Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [41]
“You wanna come play wif me?” Johnny asks of his new friend.
What happened here? Mr. Henderson adapted his communication style to the person he was speaking with and won his affection. I’m sure you’ve either done this or have seen others do it. It’s the only way to win over children in the beginning.
Does the same thing work with adults? Absolutely.
In order to communicate more effectively and quickly form a relationship that opens up maximum potential, your communication style has to make the other person feel comfortable. The question is, are you currently doing this with members of the opposite sex? Are you being flexible and adaptable in your communication style, or are you just doing what’s comfortable for you without regard to adapting to what other people may like? Men and women communicate very differently. Therefore it is up to each sex to adapt to the other’s style. This will form quick and strong bonds.
Men, this is what we need to do in our conversations with women, not in a condescending or patronizing way, but sincerely, with the goal of developing a relationship. This goes for ANY type of relationship. Some people do this naturally and some don’t. If we want to create meaningful relationships in business, this is where we must begin. We must make a conscious effort to adapt our style and that will allow us to bond through communication.
Why We Act the Way We Do
Dr. Deborah Tannen conducted a behavioral communication study of young boys and girls to see how they would act when asked to just have a conversation while being videotaped. The boys were extremely uncomfortable with this request, while the girls of all ages had no problem with it. Immediately the girls faced each other and started talking, which led to a conversation about one of their problems.
Boys, on the other hand, sat parallel to each other and jumped from topic to topic. The topics all related to making plans to “do” something together. For boys, activities, doing things together, are central. Just sitting and talking is not an essential part of friendship. Boys are friends with the boys they do things with.
Females, on the other hand, use conversation to create closeness and intimacy; for females, conversation is the essence of intimacy, so being best friends means sitting and talking.
It is important for women to understand that male communication is all about status. Think about all those nature shows you’ve seen on PBS. The prime goal of male beasties is mating; and to do this they must be powerful enough to challenge the lead males in the herd. As they grow up, they bide their time until mating by establishing a pecking order. When a beastie is big and strong enough to have most of the other males “under” him, he is ready to take on the “old man.” If he wins the fight, he gets to mate with the females of his choice (and they will mate only with him). Human males act in the exact same way.
This dynamic is important to remember when looking at another major area of miscommunication between men and women. Women cannot understand the resistance men seem to have when asked for assistance or consideration of some kind or another. Women must remember the above scenario and understand that when men do what they’re asked to do, it means they have lost status in that relationship. Men often feel that women are trying to manipulate them. What a woman might see as a simple request is seen by her man as an attempt to manipulate him into a “one-down” position.
Dr. Tannen elaborates, “Women want men to do what we want. If a woman perceives that something she’s doing is really hurting a man, she wants to stop doing it. If she perceives that he really wants her to do something, she wants to do it. She thinks that that’s love and he should feel the same way about her. But men have a gut-level resistance to doing what they’re told, to doing what someone expects them to do. It’s the opposite response of what women have.