Women, Men, Power, Priviledge

Cynthia Nixon, who’s character “Miranda” is an
archetype of female empowerment

So I was thinking recently about what it means to be a strong woman, or a woman with power.  In my own experience, I’ve seen that the styles of the male project managers I work with are very direct.  When they ask for something, they expect it to be done, and don’t fuss about trying to convince people to do it. I’ve tried this and it doesn’t work.  From me, people want to be “asked.” They want me to subordinate myself to them in order for them to feel ok doing what I asked.

The (still prevalent) biases between races, genders, etc are well documented.  We know that they continue and will for a while, because in the grand scheme of things, equality is a very recent idea. Women also (on average) appear to be better communicators and social facilitators.

This got me thinking backward.  I wonder if the long standing power inequalities of men and women have groomed modern women to compensate for their lack of overt power by making us better at complex manipulation and social navigation.  We can’t just come out and ask for what we want and expect to get it, so women have been selected for who can still get what they need by more…creative means.

This lead me to think that all those guys (my guy included) who complain that women aren’t clear, that we are always trying to make things more complicated, or worse, that we’re evil manipulators, well, maybe you have your own ancestors to blame.

(p.s. my use of maybe in that last sentence was strategic.  Apparently, people are more likely to not challenge what a woman says if she plays down it’s forcefulness with a “maybe” or a “I’m not sure, but”)

Microsoft Succeeds, Fails

If you haven’t heard about the Mojave Experiment, basically Microsoft told a bunch on unsuspecting users that they had a new operating system called Mojave and asked them to check it out.  The trick is that it wasn’t a new operating system at all, it was just Vista.  The idea was to challenge peoples assumptions of what they thought of Vista.  Basically, to combat the negative press in the blogosphere and bring it back to the regular user.

I saw an ad for this and was totally intrigued.  I clicked on the ad, watched a bunch of videos, then clicked through to the “Learn More about Vista” link.  Basically, I had Microsoft’s ideal user interaction.

The problem came when I got to the Microsoft site.  Instead of being able to learn more about Vista, I saw this image.

Turns out, on the Microsoft site, if you’re browsing with anything other than IE on a PC, you can’t see any of their Windows Media videos.  On a Mac?  No video for you.  On a PC but are a power user who trusts the blogosphere and uses Firefox?  No video for you.

Basically they miss 2 of the key targets they were trying to get.  My experience turned me off.  I’m sure I’m not alone.

I don’t even know anymore

So I was reading an article in Maclean’s about Conrad Black that contrasted his fortunes against a former business partner, Peter White. White has not been implicated in any wrong doing while Black is going to prison.

I read this and thought, “Ha ha, Black and White, how ironic…” Then I realized that it wasn’t by definition ironic. It didn’t go against expectations, it met expectations. Only, here’s the thing. Irony isn’t something inherent about something, it’s in the eye of the beholder.

If I were being more objective I would say that based on the convention that people “live up to their name” then it is to be expected that Conrad Black would be on the dark side of the law while Peter White is on the light side. Thus by definition not ironic.

The problem is, I don’t really believe that and my expectation is to find the reverse to be true. I’m attracted to examples of irony, so that’s what I expect. Thus, could it ironic to me?

It all reminds of that Simpsons episode at Hullabalooza, when one teen says “That guy is cool” the next responds “Are you being sarcastic?” and the first replies “Man, I don’t even know anymore.”

I feel the same way about irony.

Limp Fish

What the fuck is up with handshakes?  Having recently started a new job and started school I’ve had to shake a lot of hands recently and the variation in quality and creepiness is astounding. Everyone knows that a good firm handshake is good, right?  So why would anyone limply place their hand in your hand, like a dead fish that’s been sitting on the counter for a few hours and has reached room temperature. Try gripping onto that.  It’s so weird.

And it’s hard to resist the urge to judge people based on the shake.  Are they weak and can be bullied?  Do they just not like touching people?

Or maybe I’m some kind of hand crusher and it’s all relative.

We are All in the Same Industry

Cliche: We are all in sales. No matter what you’re doing you’re always trying to sell something, whether it be your idea, your product or yourself.

I’m thinking that’s sorta true, but sorta not true. I actually think we’re all in the service industry and here’s why.

Something that a professor said in my “managing people” class was that great speakers are charismatic because they give the audience exactly what they need. There is no magic bullet because every audience is different. More over, every person is different. Thus, in order to treat everyone equally, we have to treat everyone differently.

I realized today that as a PM my strength is in figuring out what each individual needs from me. Rather than having one process I usually have a slightly tweaked process for each person to make sure they’re properly informed.

I think that if we’re all trying to get people to do things for us (which, unless you’re the lowest person in the organization, you most definitely are) then you’re ultimately meeting the needs of everyone around you.

So basically, if we’re all doing our jobs, we’re all here to serve.

I’m embracing this and trying to translate it into a certain humility. I’m going to stop thinking in terms of what I need the other person to give me and start thinking in terms of what I need to give the other person in order to get what I need. Small difference maybe, but I think it is a big difference when applied.

Irony in Learning

During MBA orientation one of the speakers made it clear to us that there would be a lot of course overlap. The suggestion was that we should all keep a journal of the things we’re learning. I plan to do that, but I’m not sure if the kinds of things I’m keeping in my MBA journal are the right things.

