Want to make sure you’re getting the most from your people by creating a truly inclusive workplace? Turns out you should consider communicating to both sides of the ‘gender brain’.
You’re probably aware of ‘left brain/right brain theory’, which supposes our left brain is logical, mathematical and linear, and our right brain is intuitive, holistic and creative. But what on earth is the gender brain? And how can it help us to create inclusive workplaces?
In their book, All the brains in the business, Kate Lanz and Paul Brown put forward the premise that existing workplace culture is primarily geared towards getting the best performance from a typically ‘male’ brain.
This isn’t a case of any conscious discrimination, but instead the suggestion that common organisational culture and specific work practices – meetings, performance reviews, coaching conversations – are often more geared up to suit a ‘male’ brain than a ‘female’ brain. We all go through states of ‘survive’ and ‘thrive’ in our daily lives, according to the neuroscience, and these working practices create a ‘thrive’ space more in males than females.
This ingrained bias towards the ‘male’ brain leads to the wastage of female team members’ brainpower. Not great for productivity, and even worse for the drive towards inclusive workplaces – surely it’s well worth considering a different approach. But isn’t that easier said than done?
Brain balancing for inclusive workplaces
Well, Lanz and Brown go on to explain that the goal isn’t necessarily equality – it’s more about valuing the differences between genders. How? By creating environments where female energy is able to continue to emerge as a quality of value.
So how can we communicate for both sides of the gender brain and work towards more inclusive workplaces?
Based on the tried-and-tested business examples from Lanz and Brown, here are a few recommendations:
Trust is everything
Put trust first. If people feel trust as the first emotion, they’re more capable of learning, being resilient and being creative. There’s no secret path to trust, but by keeping our promises and being transparent we can avoid being mistrusted, which is very difficult to come back from professionally and personally.
Use the RICH™ communication model
All brain genders respond well when communicated to in this order:
- Recognition – Recognise, appreciate, and understand where your audience is coming from
- Intention – Be clear about what the situation is, build trust that there are no hidden surprises and no hidden agendas
- Challenge – State the challenge you’re facing and offer an initial solution, before making it clear that other suggestions are welcome
- Hope (vision) for outcomes – State what the outcome should be. From a neuroscience point of view, people feel dopamine when they know they’ve achieved something – so put a line in the sand and celebrate when you cross it.
Run meetings differently
Change how you manage meetings by making sure everybody has their say, no matter their position, paygrade or gender. Lanz suggests the 4Cs meeting model™ where, in a meeting, you should:
- Connect with everybody in the room
- Show Compassion and be conscious of any bias
- Be Curious about everybody’s opinions
- Display Control, and rein in those that may take over the meeting.
My personal belief is that both sex and gender aren’t binary, and all of us are somewhere between male and female on a sliding scale. For me, this is what makes ingrained inclusivity so important for all organisations to be able to flourish. And, as communicators, we know so much of this starts and ends with us.
If you want help in building inclusive workplaces through balanced communication, get in touch with us for a cuppa.
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