Women ‘Drive Success’

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COMPANIES perform better when they’ve got women in senior management positions, a business forum has been told.

Carolyn Kay, a non-executive director at Commonwealth Bank, said gender diversity should be viewed as a management essential.

”It’s important for women to be in decision-making levels to help reshape the culture of organisations,” Ms Kay said at the Women in Leadership forum in Sydney yesterday.

Ms Kay said several studies have shown that companies with three or more women in senior management roles outperformed those without any women at the top.

”There are many studies – by Harvard, Catalyst [and] McKinsey to name a few – that show a strong correlation between organisations with women at the top and the relative success of those organisations,” she said.

Ms Kay said it was important for Australia’s economic health that women were employed in executive positions ”for increasing the tax base, supporting the ageing population and lifting the household savings rate”.

Statistics from the Equal Opportunity for Women in the Workplace Agency show that females were 29 per cent of all new appointments to ASX 200 companies in 2011, compared to 25 per cent in 2010.

Tina Brothers, executive director of the Reibey Institute, said that corporate culture change could be achieved if it came from the top.

Read more at TheAge.com.

 

How To Succeed In Business By Really Trying

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No sugar coating here. Unless you’re fortunate enough to be born to take over a thriving family business or to get in on the ground floor of the next Facebook, the road to business success is seldom a simple one.
In my experience and observation, success is much less the product of one brilliant idea than of a great deal of hard work, well-executed and sustained over a long period of time.

Even in the best of times, no one will just hand you a position of great value for nothing. If your goal is vice president or partner or managing director, or the C-suite, or whatever role has captured your imagination, no one can guarantee you’ll attain it. But if hard work is the currency of success, there are things you can do to make that effort work as hard as possible for your up-and-coming career. So, with a tip of the cap to one of the greatest musicals ever (“How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying”), here are five activities that can be worth really trying to put extra time into.

Learn the business – If you work for a sizable organization, and perhaps if you don’t, chances are your business has considerable complexity. Take time to learn not just your particular role (that’s “table stakes”- you have to know it), but also to gain a broader understanding of the business: the competitive environment, the market forces at play, the company’s value proposition, sales model, pricing model, etc. No one’s expecting you to become an expert in all these fields, but gaining at least a working understanding of the key macro-level issues is always helpful. Familiarity with these larger issues senior management is grappling with will only enhance your decision-making capabilities in your own role.

Make yourself indispensable – Take time to really understand what your manager needs. Not just what is needed from you in your current role, but what are the troubling problems that keep him or her up at night? Is it help with PowerPoints, an upcoming presentation to a hostile audience, delicate personnel problems, or dealing with regulators… to name just a few of a thousand possibilities. Try to see things through the eyes of others. The more substantive assistance you can provide, the more gaps you can fill, the more valuable you’ll be to an organization.

Provide solutions, not problems – The normal state of senior management is too much to do in too little time. When wrestling with difficult issues in your own area, naturally, you can’t always solve all the problems yourself. But it definitely can be worth the extra time to not simply make your problems your manager’s. Instead, present your manager with a carefully thought-out range of viable options – ideally including your recommended solution – rather than just posing a vexing, time-consuming problem. This approach demonstrates your critical thinking capabilities, and can be an appreciated time saver for a person with little time to spare.

Be a great collaborator – Good team players are valued. Large complex projects always require people with diverse skills. Attitude matters; effective collaborators often find themselves in demand. Consider taking the time to volunteer for a large project that may be understaffed, even in an area outside your core expertise. This can be a way of broadening your skill set and business knowledge, plus demonstrating your motivation. Management appreciates self starters who ‘play well with others.’

Come early, stay late – The best point I can offer here is a story of my own. While I’m an advocate in theory for as much work-life balance as possible, the fact is, if you want to get ahead, there will be periods in a career where there are no substitutes for grindingly long hours. There was a period in my own career where I was especially motivated by the prospect of advancement and all that went with it, and had great respect for the organization and the work we were doing. Accordingly, I resolved to myself that no one in the 20-person department I worked in (including the SVP who managed the operation) would come in earlier or work later than I would. Did I always achieve that? No. But did my diligence catch the attention of senior management and ultimately help my career? Yes. (The assumption here of course is that you’re not simply sitting around long hours playing video games or writing to your aunt… but doing real work and adding value!)

