by ARMELLE STOLTZ
Do you know that gender diversity creates greater value among a team?
Most companies which have gender diversity at top level are experiencing higher results.
Why is it so?
Men and women are equal in numbers, not equal in value.
Then you need both to go further.
Imagine you have only one right shoe or only one left shoe: How can you walk? Ok. You can walk. Kind of…hop…hop…
What if you had the left shoe too? You could run!
How men and women are complimentary?
They have complimentary:
- Way of expressing selves
- Consideration for events
- Objectives to solve problems
- Way of thinking
- Decision making process
Having a gender diversity leadership team will help considering the whole spectrum in decision making, avoiding to focus only on one restricted area, reminding blind of another, because the other gender is absent.
Examples:
# In a male environment, you may be focusing on the production result for the client rather than on the quality of the relation with the client.
# In a female environment, you may spend lots of time analyzing the pros and cons of a decision, hypothesis, and be delayed.
To succeed in your diverse team, you may come to a meeting with an empty head and:
- be careful never make the leadership environment a “male”/”female” environment
- prohibit assumptions to each gender (“she is too emotional” or “he does not care about my values”) and assume all are oriented towards benefits for the company
- deeply take into consideration what the other gender expresses, even if you don’t like it.
- Instead ask the question: What is it that you don’t like in what has just been said? What is she/he really meaning by that
- Ask specific questions , rephrase to make sure everybody understand each other (“what do you think?” has a different resonance when it comes to a woman – she will give you explanations, share experiences- or to a man – he will think he has to fix it by a decision, now!)
Diversity Intelligence is about Listening to each others, and more attentively to those who are different, looking at the other one as a partner, not as an agitator.
Diversity applies to genders. It also applies to cultures, in a global organization, in a global world.
This is what we call collective Intelligence: make the most out of the diversity, not the worst.
Make the diversity be wealth, not a complex thing.
How you do that?
By listening deeply to each other, assuming everyone is willing to contribute positively to the team, to the organization.
Armelle Chedal Anglay
Internal Coach
Contact: 0127123408
acanglay@technip.com
