[kictanet] FYI - Who make better managers?

Sat Jan 26 15:25:43 EAT 2008

This is an interesting article on who makes better managers and I felt it might best explain the increase in women among top mangement and not by affirmative action but their own effort.

Maybe former President Moi knew more than most of us when he rejected the concept on affirmative action, nature has already given women the edge.

Its time the male of the species looked for alternative past times, the corporate world is not home anymore.

Regards

  Why companies need female managers

                        By Tim Weber

                        Business editor, BBC News website, in Davos

      When Helen Fisher speaks, the politically correct members of her audience are likely to flinch.

Declaring that she's "definitely not a feminist," the American
anthropologist from Rutgers University dissects the differences between
men and women. 

Men are more analytical; women are better long-term planners. 

Each gender has a different way of falling in love. 

And the invention of the plough did more to set back gender equality than anything else since.

What Ms Fisher says is not psychobabble. She bases her findings on
archaeological evidence, MRI brain scans, genetics and large-scale
surveys of how men and women behave. 
 And understanding that male and female brains develop
and behave differently is important not just if you are in the dating
game. 
 It also helps us to hire the right people, improve
teamwork and can - to quote part of the title of her talk at the World
Economic Forum in Davos - grow a company's bottomline. 

      Once upon a time

Double-income families are not an invention of modern times. 

"In prehistoric times, double-income families were the norm, and women provided 60-80% of the evening meal," says Ms Fisher.

But following the invention of the plough and with the resulting need for hard manual labour, the power balance shifted.

Only since World War I are women re-entering the workforce and regaining their status in society. 

But there are much more fundamental differences between men and women,
says Ms Fisher, that have been shaped over millennia of evolution. 

For starters, men and women are thinking differently. Brain scans prove it, as does plenty of other research.

On average, women gather more data, consider the context, are
intuitive, have a sympathising mind and think more long-term. Ms Fisher
calls it "web thinking". 

Men, on the other hand, are more focused, think linear, focus on rules and the short-term - "step thinking".

      The culprit

Blame testosterone for the difference. From the moment the embryo's
brain develops in the mother's womb, high testosterone levels will make
you focus on details in later life. 

Now lift your hand and look at your palm. Is the ring finger longer
than your index finger? Then you were the recipient of high levels of
testosterone. 
 Chances are that you are an analytical thinker (or very
musical), regardless of gender, while a shorter ring finger suggests
you have a more sympathising mind. And men tend to grow up on lots of
testosterone. 
 You want proof? Research shows that film scripts
written by women are more complex and have more ambiguous endings than
those written by men. 

Male doctors focus on the illness and its treatment, while female doctors take a more holistic approach.

The long-term thinking of women makes them better investors.

It's even true in the bedroom, says Ms Fisher. Men tend to focus more
on what they are doing, while women are easily distracted, she says to
slightly embarrassed laughter from her audience. 
 And when men get older and their testosterone levels
sink, their brain starts to work differently - they become more
sympathetic to the plight of others. 

But why the difference? Well, over the ages men tended to be the hunters and needed to focus. 

Women, in contrast, had much more diverse tasks, like bringing up
children (which Ms Fisher also believes may be the reason why women are
better talkers: language is the key tool to control children). 

      The business case

So what does all this mean for business leaders?

Combine the long-term thinking of women with the short-term focus of men.

And bear in mind that different thinking also results in very different behaviour. 

Men think more in terms of status and rank. Women prefer flat hierarchies. 

Men can have tunnel vision, women may fail to get to the point.

Women find it difficult to counter aggression. When men push back, it earns them the respect of other men. 

When women apologise, they are not really sorry. For men it's a serious affair, a perceived weakening of their status.

Ms Fisher's list goes on and on, but her message is clear.

Managers, says Ms Fisher, have to realise that men and women act differently, and that they complement each other.

Having only men or women on your team would be like hopping on one foot instead of walking.

As the status of women is on the rise again, says Ms Fisher, we "move forward to a lifestyle we had a million years ago".

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/7209353.stm

Published: 2008/01/26 00:09:17 GMT

© BBC MMVIII

Robert Yawe
KAY System Technologies Ltd
Phoenix House, 6th Floor
P O Box 55806 Nairobi, 00200
KEnya 
Tel: +254722511225

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