In the end of course, occupational success is preordained for no one. Many talented people compete for relatively few coveted positions. But you can take certain actions to improve your odds. And if you do, regardless of how things turn out in a particular instance, at the very least you’ll have the benefit of broadening your skills and the satisfaction of knowing you gave your very best effort.

Victor Lipman
Contributor , Forbes Magazine

3 Tips to Achieving Your Goals

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Liza Tsapenko
Mars Venus Coach

Tips for the Workplace Part 2

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The need for improved communication between the sexes in the workplace is very important for the overall health and efficiency of all organizations. In the global economy in which we compete, we need to ensure that inefficiencies are “built in” and that we do not tolerate difficulties in communicating with the opposite gender. Awareness and training from the online video eWorkshop “Mars and Venus in the Workplace” can eliminate or correct difficulties and misunderstandings and have an immediate positive impact on your organization.

Let’s discuss another tip for each gender that can help you be more effective in your current role or position.

Tip for Women

We’ll begin with one that is very common when women communicate with men. When communicating with men, we teach women to come straight to the point and leave out unnecessary details and background information. Men usually communicate in a very direct way, and to women’s ears, a blunt way. Men do not take offense at this and will be very appreciative if a woman simply gets to the point without the added extras.

Don’t make sacrifices to justify a request. Instead, just ask directly for what you want. If he says no, ask again and be willing to negotiate. Men appreciate directness.

Tip for Men

The tip for men is to avoid lecturing a woman. Lecturing women is what can be called a boomerang strategy – you throw it out there, and then it comes back to hit you on the head. Involving rather than telling women always works best. If you continually tell or lecture a woman to do things, she will simply form the opinion that you are arrogant, don’t care about anyone else, and will be completely demotivated. Hence, her productivity will be greatly decreased. If you involve her, her ownership of the task increases, and so does her motivation and productivity. In the instance of lecturing a woman because she has done something wrong or made a mistake, it is extremely counterproductive. Most women can tell themselves off and beat themselves up far better than anything anybody else could do to them. If a woman is aware that she has made a mistake, she will already be internally telling herself off and accepting the blame or responsibility. Often, in this situation, she needs the man to be supportive, yet stern. Find the balance.

Are you ready to take your career to a whole new level and distinguish yourself at work? It’s going to take a little work on your part to learn the necessary skills and tools. Why not get started and improve your skills with a workshop that has the timely information to make you stand out in your organization and move your business or career forward?

Again, if you found this information helpful, click here to learn more about the online “Mars Venus Gender Intelligence course”.This live 5-session course will teach you how to bridge communication gaps, manage stress dynamics, and create deeper connections. Inspired by Dr. John Gray’s best-seller Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, this course offers lifetime access, science-backed tools, and personal coaching to help you build lasting harmony at home and at work.

The Relationships You Want. Start Here.

Mars Venus Coaching Team

Hitting Rock Bottom at Work and Surviving

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It’s rare today that your first job is also your last job. In the course of many people’s careers, as they gain time and experience, their positions change. Increased responsibility, in most cases, should mean increased pay. It can be tricky identifying a good time to move to a new position. If we’re fearful of the change, sometimes it takes hitting rock bottom, sometimes repeatedly, before we wake up and choose to be survivors and not a victim. How do we go from hitting rock bottom to surviving?

A lot of it lies in our perspective, how we internalize change, and how we incorporate our growing pains into the fabric of our lives. We can always increase our resiliency, or our ability to bounce back despite setbacks.

Our lives are such a kaleidoscope of colorful events if we choose to see it this way. It’s easy to focus on the pain, on what’s not going right. The real test of our character is our ability to face setbacks, discomfort, and failure and see it for what it is—find the lesson learned in the experience, and move on to better things as a more humble and compassionate person.

When we are at the bottom looking up, we often feel alone and unappreciated as we wonder if anyone cares about us or sees the pain through our tight smiles. Sometimes we ask ourselves what the point of going on is if we feel like our work isn’t valued. If we’ve royally screwed our personal relationships up (or lack thereof) by putting our job ahead of what’s really important to us, then it really can make us question the worth of our lives. Sometimes we hit rock bottom, because we are no longer interested in our job. We could be worn out or stressed to the max. What may really be going on is that we’re ready for a change. We’re having trouble finding purpose in what we do for our job. And we think that holding on to the way things are will keep things the same. However, when we resist change and hold on so tightly to the past or the future, we lose sight of what we’re doing in the here and now.

