Business Networking and Sex - Ivan Misner [63]
As a woman, I have on occasion visited women’s networking organizations and have found that rather than being positive and productive, those groups I’ve been to often digressed to men-bashing. I choose not to be part of that type of culture. I’ve also visited organizations where membership was primarily male, and found an “old boys’ club” that was very hard to connect into as a woman. I much prefer networking groups with a balance of men and women that respect and see one another as business equals—that’s what I tend to find in BNI.
FIGURE 5.1—Gender Preference for Type of Networking Event
It’s interesting that men expressed opinions about preferring both structured and nonstructured events. How linear can you get? If men like both types of events but express that by saying they prefer both equally, how is that different from the women preferring neither and liking them all? If you prefer neither and like them all, doesn’t that mean the same thing as liking both? Both women and men are fine with both types of events, but the way they each expressed that is noteworthy. Does the greater flexibility of women reflect the current hypothesis that women naturally think with both sides of the brain, using the right (“creative”) and left (“logical”) sides together, where men favor one side? This respondent seems to think the female combination is a good formula:
I do think the attributes of women’s brains allow us to instantly understand relationships and the underlying needs of prospective referrals that men may not see. It is my forte—connecting people with people. I attribute my many monthly referral awards at my BNI chapter partly to my female brain and its ability to farm for referrals for others.
He Says . . .
These statistics do a good job showing part of the difference between men and women in business and life in general. Men said they preferred either structured or unstructured networking events. Women don’t really care. They like them all.
As focused, results-oriented business professionals, we men like both structured networking meetings (like at BNI) or unstructured ones (like chamber mixers), but we need the meeting style to be defined before we get there so we can be prepared. We want to be able to put together a strategy or plan of attack, and plan for the types of rewards that are going to be at the meeting. If we know ahead of time, we can get our arsenal of tools ready to score goals, capture prey, or in general, just bring home the bounty. I’m pretty impressed with my gender’s flexibility and ability to go with the flow and be open to both structured and unstructured events. I think it says a lot about our competency in rising to whatever occasion presents itself.
This finding is consistent with the male focus on our roles as providers. Both types of networking events have value to us; they just need to be attacked in different ways. Men have a variety of strategies to use for differing scenarios, and the two distinctive strategies we use on these events in particular are focused on producing the same results.
The structured event style is very appealing because it’s predictable. Because I know what’s coming, it allows me to put a system in place that keeps me focused on the end result. Structure means purpose. Knowing that the event program is stable allows me to measure, analyze, adapt, and change my strategic implementation on the move. Because we men tend to be more transaction-oriented and measure our success by the amount of business that we close, we like structure because it supports our constant intention to plan for and do just that.
Unstructured events are also very valuable because they leave a lot of the agenda up to me. For example, at a chamber of commerce networking event I sometimes decide to spend my time with the people I know well to build deeper relationships with them, but at other times I see a need to reach out and meet new people and develop