Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [57]
FAMILY: AN EQUAL OPPORTUNITY ENDEAVOR
Greater numbers of men are taking on more family obligations as their spouses work. Guys! Guess what? That takes some of the income responsibility off your plate, delegates some of that workload to women, allows them to share that responsibility, and creates adjustments that will benefit you.
Of course you need to network during times that balance managing a household and your family life. Additional hurdles are if your employment hours are late at night and you can’t get to early morning breakfast meetings, or if your job starts very early and there’s no room for flexibility or understanding from your employer on an occasional later start time. You may want to broach the subject with your boss to see if it’s even an option.
Additionally, if your workday really gets hopping midafternoon, frenetic with client meetings or trips across town, you may want to avoid networking lunch meetings because you might have a hard time getting there in a timely manner.
Choose what works in harmony with your lifestyle and schedule. Evening may be your quality family or social time, so committing to evening meeting groups, even if you could get to some of them, could cause stress and challenges for you in the long run. Remember that you have to be involved with the group in a committed way over time if you expect to get optimum results. That means the time you budget toward the organization isn’t just dedicated to the typical meetings.
Allow room in your schedule so that you may also donate time to subcommittees within the group or volunteer to coordinate or lead projects and possibly come early and stay late for meetings. All of these details are the labor of love you invest in the organization, and ultimately, your business. All too often people join groups when they really don’t have the time to remain actively involved with them in a quality way. It’s better to belong to fewer groups that you can really invest in than lots of groups that you wind up not showing up for or only shallowly participating in. You’ll just get frustrated by lack of results if you don’t choose the former, not to mention that the organization will miss out on any benefits your deeper participation would have brought to the table, had you focused on quality, rather than quantity.
The Survey Says . . .
Family Obligations
Although family obligations were not a big issue to most, Figure 4.1 shows that women generally found it to be a problem slightly more than did men; 37 percent of our women respondents said sometimes to always (25.1 percent plus 11.9 percent combined), compared with 32.8 percent (23.2 percent plus 9.6 percent) of men for the same categories. This is not a huge difference, but it is statistically significant.
FIGURE 4.1—Family Obligations by Gender
One female respondent added:
Networking events are attended by fewer women because they have family commitments.
Another woman said:
Women tend to network less due to family obligations, especially those with young children.
Again, the degree of the problem does not appear to match the vocalization of the problem. Though these responses indicate women found family obligations to be slightly more of an obstacle to networking than did men, the survey reflects that family obligations don’t represent a substantially larger challenge for them than their male counterparts.
WHAT’S THE MATTER?
Why is each gender troubled with its own unique obstacles to networking? From family responsibilities to other scheduling challenges such as lack of motivation or problems being assertive, women have a gamut of preoccupations that act as obstacles to networking. Men seem to have more trouble with social mores and practicing sensitivity in the networking process.
A fascinating study by psychology professor Richard Haier of the University of California, Irvine, in conjunction with colleagues from the University of New Mexico, delves into the matter of matter—that is, the gray and white matter that make up our