I have found throughout the years that a storm always precedes a fresh new beginning. Always.

When I find myself blocked or resisting a change in my job, it’s usually because I’ve outgrown the job. I’m ready for a new challenge—whether it’s more responsibility or a new career field. If I find myself anxious or dreading going into work, a storm is definitely brewing. Are you there right now?

Why not try identifying the why behind the pain, discomfort, boredom…the sooner we’re able to move past these negative feelings and beliefs, the sooner our next job will surface.

Hitting rock bottom means the only way to go is up. That we’ve outgrown the current experience and our soul is yearning for something more, something bigger, and something beyond our current situation. So ask yourself what you truly long for and how you can do something right now, today that will get you one step closer to that longing.

Step a little outside of your comfort zone.

Enlist the aid of someone with the experience and willingness to be a safe place that you can be vulnerable and explore what it is you really want.
You are definitely worth it—and the people whose lives you touch in your job will be profoundly affected by your interactions when your job is your passion. Who knows, your relationships may just fall into place as well. When you value your worth, and recognize the tenuous web that intricately spins us all together it will begin to make sense the sooner you work past the pain, longings, and yearnings, you will find happiness, compassion, and success in pursuing your passions.

If you are looking for fresh appraoch for relations, check out, Secrets of Successful Relationships. This online course is based on the groundbreaking work of John Gray, the world-renowned author of the phenomenal bestseller Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. In this course, Dr. Gray’s wisdom is presented by Rich Bernstein, the President and CEO of Mars Venus Coaching, who has been happily married for 33 years using these very principles. This course isn’t just about learning secrets; it’s about putting them into action to create new habits.

Lyndsay Katauskas, MEd
Mars Venus Coaching
Corporate Media Relations

Intelligence Is Overrated: What You Really Need To Succeed

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Albert Einstein’s was estimated at 160, Madonna’s is 140, and John F. Kennedy’s was only 119, but as it turns out, your IQ score pales in comparison with your EQ, MQ, and BQ scores when it comes to predicting your success and professional achievement.

IQ tests are used as an indicator of logical reasoning ability and technical intelligence. A high IQ is often a prerequisite for rising to the top ranks of business today. It is necessary, but it is not adequate to predict executive competence and corporate success. By itself, a high IQ does not guarantee that you will stand out and rise above everyone else.

Research carried out by the Carnegie Institute of Technology shows that 85 percent of your financial success is due to skills in “human engineering,” your personality, and ability to communicate, negotiate, and lead. Shockingly, only 15 percent is due to technical knowledge. Additionally, Nobel Prize-winning Israeli-American psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, found that people would rather do business with a person they like and trust rather than someone they don’t, even if the likeable person is offering a lower quality product or service at a higher price.

With this in mind, instead of exclusively focusing on your conventional intelligence quotient, you should invest in strengthening your EQ (Emotional Intelligence), MQ (Moral Intelligence), and BQ (Body Intelligence). These concepts may be elusive and difficult to measure, but their significance is far greater than IQ.

Emotional Intelligence

EQ is the most well-known of the three, and in brief, it is about: being aware of your own feelings and those of others, regulating these feelings in yourself and others, using emotions that are appropriate to the situation, self-motivation, and building relationships.

Top Tip for Improvement: First, become aware of your inner dialogue. It helps to keep a journal of what thoughts fill your mind during the day. Stress can be a huge killer of emotional intelligence, so you also need to develop healthy coping techniques that can effectively and quickly reduce stress in a volatile situation.

Moral Intelligence

MQ directly follows EQ as it deals with your integrity, responsibility, sympathy, and forgiveness. The way you treat yourself is the way other people will treat you. Keeping commitments, maintaining your integrity, and being honest are crucial to moral intelligence.

Top Tip for Improvement: Make fewer excuses and take responsibility for your actions. Avoid little white lies. Show sympathy and communicate respect to others. Practice acceptance and show tolerance of other people’s shortcomings. Forgiveness is not just about how we relate to others; it’s also how you relate to and feel about yourself.

Body Intelligence

Lastly, there is your BQ, or body intelligence, which reflects what you know about your body, how you feel about it, and take care of it. Your body is constantly telling you things; are you listening to the signals or ignoring them? Are you eating energy-giving or energy-draining foods on a daily basis? Are you getting enough rest? Do you exercise and take care of your body? It may seem like these matters are unrelated to business performance, but your body intelligence absolutely affects your work because it largely determines your feelings, thoughts, self-confidence, state of mind, and energy level.

