As expected, I've received a couple of comments my blog post "From a Business Perspective, are Women Different from Men?", that I posted on January 1, 2012.
A.L. (Ann Lisa) Braun writes about a story she heard on the radio about a recent UK study confirming what Ann Lisa believes most most people already knew--men and women are very different. According to Ann Lisa and the report, "The researchers concluded that there were ‘extremely large’ personality differences between the sexes which could have implications in the workplace."
From my perspective, I wouldn't be at all surprised that there are "typically" some personality differences between men and women although I am not sure that those personality differences are as a result of hormonal or other physiological differences or expirational differences typical of men or women or perhaps a combination or both. I am also not sure that this means that an employer should treat women, as a class, differently than men.
As Ann Lisa comments that "what we should do with this information is definitely fodder for debate." However, she is confident that there generally ARE differences, and she recommends being flexible with your style in order to best work with different personalities (and the same goes with different personalities within the same gender.)
Here's a link to an article about the study.
Now I have read the study and frankly, I don't need a study to tell me that there are differences between men and women including general phycological differences. It may seem like a joke that men seem to control the TV remote or tend to flip through the channels like a race horse, but my anecdotal experience tells me that some of these habits are very typical of the sexes, to a very considerable extent. But the question I ask again is, do these differences generally mean that it would be advantageous or dissadvantageous for a company to work with men or women? I think not and any distinction to be made should be done on an individual basis. I still think that more women should get involved in commercial real estate which as a profession is grossly under represented by women.
Thanks Lisa.
