Ben Compton wrote:
> Doc, I'm a bit surprised by the fact that you listed Men are from Mars,
> Women are from Venus. I have only read part of the book, at the request of
> my ex-wife, and found it to be very stereotypical. Could you explain why
> you listed the book, and how it has benefited you professionally?
Ben--you got a genuine chuckle from me when I read this question. The
chuckle exposed my sense of incongruity between the two facts you
presented. You thought it was stereotypical, and it was recommended by
your ex-wife.
I've had a number of books referred to me, over the years, by people who
were "different" than I by virtue of sex, race, religion, culture, and so
forth. Frequently those books hit me the way you were hit by Gray's book.
They stereotyped 'me' and made me feel uncomfortable with the picture they
drew of me (in the context of being stereotyped).
Now to answer your question. You'll notice, perhaps, that I use Tannen's
books and Gray's book together--all of them are about intergender
communications skills (some think Tannen's work is more relevant to
organizational life than Gray's). I've had many people ask for workshops
that help people (men and women) in organizations communicate better.
Much of the problems they appear to have are very similar to the problems
that men and women have in communicating with each other in their intimate
relationships. We use the same words but mean different things--and our
meta-language varies in meaning even more than our words do. While
researching this issue, we also found that personality styles contribute
to the confusion. By the time we added enneagrams (personality types) to
gender in observing communication styles--well, we had a relatively
complex learning workshop.
The most important lesson I learned from all of this was the point I try
to stress in the learnshops--and that is that we must look for our
similarities (of which we have so many more) than our differences in
working (and living) together. By being sensitive to the fact that we
are different, and using inquiry and advocacy skills; engaging in
self-differentiation; fluttering on the lower steps of that damned ladder
of inference instead of bounding over it--these are the skills that can
help us overcome our differences.
So, my long-winded response is that using other people's stereotypes to
look at yourself can be helpful to understand the gulf that exists between
yourself and others in communication styles. Gray's book is helpful in
this regard. But it should be used in the context of all those other
points I've mentioned--that may soften the harsh edges of it's
stereotyping.
-- "No one really listens to anyone else, and if you try it for a while you will see why." -Mignon McLaughlin Richard C. "Doc" Holloway Thresholds--developing critical skills for living organizations Please visit our new website, still at <http://www.thresholds.com/> <mailto:learnshops@thresholds.com>Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <rkarash@karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>