Top Tip For Improvement: At least once a day, listen to the messages your body is sending you about your health. Actively monitor these signals instead of going on autopilot. Good nutrition, regular exercise, and adequate rest are all key aspects of having a high BQ. Monitoring your weight, practicing moderation with alcohol, and making sure you have down time can dramatically benefit the functioning of your brain and the way you perform at work.

What You Really Need To Succeed

It doesn’t matter if you did not receive the best academic training from a top university. A person with less education who has fully developed their EQ, MQ, and BQ can be far more successful than a person with an impressive education who falls short in these other categories.

Yes, it is certainly good to be an intelligent, rational thinker and have a high IQ; this is an important asset. But you must realize that it is not enough. Your IQ will help you personally, but EQ, MQ, and BQ will benefit everyone around you as well. If you can master the complexities of these unique and often under-rated forms of intelligence, research tells us you will achieve greater success and be regarded as more professionally competent and capable.

Keld Jensen
Forbes Magazine

Why Cooperation and Collaboration is Essential in Today’s Workforce

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There are many career fields now where men and women are integrated together. And, when you stop to think about it—even if there’s a career field where it’s predominantly one gender or the other, there is gender overlap either when buying products or services from vendors or serving customers. The way to reduce gender conflict is by focusing on strengths. By intentionally becoming aware of how to use both masculine and feminine communication skills you can give not only yourself, but your company as well, the advantage over your competition when it comes to productivity and creativity.  Rapport building is a great way to foster cooperation and collaboration within your company and to obtain repeat customers.

As an individual reading this article, you are becoming more cognizant of how masculine and feminine communication skills can be used interchangeably, by both sexes, for greater cooperation and collaboration. Becoming aware of the social skills involved, and then mindfully choosing to use both styles of communication, will help you be a better communicator at work (and at home!).

Today, we’re focusing on how to build rapport, a skill set women often acquire more naturally due to social conditioning and because they tend to communicate, commiserate, show compassion, and connect with others when under duress based on their physiology. In fact, physiologically, women produce their stress-reducing hormone, oxytocin, when they do just that—connect and nurture relationships with others.

When both men and women focus on beefing up their rapport with others, then the entire group (both employees and customers) benefits. Value is placed on what often makes or breaks a company—turning a product or service into profit. This is because the focus is on people enjoying the experience of working to sell or buy the product or service.

Building rapport is a skill that both men and women can benefit from in the workplace. By taking a moment every day to check in with one another, the workplace climate can change from friction and one-upmanship to one that’s more team-oriented. This is critical in a workforce that employs both men and women. Put it into context with a young child picking up a toy strewn room. If you’ve picked a room up with a child, you know it is more about picking the toys up together, rather than putting the toys away, that makes them feel accepted and like they did something well. When anyone feels like they matter, then typically their performance increases because peer pressure revolves around connection and positive reinforcement.

Women tend to ask others for their input when making decisions, because to them it is important to hear and value what others think and feel about the situation. Even in a quick-paced working environment where seconds count, eye contact, nods of the head can mean the difference between if someone has your back and whether everyone’s on the same page or not.

You build rapport by actively listening to others. Be genuinely interested in someone—whether it’s how potty training is going with their daughter, how they’re coping with a sick parent, or how the work deadline caused them to miss their anniversary—listen with interest. This does not mean a fifteen minute or even a five minute chat every day—it’s a quick check-in as easy as asking, “hey, how is your day?” Stop. Listen to the answer. Respond by rephrasing or repeating back what they said and using empathy. Then, get down to business.

You can also build rapport by observing and responding to nonverbal body cues. Quick check-ins with my Marines as a Marine Corps Officer was invaluable when time was critical. I knew my Marines body language, their moods, and how to motivate each one as individuals. Instead of forcing my will or decisions, I relied on my strength of listening with my ears and reading emotional moods to make decisions that were good not just for the end result, but the people involved as well.

As my yoga teacher challenges us each week with mindfulness homework, let me do the same with you. Your homework is a two-fold challenge. In the next week notice how building rapport benefits the quality of your productivity and creativity. Then challenge your company to do the same. Hire a Mars Venus Coach to go over gender strengths and do DISC profiling with your company for your professional development training, or if there isn’t a Mars Venus Coach in your local area have employees take the online course: Gender Intelligence Course. It’s not enough just to read about gender intelligence, you have to put the knowledge into actions by interacting in better ways with others.

