Wednesday, July 13, 2011

How to communicate like a man... or not

Today a piece of mail arrived at the Women’s Centre. It contained information about an upcoming seminar, happening this August in various Canadian locations, on “Communication Skills for Women”.  
Here’s what it said…

Communication Skills for Women

How to achieve confidence, credibility, and composure in the workplace

The top 10 communication hurdles – can you relate?

Our researchers asked women across the country to describe their toughest communication situations. We analyzed more than 800 circumstances and came up with these top 10:

1)      Confronting or criticizing others
2)      Not being taken seriously
3)      Feeling self-conscious
4)      Dealing with other people’s anger
5)      Speaking in front of a group
6)      Controlling one’s emotions
7)      Receiving criticism
8)      Getting cooperation
9)      Setting limits
10)    Taking the floor

This one-day training will help you build the skills to overcome them.

The flyer went on to describe ways that women will benefit from the seminar, such as…

You’ll stay cool even when you’ve reached your boiling point. You can’t back down and expect to move ahead. Yet maybe you, like many women, avoid conflict… or flood emotionally and have a hard time thinking and acting clearly.

Needless to say, upon reading this I was “flooded” with emotion and felt compelled to respond. Below is my answer to “Communication Skills for Women”…

Communication Skills for Men

How to achieve compassion, empathy and caring in the workplace

The top 10 communication hurdles – can you relate?

Our researchers asked men across the country to describe their toughest communication situations. We analyzed more than 800 circumstances and came up with these top 10:
1)      Listening to others
2)      Taking yourself too seriously
3)      Feeling over-confident
4)      Dealing with your ego
5)      Knowing when to stop talking
6)      Acknowledging and working with your emotions
7)      Receiving advice without getting defensive
8)      Cooperating
9)      Letting go of the need to control
10)    Not dominating the floor

This one-day training will help you build the skills to overcome them.

Maybe a parallel seminar for men is in order?

Betsy

1 comment: