stock figures today; I was thinking security was more pressing but good presentation”. Damning with faint praise!
Take Action
Sometimes these drains are members of our family, or even our boss. Now you can’t avoid those, and you probably can’t change their behaviour.
But you can change yours! And when you change your behaviour you may see a subtle change in their behaviour. You have enormous power to change how you feel about what they say, how they drain you. You can choose to slough off the extra psychological weight they try to add to you, often unwittingly.
The Drain Exercise
First you need to spend a few moments working out who the drains are. Write a list. Then think about what it is they actually do that has the negative effect on you. This may take a while but it is important to know what it is if you’re going to neutralise its effect on you.
Now you make a choice. You can take a very direct and assertive approach with your moaning folk, for example, and actually tell them that you don’t like moaning about other people as it’s unproductive a and makes you feel bad. Ask them for suggestions as to how to improve the problem (assuming there is an actual problem). Be careful not to put them down, just make reference to the moaning not to them as individuals. (Take a look at ‘How to Increase Your Assertiveness‘). Or you can choose to give them a limited amount of your time but let the comments waft over your head. Don’t get sucked into the negativity; it’s energy sapping and totally unproductive.
The confidence sappers are a different category. They are much more subtle but recognising what they are doing is halfway to dealing with it. If the disguised criticisms are made privately you can choose to smile and move on, mentally noting that you must be doing something right if they feel a need to put you down. You’re a threat somehow and generally speaking women with no talent are not seen as threats. Cripes, they’ve almost paid you a compliment!
But if they are doing this in public it’s likely a response is called for. if you stay quiet when your work is subtly criticised you leave people with that unfavourable impression. Think about this in advance and prepare your riposte (be careful though and don’t blurt out your prepared witty comeback when they haven’t actually been critical – it does happen!).
Your response can be quite simple as in, “Thanks for that, yes, I’ve done some research and the issues of stock control are really high on the agenda just now.” We women tend not to like confrontation but if we don’t respond we run the risk of being seen as weak. Don’t get drawn into a public argument but do make sure you assertively make your point, in an objective way. And actually agreeing with someone can show a high degree of confidence, if you do it appropriately. The higher your profile within an organisation the more likely you are to receive criticism so learn to deal with it gracefully and don’t let it be a weight around your neck…or thighs or midriff or anywhere!
Lose the drains and radiate!
Photo Credit: Tanya Price
Been Slutwalking Lately?
Slutwalking is the latest movement in feminism sweeping Europe and the US. It sprang up pretty spontaneously after a Canadian police officer dredged up the old sore of females dressing like ‘sluts’, and thereby poor chaps couldn’t but help themselves but commit sexual attacks on women. So women have only themselves to blame….Demeaning to both sexes, I’m sure you’ll agree but symptomatic of a widely held view.
Masses has been written on the subject but here are two articles I found particularly helpful; I’d like to share them with you. One is from the US and the other from the very excellent Suzanne Moore writing in The Guardian newspaper.
Click here for the US article, and here to read Suzanne. Let me know what you think. Would you join a slutwalk? Have you been on one?
Right, anyone for a slutwalk? Apparently you can dress just as you wish. There’s a novel idea…
Picture Credit: McKenna71
Is Being Assertive Too ‘Male’ for Women?
Do you think that running seminars in assertiveness is selling women short?
As a specialist in women’s development and someone who runs courses for women, and coaches women regularly, I obviously read a lot on my subject and try to keep myself as up to date with the research as much as I can.
I read something recently which pulled me up short and caused to take a serious look at what I do professionally. I’m quoting out of context but it’s the essence which is important. I was reading some research by a serious academic writing about communication styles and she said, in effect, that teaching women to be more assertive could be seen as teaching them to be more like men. And if you’ve read much of my work you’ll know this is emphatically what I don’t want to do, yet I do help women behave more assertively. Crikey!
So am I being hoist by my own petard here? It has caused me to seriously reflect on what I am actually doing when I work with women to feel more in control and to behave more assertively. Am I teaching them to behave like men or am I helping to increase their confidence in handling potentially difficult or fraught situations, and in dealing with men in the workplace?
A Short History of Assertiveness
I think it might help to define terms at this point.
Obviously assertive behaviour has been around since the year dot. In recent history the Civil Rights movement in the US in the 50s adopted many assertive principles when they respectfully and peacefully challenged the discrimination laws in the southern states.
The actual term assertiveness was probably coined somewhere around the nineteen sixties when psychologists began to study human behaviour in the same way that anthropologists had always studied animal behaviour. Books like ‘I’m OK, You’re OK’ were very popular, and different communication styles were looked at. This being the 60s I would agree the concept was very male centric as there was no serious challenge then to the notion that being male was the norm.