Lyndsay Katauskas, MEd
Mars Venus Coaching
Corporate Media Relations

5 Signs It’s Time to Reprioritize

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During Lent, many people often give up or do without as they contemplate their spiritual beliefs and how Jesus Christ’s life and death personally affect how they live their lives on a daily basis. Regardless of whether you’re Christian or not, the Lenten season typically provides an opportunity for quiet self-reflection during observation of the Holy days. If it feels like you’re one step away from spending an entire day in bed or just vegetating, then read on to see if you’re in need of reprioritizing.

1. You consistently add more to your To-Do List than you cross off

Sometimes it helps to pause and see the long-term (a couple of months or more) and short-term (every week or daily) reasoning behind why you’re driving yourself so hard. If you’re able to sense that the upcoming week will be packed, then it behooves you to slow down the following week.

Solution: If one day is super busy, then plan to have more downtime the next day to recover or attend to what wasn’t finished the previous day. This only works if you have set busy/recovery times.

2. Forgetting important details

If you find that you cannot remember what you did an hour earlier, or are trying to remember if you had made an appointment for your personal health earlier in the year, then you may be overworked.

Solution: In this case, a planner comes in extremely handy. Use it to look things up and to keep track going forward. If you’re so busy, you’re unable to recall with your memory, then you may be doing too many things at once and will need to slow down and do less.

3. Work through breaks and lunch

Stop. Our bodies need nourishment and time off several times during the day. Being on “go” all day, with no moments to savor a cup of tea or chew our food thoroughly, enjoying the bursts of flavor, not only affects our waistlines and digestion, it also affects our resiliency to stress.

Solution: Put down your pen, back away from the computer, and turn off your phone. Spend the 15-, 30-, or hour-long break being in the present moment, being aware of what your senses are telling you, and enjoying the respite from work.

4. You commit to meetings and helping others, and your work performance suffers

If you find yourself saying yes when your plate is already too full, or you are being given too many tasks by your boss (or pressure from yourself) to be able to complete in a regular work day, and you’re unable to tie up your loose ends each week, then you may need to re-evaluate what’s important.

Solution: Sit down over the weekend with your planner. Pencil everything that must get done next week. Schedule the day and time when you’ll get these high priority items done. If you don’t know until the morning of each day, then estimate how long you can devote to the last minute high priority items, and block this amount of time out. Then, as you’re given more things to do, as you create your daily agenda, and there’s no time to add the new tasks, write them into your schedule for the next day. If you have to negotiate what to leave on and take off the agenda with someone, your written schedule provides a visual aid with which to make your point.

5. You feel resistance, lethargy, exhaustion, and anxiety whenever you think of what needs to be done

If you find yourself getting overwhelmed or anxious that your slate is never wiped clean, then you may need to take a break so you can gain a fresh perspective to improve your mood.

Solution: Take a half a day or an entire day off so you can get away to refresh your batteries. Do not think about what needs to be done, just give yourself permission to relax and spend time doing the things you love by yourself and with the people you love.

If you regularly experience three or more of these signs, then it may be time to take a hard look at your schedule so you don’t burn out. And, if you’re burnt out, then it will take longer than just a day to regain your equilibrium. Be gentle with yourself, and give yourself permission to slow down. If it’s a question of how to enforce your boundaries better with others so you don’t take on too much, then learn how to set boundaries and manage your time. It’s never too late to learn.

Lyndsay Katauskas, MeD
Mars Venus Coaching
Corporate Media Relations

Are You a Skilled Social Actor or a Social Chameleon?

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We all engage in impression management – trying to put our best foot forward and “fit in” in social situations. Two psychological constructs address how people “perform” in social situations, and there are subtle, but important, differences.

The first construct is called Self-Monitoring, and it is the ability to read social cues and alter one’s behavior in order to try to “fit in” to a specific social situation. Often, the high self-monitor controls his or her behavior in order to impress others or to receive others’ social approval. Low self-monitors, on the other hand, are less concerned with self-presentation and are more likely to express their true attitudes and feelings, regardless of the social circumstances (think about someone who expresses their true political feelings regardless of who they are interacting with, versus the high self-monitor who sizes up the crowd [liberal vs. conservative?] before sharing, or not sharing, political opinions).

