Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [88]
“As females grow up, they're not encouraged I0 believe in their perceptions or observations,” says social psychologist Allana Elovson. “People talk about women's intuition, but we're often ridiculed for it. When we do use our intuition and we're right, it's attributed to luck or hard work instead.”
And yet learning to trust your gut is essential for anyone in business. The gutsy women I know all say they rely on their gut to guide them. A New Jersey Institute of Technology survey found that 80 percent of those company leaders who had doubled their company profits in a five-year period had above-average powers of intuition.
Why is it so important? Because if you allow yourself to be overwhelmed by constant analysis, lots and lots of rules, and the negative vibes of people who react to a great idea as if it's a bad smell, you may never pursue the boldest, most creative, rule-bending way of doing something.
More and more research shows that women may actually be capable of greater accuracy in their gut reactions than men Anne Moir, Ph.D., and David Jessel, authors of Brain Sex, The Real Difference Between Men & Woman, point out that women have superiority in many of the senses, which makes them better equipped at picking up social cues, such as important nuances of meaning from a person's tone of voice or intensity of expression. According to the authors, women also can store, for short periods at least, more irrelevant and random information than men And that's not all. In one study it was discovered that the two sides of the brain, connected by the corpus callosum, have a larger number of connections in women. This means that more information is being exchanged between the left and right sides of the female brain The Brain Sex authors conclude that since women are in general better at recognizing the emotional nuances in voice, gestures, and facial expressions, they can deduce more from such information than men because they have a greater capacity to integrate and cross-relate it.
This may be how the notion of women's intuition developed, although, as psychologist Dr. Allana Elovson says, that “asset” is often ridiculed or considered operative only in silly matters, such as knowing that your long lost cousin is about to call from Phoenix.
A gutsy girl recognizes, however, that her gut is a powerful tool and she learns to listen to it. How does she know when it's talking to her? She may feel a rumble or knot in her stomach if something isn't “quite right.” When she's got a winning idea, there's a rush of adrenaline or a buzzing in the brain, or perhaps even a weird “sixth sense.” In an article about Tina Brown, Vanity fair contributing editor Kevin Sessums says that Brown knows that an article is right if her nipples get hard when she reads it.
HOW TO DEVELOP A GOLDEN GUT
You probably feel nervous about letting go of your data sheets and operating on gut instinct. Here, then, is a beginner's approach. It will allow you to learn gradually to develop your gut—with a safety net in place.
Go Ahead, Do Your Homework
As a good girl, one of the reasons you probably feel anxious about relying on instinct is that for years you've been told to do the opposite. You've always been instructed to study hard, get all the facts, and be prepared. Using your gut seems like winging it—or even cheating.
Well, the truth is that a good gut reaction often comes from having done your homework, from having enough information at hand that an idea feels right for a reason.
“A lot of the time, intuition is actually a groundswell of the experience you've had and the information you've learned over the years,” says Mother's Work president Rebecca Matthias.
Take the Demi cover. My initial reaction to that photograph was influenced by information