Nidhi watched with disbelief as her two colleagues, who had just been quarrelling about budget cuts, became friends again as if nothing had happened. “How can you pretend that fight never happened?” she asked.
“Who’s pretending it never happened?” he replied, equally aghast at the question and the behaviour. “It happened,” he said, “and it’s over.” She was confused by his response. She couldn’t understand how he could forget about the argument they had just been through.
Men and women differ in their interpretation of communication rituals – men often take them at face value, while women often read into them more deeply. Women are often great at offering up compliments and kind words to soften the blow. However, men usually take this ritual opposition too literally, resulting in miscommunication and confusion. By understanding how men and women communicate, we can better interpret the opposite sex’s actions and avoid any potential misunderstandings.
At work, some people(mostly men) like to discuss ideas in a particular way. They will present their ideas in the most specific and complete form possible and then wait to see if they are challenged. For these people, being forced to defend an idea provides an opportunity to improve it. More often than not, they may play devil’s advocate in challenging others’ ideas, trying to put them down as a way of helping them explore and improve their ideas.
This communication style can be powerful if everyone participates in it, but those not used to it may need help following. If challenged, they may give up on an idea, taking the objections as a sign that the concept is not good. Even worse, they might take the opposition’s criticism personally and find it challenging to work at their best in a hostile setting. People not used to this style may be hesitant to share their ideas, fearing potential attacks. Ironically, this hesitance makes their opponents more likely to attack than to fend them off. Some consulting firms use confrontational interviewing to challenge the candidate to “crack a case” in real-time. A partner at one firm told me that women tend to do less well in this kind of interaction, and it certainly affects who gets hired. But many women who don’t do well during the test are doing exceptionally well in their careers, turning out to be way more intelligent than some men who look like they have aced the interview.
Confident people are never afraid of opposition because they know that it is a natural part of the process. Insecure people, on the other hand, are often fearful of opposing views because they fear their ideas might not be as good as they thought. If you are uncomfortable with verbal opposition, it is a sign that you are not confident in your ideas.
In organisations, individual managers’ effectiveness depends partly on their skill in negotiating authority. This skill is based not only on their position within the organisation but also on how their linguistic style reflects their status. How we speak can reinforce or undercut our efforts to negotiate authority. Speakers signal power and status by how direct or indirect they are in their language. Directness can be seen as a way of asserting dominance, while indirectness can be seen as a way of showing respect to the listener.
Despite the widespread belief that it’s best to say exactly what we mean, it is also one of the elements that vary most from culture to culture. Indirectness can cause enormous misunderstanding when speakers have different habits and expectations about how it is used. When it comes to telling others what to do, women are likely to be indirect. Girls learn from a young age that assertiveness and commanding others can lead to social sanctions like being labelled as “bossy.” Consequently, women often resort to using less direct methods to communicate their thoughts and intentions.
Unsurprisingly, men are likelier to be indirect when admitting fault or weakness. After all, boys are ready to push around boys who assume the one-down position. Isn’t it? What do you think?
More on it later