The second construct is called Social Control, and is a skill in social acting. People high on social control are also able to control and manage their impressions, but they are not as highly affected by the social situation. Instead, the high social control individual possesses a social self-confidence and poise that allows him or her to be effective in a wide variety of social situations. Instead of the high self-monitor’s tendency to “blend in,” the person high in Social Control tends to stand out positively.

Our research has found that individuals who possess a great deal of Social Control and who are also expressive and outgoing are more likely to be perceived as potential leaders and to lead social groups. High self-monitors are also likely to be chosen as leaders because they represent the “prototype” of a group leader (because they fit in).

One problem with the high self-monitor is that in the desire to fit in with the group and gain their approval, the person may become a sort of “social chameleon,” changing attitudes, opinions, and feelings in an effort to fit in and be accepted. From a leadership perspective, this can mean the leader is highly sensitive and responsive to the social climate (and the leader changes views depending on the crowd, and may appear “wishy-washy”). Socially, the extremely high self-monitor fits in, but we never get a sense of who the social chameleon really is or what he or she believes in and stands for.

On the other hand, the person who is extremely high on social control moves confidently forward and works to bring others along with him or her. The downside of too much social control, however, can be a sort of arrogance born of the supreme self-confidence that the individual possesses. Social control thus needs to be balanced with a sensitivity to others and consideration of their opinions and feelings.

So, where do you fall on these two dimensions?

Here are some sample items from the Self-Monitoring Scale (agreeing suggests high self-monitoring):

  • In different situations and with different people, I often act like very different persons.
  • Even if I am not enjoying myself, I often pretend to be having a good time.
  • When I am uncertain how to act in a social situation, I look to the behavior of others for cues.
  • Here are some sample items from the Social Control scale (again, agreeing suggests high social control):
  • I can fit in with all types of people, young and old, rich and poor.
  • People from different backgrounds seem to feel comfortable around me.
  • I can very easily adjust to being in almost any social situation.

____________________________________________________________________________

Ronald E. Riggio, Ph.D.

References

Riggio, Ronald (1987). The Charisma Quotient. New York: Dodd Mead.

Riggio, Ronald, Riggio, H., Salinas, C., & Cole, E. (2003). The role of social and emotional communication skills in leader emergence and effectiveness. Group Dynamics, 7, 83-103.

Snyder, Mark (1987). Public Appearances/Private Realities: The Psychology of Self-Monitoring. San Francisco: Freeman.

Snyder, Mark & Gangestad, S. (2000). Self-monitoring: Appraisal and reappraisal. Psychological Bulletin, 126(4), 530-555.

Tips for the Workplace

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We expect our first posting caused you to look at the importance of promoting yourself if you are a woman, or the importance of taking the time necessary with your female colleagues to build rapport if you are a man. These tips alone can increase both our and our organization’s effectiveness. Did you apply one of these tips since the last email? Remember, thinking about them does not make them effective. Taking action, implementing them does. We must always remember that the whole premise of the Mars and Venus in the workplace is that we are different and equal – not that one is better than the other – different and equal.

Tip for Women

One of the ways women undermine their own abilities in the workplace is by using tag endings. These are a couple of little words that are often added on to the end of a sentence, like “isn’t it”, “is that ok”, “maybe”, “I think”. These tiny words serve to make you look unsure and change a sentence or what could be a powerful statement into a question. For example, “We should close down our manufacturing division because it is consistently losing money” is a powerful statement. “We should close down our manufacturing division because it is consistently losing money, shouldn’t we?” shows that you don’t really know if it is a good idea or not. With this new awareness, avoid these words that will otherwise reflect some degree of uncertainty.

Tip for Men

Men, when there are women involved in an open discussion, try to remember that it is not their natural tendency to speak over the top of others. If she is not freely contributing, ask for her opinion to draw her into the conversation. She most likely has something very valuable to say and will appreciate you for allowing her to speak. Please don’t speak for her, even if you perceive that it would be easier. Once she is speaking, try not to interrupt her. Practice your active listening skills. As a little aside, the number one complaint from women all over the world regarding relationships, both personal and business, is that they don’t feel heard.

If you found this information helpful, click to learn more about the Gender Intelligence Course. In just 5 live sessions, learn to bridge communication gaps, manage stress dynamics, and create deeper connections. Inspired by Dr. John Gray’s best-seller Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, this course offers lifetime access, science-backed tools, and personal coaching to help you build lasting harmony at home and at work.

The Relationships You Want. Start Here.

Mars Venus Coaching Team