Perhaps my awareness is different because I’ve worked in male-dominated fields .  I’ve been an engineering student, worked as a draftsman and technician for engineering firms, worked in IT as a technician and project manager in environments where the male-to-female ratio was 8-to-2 on average.

There were times when it was a greater stretch; I might be the only female out of an entire department of fifty men.

(Boy-howdy, can you feel the power of estrogen in that kind of group…)

I’ve also worked in businesses where the majority of staff were women – retail, insurance, customer service for a technical product.  The male-to-female ratio was reversed, 2-to-8 or in some cases, no men at all.

I can tell you they are very different places to work when mostly men or mostly women.

I thought of this last night after attending a meeting, the lone woman in a group of men discussing political issues.  I’ve plenty to compare it to, since I’ve been attending meetings every month on similar topics in women-only groups.

Neither group set out to be homogenous by gender; it just happened that way.  I’d expected there to be a few women last night in the group but they didn’t show.

What I noticed last night was quite different from other situations where attendance was split, male-female.  The questions asked were different, more tightly focused on operations and details, asking questions about gaps in what should be linear processes.  There were complaints about personalities, but no exploration about the why behind certain personalities until guided to do so.

By contrast, the all-female group I met with on Sunday was all about relationships.  I heard similar complaints about similar personalities, but the exploration into why any particular troublesome personality ran deep.  One person about whom the male group complained had also been a topic of conservation in the women’s meeting – and the women knew about alcohol, drug and health problems that might be the root cause of the conflicts.  The women knew this person worked long hours and traveled a lot, knew about specific frictions between this individual and others that might cause problems with introducing new “products”, could sketch out game plans A and B to work with or around this problematic personality.  There was no question of his role authority, no discussion about changing leadership roles that would remove this person as an obstruction.

The men on the other hand were stunned that they’d have to wait two years to remove this personality from a position of authority.  They asked why someone in the hierarchy hadn’t dealt with this situation already, talked about the points at which this person had failed the system and how badly he’d failed by benchmarked percentages on specific issues.  They also talked about alternative leaders to replace this person.

Completely different reactions.  I was rather surprised at the relative passivity of the men towards this problem individual; I’d like to explore this further, watch to see if there’s a point at which the guys develop a solution.  The women, on the other hand, acted as if this was a given that they would have to find work-arounds through other persons within the network in order to accomplish their ends without making waves with the problem individual.  The women just plunged in and kept going.

Granted, there are other factors at work within these two groups; the women are older, tend to be amiable personalities (Myers-Briggs).  The men, on the other hand, tended to be analytical personalities.  Amiables tend to concentrate on relationships and everybody getting along; analyticals concentrate on linear processes and avoid conflict.  The behavior of these two groups followed these trends.

But are men inherently more likely to be analytical and women more likely to be amiable?

What would happen if these two groups worked together, too?  How would the process and outcomes change?

I can tell you that my previous experience working with groups that were primarily men or primarily women also mirrored the process and outcomes of these two political groups.  What does that say about workplaces at large?

And what does this say about Larry Summers, whose workplace at Harvard has become more male during his tenure?

9:53:27 AM    comment []