Benefiting at work from Brain Based Insights

I think I've had more luck not worrying about "how men and women can work better together." For me that gets in the way of figuring out how these two or three or four people can work better together. I find that if I start from "men and women" I wind up making assumptions that I wouldn't make otherwise.

Thanks Wally, you make a good case for looking at folks as humans rather than as men or women.

I do have a question, though. How would you account for the roundtables that tend to attract all one gender, and therefore miss the riches that come when male and female intelligences interweave on the topic? Thoughts?

I think a key to communication is to try to see things from the other person's perspective and to ask questions when there is a misunderstanding. One way to bridge the gaps between the disparate thought patters of men and women is for people on either side to attempt to think like the other gender. If one has a tendency toward rational thinking, they should try thinking emotionally and vice versa. If my understanding of your brain based approach is correct, Dr. Weber, that will help open new pathways in the brain, making way for both rational and emotional thinking whether man or woman.

Kimberlee, what a wonderful reminder to look at others through intrapersonal intelligence that allows us to see more as they do. You model that especially well Kimberlee - and thanks for the inspiration!

Hi Ellen. Thanks for this simple, thought-provoking post. I very much agree with Kimberlee in that I never consider gender differences whenever I'm interacting with others. I find using the NLP framework of visual/ auditory/ kinaesthetic and then thinking about likely Belbin team roles as being the closest 'predictive' mapping I do to add value to my work with others.

What I also find interesting is that your article prompted me to wonder whether the real place for the emotional/logical debate is within ourselves? At Just Seven Things I find that most of my thinking could definitely be categorized either way (and often in conflict with myself (conscious/ other than conscious) on a daily basis. I would imagine there's a fair bit of scientific knowledge that could be applied to this proposal of the 'man and woman in each of us'

Great insight Si. Thanks for stopping by and for your kind words too! Did you see http://www.brainleadersandlearners.com/gender/men-use-logic-women-use-emotion/