He Said, She Said
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Asking Questions
Another difference often seen between men and women is women generally ask more questions than men. We have all heard or experienced the anecdote about the man who refuses to stop to ask directions when lost. We get a good chuckle out of this story, but differences in how and when questions are asked can create real confusion in the workplace.
Asking questions means different things to men and women. Men ask questions for one purpose only: To gather information. For women, asking questions serves two purposes: One is to gather information but, as you've probably noticed, women will also ask questions when they already know the answers. Why? They want to show interest in what the other person has said to cultivate the relationship.
Overcoming Misunderstandings and Misinterpretations
Both management style and asking questions raise fundamental issues about the role of women in the workplace. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with different communication styles. Men are perfectly right to be more direct and ask fewer questions, while women and some men are simply more comfortable with a softer style of communicating. The problem arises when these differences lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations, which can ultimately disrupt teamwork and even derail someone's chances for upward mobility.
We need to look past our assumptions about the meaning of a particular manner of speaking to build better gender-mixed teams. Just because one person may be more abrupt does not mean he or she is cold, uncaring or uninvolved. On the other hand, a more tentative approach is not necessarily a sign of weakness, fear or lack of confidence. We communicate the way we do, because it is what we are taught. What matters is that we give each other a chance, that we get to know what lies behind the communication style and, most important, that we resist the urge to jump to premature conclusions about the meaning of a particular style.
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