Communication Genders - what’s your preference?

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It appears that my silence this past week has not gone unnoticed.

Several kind folks have emailed me, wondering if the rumours of my death were in any way exaggerated. I can assure you they were.

But the reaction I have ‘enjoyed’ as a result of a flu vaccination a month ago still persists and leaves me both permanently exhausted and with a body full of raised and infuriatingly itchy welts. Mrs BetterComms has sarcastically called me ‘leprotic’.

There is also the minor technical issue of Telstra (our national telco), having unplugged me from ISDN a week ago, still not having sent me my wi-fi broadband modem. So I am on dialup. Which means sharing the phone line with the rest of my family. Erk.

But the week of relative silence has allowed me to reflect on personal communication styles and preferences, so all has not been wasted.

A passing comment by Allan Jenkins in our last podcast — the ‘last one we recorded’, not the ‘last one ever’ — brought to mind the differing gender communication preferences we have. Allan pointed out that, within our business communications part of the blogosphere, there are 40 or so commentators that are sort of regular reads of the majority of us. We all have our different reads and interests, but there is a ‘core group’ of commentators that seem to be read by the majority of us (if you are interested in my reads, please avail yourself of this list).

That passing comment, in and of itself, was not enough to engender my thoughts on gender preferences. But when, as part of a 4,000 word essay on the relationship between the fourth Gospel and the Johannine epistles I saw that the second and third epistles were written in exactly the same style, for exactly the same purpose, but one to a woman and one to a man, I suddenly had one of those ‘light bulb’ moments were different threads of cotton suddenly come together to create a garment.

There are, I would argue, two types of communication genders — male and female.

The ‘male’ is more concerned with abstract concepts, ‘things’, goals and the long-term view. The ‘female’ is concerned more with the ‘here and now’, the applicability of ideas, the impact of one thing on another person, and relationships.

Neither is better than the other; each is interdependent and complementary if a mature communication is to be produced.

But when it comes to personal preferences, we as individuals tend to fall into either of the camps; rarely do we straddle both equally.

Now, this is NOT to say that women are always ‘female’ communicators and men ‘male’. Far from it. Last time I checked I was fully ‘male’ in my gender and sexual identity. But I have a personal preference for a female style of communication.

My brain is wired more towards relationships and interpersonal issues rather than abstract, logical, goal-oriented concepts. Which tends, in the view of Pawson*, to put me into the ‘effeminate’ end of the male domain (see the drawing below).

This, Pawson takes great pains to point out, is neither a good nor a bad thing — it is just a preference.

At a party of friends on Saturday I noticed how there were three types of men — men who felt most comfortable talking with men, men who felt most comfortable talking with women, and a small number of men who were equally at home talking with both. Equally there were three complementary types of women — women who prefer talking with other women, women who preferred talking with men, and a small number of women who were equally at home talking with either.

None of these styles or preferences correlated to business success or achievement. There were men and women who worked from home, women and men who held high-flying corporate jobs or professional careers, and no one type or preference style seemed to belong to any category.

But this personal preference for a ‘male’ or ‘female’ communication style reflects itself, perhaps, in your client mix. I have had clients who have been both ‘female’ and ‘male’ in their own communication preferences; yet if I look at who has been long-time clients then I am struck by the finding that amongst them there are no srong ‘male’ communicators. Whilst my client mix is equally split between males and females (in terms of sexual identity and gender), they all prefer, to some extent, a more ‘relational’ approach to business. I seem to fail to hold on to strongly ‘male’ clients.

Thus I come back to Allan’s point about a core group of commentators that we both read. If I reflect on my own behaviours when I fire up GreatNews, I seem to go to the female communicators first.

Okay, not quite true.

For a long time I have gone to Allan first, and I would not call him a ‘female’ communicator (definately ‘male’), but then I instinctively go to the feeds of women — Donna Papacosta, Donna Tocci (whose wonderful post on the implications of our ‘need for speed’ caught my eye just this morning), Andrea Weckerle, Kami Huyse and Heidi Miller in particular — before I then ‘check back in’ with folks like Shel Holtz, Neville Hobson, Stuart Bruce, Trevor Cook, Ben Hamilton, Badger Dan and so on.

As a psychologist I am intrigued by my own behaviour and what it says about me, but that is further research, contemplation and a post for another day. In the meantime consider your own personal preferences and, if you are a consultant, your own client list. One of my clients is now faced with a dramatic shift in their market, from ‘relational’ to hard-nosed ‘abstract’.

Does your own preference style need ‘adjusting’ to meet your market’s preferred style?

Tagged as: nonverbal communication