In the 70s the women’s movement took up the notion of assertiveness and used it as a means of growing in confidence to possibly play men at their own game. Movements like ‘Reclaim the Night’ sprung up when women were ‘taught’ to walk tall, not look like victims and have assertive body language. Late night walks were organised with the aim of dispelling victim fear among women. I have no problems with being identified with that.
It’s in the 80s that I think it all went wrong. The eighties were generally a time of me me, greed is good etc and predictably courses in assertiveness followed the fashion. I had my first encounter with assertiveness training then, a full week’s residential course and I remember thinking, “well, if this is assertiveness, you can stuff it”.
It was awful, very much a case of ‘I’ll win and you’ll lose.’ Is this a male way of thinking? The course leader was male, most of the writing was by guys, and most of the participants on my course were male. Research shows that when men talk amongst themselves it tends towards competitiveness. This way of looking at assertiveness was all about winning, competing. Much of what we had learned about good communication was also appropriated by sales trainers and used to establish a false rapport to sell more. I saw it more as a manipulative technique rather than a useful tool. Assertiveness got bad name during the eighties.
The next time I seriously began to think about the concept of assertiveness was a few years later when working with women in abusive situations. The issue boiled down to one of self respect: the personal issue, I mean. Obviously there is a whole raft of material and theories on why men abuse women which has little to do with women respecting themselves. I’m talking about the link between self respect and choice of partner here. These women had very little self esteem. Helping them to be more assertive in their daily lives increased their self esteem, their confidence, and consequently their ability to deal with the situations they were in. We did not work with them to behave like men.
Some years ago, shortly after setting up my own business, I was asked at short notice if I could take over an assertiveness course within an organisation as the previous person had left suddenly. I agreed but was shocked by the course details presented to me. The previous tutor had been male, had actually been a car salesman in a previous life (nothing wrong with that, just filling in the background) and his course was firmly rooted in the 80s, you won or lost, according to how you played the game. Needless to say I designed my own programme, which incidentally was well received by both men and women.
Definition of Assertiveness
I think assertiveness is about respecting yourself, valuing what you bring to the table, and having the confidence to speak up. It’s not about being aggressive, or staying quiet and being passive or any combinations thereof. Essentially it is about extending that level of respect to others. You have the right to say what you feel and believe honestly, and others have that that right too.
So on reflection, no, I don’t think what I do is about teaching women how to be like men. I think it’s about self respect, self esteem, and confidence and valuing self and others. And that doesn’t belong to any one gender, surely?
Keep Your Power!
Are you aware just how much personal power you have? I’m not talking about authority you have over other people because of status or wealth, or physical strength, but your inner command of yourself. How you actually feel, regardless of external trappings.
When I am working one to one with people who are experiencing difficulties with colleagues, the issue of personal power is often key in understanding and dealing with the problem. Ask yourself:
“Why are you giving away your power? Why are you letting ‘them’ have this degree of power over you?” (Obviously there are multitude of reasons for that which is why we’re talking in the first place!) Try to fully understand the situation you find yourself in from all angles.
Personal power is a funny thing. You experience a sense of power when you feel in control of your life yet can feel really powerless even if you’re the top woman in your organisation. Feeling powerful helps you achieve your goals. Projecting personal power appropriately helps you influence others. It’s worth paying attention to it consciously.
Communication is Powerful
Considerable power comes from the ability to communicate really well; think about some of the great orators of our time (and if you’ve seen the film, The King’ s Speech, you’ll appreciate how our influential our upbringing can be, regardless of wealth or status).
People who are in control of their personal power don’t play the blame game much. Once you start blaming, or attributing consequences for you to someone else, you are effectively giving away your power. This commonly translates as:
“They make me feel….”
Stop right there. No one can make you feel anything. It’s the one area you have control. ‘They‘ may wish to make you feel small, insignificant etc but you can choose not to let them sap your personal power in this way. In the free world we all make choices about what we do, where we live, (within reason), who are our friends, what books we read, etc. Once we start allowing other people to control our feelings we are giving away power.
Choose Energy & Optimism
Power includes enthusiasm and optimism and power is related to self-esteem and confidence. So it follows that if you give it away your energy and confidence gets zapped too. And that’s a hard place to recover from. If you find yourself in that position, just ask yourself: “How much will I let this person/situation into my inner personal me. OK, I have to work here,( at the moment), I have to put up with cuts in service, changes in practise, changes in personnel. Or I may choose to stay in this relationship right now for various reasons, but deep within me I can remain intact”.