So far I have some predictable things. For example, the notions of “reciprocity” and “trust” were both very important in the first 2 courses I took.

Another strong theme was resisting the “zero sum bias”; this is where you assume that if you gain, the other side loses. This is not always true so we should strive to make sure everybody wins. The idea, so far, has been to”expand the pie” so that either both manager and employee get more, or both sides in a negotiation get more. It’s a powerful concept that I’ll definitely take to heart.

The final concept that I’ve taken note of is the “confirmation bias.” We were told that as we’ll be studying a lot of real world examples, it’s important not to find out what happened in these cases, because once we know the outcome, all of our analysis will just serve to reinforce what we think is true.

Then, on the very last day, something funny happened. We were all quietly reading something over when someone’s cell phone went off. The professor who had been warning us about the confirmation bias all week turned to the class and said “It always happens when everyone’s quiet.” ……Do you get the irony here? Even though this professor is obviously sensitive to making informed judgements, the minute we’re out of the academic context, he says something that shows this bias in real life. Cell phones go off all the time, but when people are quiet we just notice it more. If you think that cell phones only go off when people are quiet then that will be confirmed, because that’s the only time it’ll be distracting enough for you to note it.

Now, for sure, he was just being a nice guy and playing it down so the guy who’s phone it was wouldn’t be embarrassed. However, I still found it a funny illustration of the huge gulf between what we were doing in the class room and the likelihood that we would ever really apply it.

Thought of the Day

Specific compliments work better than general compliments.

Example:

I really liked your blog post, it was super cool   vs.  I really liked your blog post, I found your reasoning so compelling.

Just a little something to keep in the back of your mind when trying to compliment someone into doing something for you.  The general compliments feel half-assed, and at worst, fake.  If you can pick something out in particular and compliment it, it’s much more likely to have the desired effect.

Seen and Heard

It’s around noon. A woman is picking up her son from school to go home for lunch. She approaches the crossing guard who immediately starts chatting her up; she is totally not interested. It’s obvious this is a daily ordeal for her.

The crossing guard puts up is STOP sign and continues chatting with her. As she passes him suddenly she lets loose the biggest, wettest fart ever – BLUUUUUUUUUUUUUrrrrFT.

“Oops, excuse me” she says blandly.

“Oh, uh, that’s ok” he responds still smiling.

…I don’t know whether to be horrified or impressed.

New Year’s Resolutions Revisited

This year, my new year’s resolution was to “connect” with more people.  I made it in New York before Christmas after having a few really positive experiences with random strangers.  It seemed totally bizarre the way people there were willing to actually talk to me, rather than just exchange pleasantries before going back to ignoring me.  It was really friendly and felt totally genuine.

I resolved to go out of my way to be genuinely friendly to people I didn’t know.  I’m happy to report that, like all New Year’s resolutions, it hasn’t really worked out.  Up until now, I blamed everyone else in this cold, lonely city, after all it’s a 2 way street right?

Well yesterday, I got my chance to really be nice.  This guy on the street asked someone for directions and they were like “err…umm…it sounds familiar…” so I pounced!  I gave him good directions, and since we were going the same way I  went with him.  We talked a bit and he told me where he was going and it was a cool sounding talk at U of T.  The part of me that was dedicated to “connecting” was like “go, do it, it could be really fun and interesting and totally spontaneous!”  But then the rational part of me said (in a voice much like Margaret Atwood’s voice)  “If you go, it’s possible this guy could interpret it as you being interested in him.”  And that kind of awkwardness I just couldn’t afford.

Oh well, another year, another broken promise.

So Flawed

So I have this terrible competitive streak. Whenever someone says something good that they can do or that happened to them, I feel compelled to respond with an “Oh Yeah. . ?”

Example: Someone says “I just got a new puppy and the breeder said that the one we got was the kindest one, constantly looking after the other smaller pups in the litter.” My gut reaction is to respond “Oh yeah? I had this dog once who saw a wounded bird and so dug a hole for it, placed the bird in the hole, and then defended it from further harm” (true story, by the way).

But all this accomplishes is making the other person feel bad and making me look like a jackass (which I am, but no one needs to know that.) So, I’ve taken to responding as much as I can “Wow, that’s awesome.” And if they look particularly excited about it I follow up with a “Tell me more.” My goal is to let this person be happy about whatever it is they’re gushing about and disguise the fact that I don’t give a rats ass and really don’t care much about any of the pathetic doings of all us mere mortals (accept me.) In general, this works, but it has an unusual side affect. That “high and mighty-ness” you may have detected in the last sentence (it was subtle, but it was there).

See, since I don’t actually care, I’m just trying not to be rude, I end up having to listen to stuff that makes the person feel good, but doesn’t do anything for me. Since I’m lying to them, I get this twinge of superiority, which in my heart of hearts I want to reject.

I don’t think I’m actually between a rock and a hard place with this one. I’m sure there is something between lying and one-upping, but I have to decide what it is and train myself to do it. And I don’t want any of these uncomfortable side affects with the next one.

p.s. yes, I am this calculated about everything that I do. Why do you think I always have advice? It’s because I feel (probably wrongly) that I have information to impart since I’ve at least considered the issue before.