Daisy will learn to sit

Daisy will sit down someday.

My sister relayed a very cute story to me the other day. My 2.5 year old niece, Daisy, is starting to potty-train. She indicated a desire to “go potty” which my sister immediately took her up on. As a mother of 3…with Daisy following 2 very active big brothers, my sister was understandably excited to finish with diapers!

Well, Daisy sat, tried to go, and NO GO. So, she then indicated that she needed to go “#1”, which my sister also supported whole-heartedly. Any donation to the potty chair would be appreciated that day! Daisy promptly stood up, turned, faced the potty chair, picked up the little bowl from the chair, held it under herself and went potty….standing up that is!

Of course we and others whom we have told the story to found it very cute. Who would think a little girl would copy the bathroom habits of her brothers instead of the bathroom habits of the other female in the house. Maybe Daisy is not old enough to know that there are gender norms for bathroom activities and she thinks standing is simply easier? Maybe she just likes emulating her big brothers whom she loves immensely and are closer in age to her than mom?

Whatever the reasons, the story struck me with renewed thoughts about one of my favorite topics/perplexities from the business world: Women and leadership.

Yes it is a very simple analogy and it may be a stretch to compare a toddler’s learning to the learning of women as we engaged in careers traditionally occupied by men. But please bear with me……it is not so much an analogy as a reminder.

How do we as human beings learn?

I assert that humans learn in basically 3 ways:

1)      Experience: including practice, experimentation, and just hard knocks

2)      Reading/Reflecting/Memorizing: both absorbing and reflecting on stories and theories of others

3)      Assessing history. The best predictor of the future is to look at the past and opining on whether the future will be similar or different….based on some logic.

So, it is quite logical, if you are trying to learn something new, what many of us do first is observe others doing the “something”, then we try it ourselves.

So, for Daisy, she observed her brothers. For women who embarked on the business world as individuals, we observed our brothers in business…..for most of us, there was nobody else to observe. We were merely embarking on the business world determined to be seen as genderless, determined to accomplish great things. We learned from our leaders and co-workers; we learned from men.

Reflecting back, was our learning greatly hindered? Fact is, people are individuals, motivated by many different things, influencing others in many different ways. Fact is, men and women are different. Deborah Tannen wrote about natural communication differences between people. Ms. Tannen is a communications expert…so of course, her initial book was about communication differences between all difference categories, cultural, etc. Her assessment of gender differences originated as a mere chapter in a book. By popular demand, she analyzed and wrote much more about the Gender differences in communication with GenderSpeak, You Just Don’t Understand and many other books. 

So, for the most part (there are always exceptions, right!), men and women communicate differently…..women use WAY more words. Men seem to communicate quite effectively with mere grunts to one another. So, should it surprise us that as women embarked on the business world , that maybe just once or twice, a woman or two was frustrated because she found it difficult to communicate with and influence men?

I think that the “chip” on the shoulder that I see with too many senior women in business is a direct result of many years of frustration with their experiences in the man’s world of business and organizations. I think that in fact the most effective women are those who understand that men and women are individuals, regardless of the examples that we as women have to see, it is up to us to determine the most effective way to influence the individuals whom we are working with…..who happen to be men. No chip, just smart effective work, without defensiveness. This will help us achieve success over the long haul…..and establish great examples for women in business growing and learning behind us.