Become aware of the impact of other people on you, communicate with them assertively but respectfully and keep hold of your personal power!
How To Increase Your Assertiveness in 10 Easy Steps!
When I’m running my assertiveness seminars it is obvious that some people seem to be more naturally assertive than others; they have a degree of confidence in dealing with people. But that doesn’t mean others can’t learn to be more assertive and acquire the skills necessary. It’s great to get to the end of an assertiveness session and see how people have grown in confidence, even in just one day!
Here are my ten top assertiveness techniques. Practise them regularly and you will really see if a difference.
1. Distance and personal space
We all have our personal space limits so make sure people keep to yours. It’s important not to let someone you don’t know intimately invade your space (this is passive aggressive behaviour; it’s manipulative). When you start to feel uncomfortable that’s your cue. Set your boundaries clearly, either verbally or non-verbally. You might, for example, step backwards to give yourself more space.
2 Broken Record Technique
I am slightly ambivalent about including this as it can turn out to be aggressive behaviour itself. But done correctly, with people you don’t need to have an ongoing relationship with (cold callers for example) it can be very useful. You state clearly and politely what you want (or don’t want) and when you meet with resistance you simply politely repeat it, again and again and… Warning -I don’t think this is helpful with a colleague as it doesn’t actually resolve anything and will irritate the pants off them! But in the right place it can b every effective indeed.
3. Disclosure
Sharing some information about yourself can be very effective when you want to honest and upfront about something you feel the listener may not fully be aware of, or understand. An example of this could be someone with hearing loss asking the other person to speak up because they are a hard of hearing. Or perhaps sharing how nervous you feel in a situation, and how you would welcome their support.
4.Fogging
Fogging is simply agreeing with what the other person is saying and not allowing it to get to you. Literally in through one ear and out the other. When someone criticizes you, you agree by saying something like “You’re right, my dress doesn’t really match my handbag,” or “I think you’re right, I have put on weight over Christmas; I ate too much.” When you use the fogging technique it’s best to see all criticism as feedback. You let it ride over you and don’t get involved with what’s being said. It can be a really good way to defuse a verbal attack and shows your critic just how adult and confident you are.
5. Maintain eye contact
Good eye contact makes your listener feel that you respect them and it makes you look more confident to the other person. If you spend the conversation nervously glancing around you will look shifty, or gauche, or look as if you don’t care or respect what the other person is saying. Although be careful, too much eye contact and it may look as if you are staring them out and cause more trouble than you bargained for!
6. Watch your posture and body language
If you slouch down you are making yourself physically smaller and this can appear less confident; you may also appear lazy or shy. Nether do you want to be ram rod straight and military (unless you are military, of course!) Try to hold yourself comfortably ‘tall’ and walk slowly when entering a room and you will look more assertive, however you are feeling inside!
7. And when seated..
When you sit make sure you are sitting upright. Don’t cross you legs or fold your arms – it’ll make you look nervous or aggressive. Sitting up makes you look more alert, interested in the listener and interesting to the listener. And remember, people LOVE being listened to. Listening well is the first rule in being more assertive so make sure you show that you are listening as well as doing it.
8. And while we’re on listening…
Make sure you are an active listener by practising active listening skills. Repeating briefly what the other person has said when appropriate is a good assertiveness skill to learn. Make sure you keep it short and don’t interrupt the speaker when they’re in full flow. You can use phrases like “Can I just check that I have this right, your view is…” or “So you’re saying… is this correct?”
9. Tone of voice
Often when we get nervous our voice goes up a few octaves and a bit of a high pitched squeak comes out. This is not good to listen to and will weaken your points. You may speak faster too with everything coming out in a nervous full on rush. If you have a tendency to speak quickly in stressful situations try silently counting to two each time before you speak. And deep breathing helps, (but don’t hyperventilate). A few deep breaths before you speak will also help calm you down. If your voice tends to get higher pitched then imagining the sound coming out of your chest will help to keep it at a deeper tone making you sound more confident.
10. Value your time
Value your time but also value others. If you are always late for meetings etc you are not being respectful of other people so can hardly expect to be treated with respect yourself. Also consider this, being consistently late for meetings or appointments can indicate a lack of self-worth. If you are always late spend some time thinking about why. And don’t over compensate by giving lots of time to other people when it isn’t necessary. You need to value yourself first.
I hope that quick run down has been helpful. Of course, there is masses more on the topic but these are just a few tips to act as an aide mémoire. Assertive women usually have high confidence levels and levels of inner self belief. And learning how to be more assertive can increase your confidence levels too!
What are your favourite tips?
And if you’d like some personal coaching on your assertiveness skills, contact me here. You can be amazing!
