Ask for Directions - Saving face or time?

The GPS took me to one of many hospital buildings where I needed to go for an appointment.  Unfortunately, it could not show me the most convenient parking lot so I asked a delivery man beside the road, where was the best place to park.  He directed me to a lot behind the building. What do you do when you're on the run and need directions?

Not too surprisingly, men and women have a whole different take when it comes to asking directions according to Deborah Tannen.  Have the differences ever roused your curiosity?  Willingness to ask has a lot to do with point of view and hierarchy.

From a woman's point of view, asking directions involves a quick connection to a stranger and getting what you need without losing time, Tannen suggests.  On the other hand, from a man's perspective, he would be putting himself in a one-down position to a stranger -- an uncomfortable experience, Tannen notes.  Many men might also see this as counterproductive, since if the other person really doesn't know, he could send you on a wild goose chase in order not to appear one- down.  So for most men, it makes more sense to find the way on their own.

The right hippocampus of the human brain houses the mental maps that we use to find our way around.  Added to that the human brain is hard wired for hierarchy.  We learn these cultural approaches early on in life so we can be stuck in a rut.  Willing to take a risk change, since humans can rewire their brains by using a different approach?

Interestingly, the delivery man took a few minutes to find out more specifics from another person.  What is your experience with directions?  A year ago I tried to find the parking lot on my own, located one quite far away and was late.  This year I asked for directions to save time.  Do you ask or try to find your way on your own?

Men, Women, Brains and Earning Power

Ever wonder why men earn more? Now don't lose your cool! There are actually strategies you can use to change that for yourself. Dr. Warren Farrell's newly published book, Why Men Earn More: The Startling Truth Behind the Pay Gap -- and What Women Can Do About It highlights 25 strategies women can use to craft a successful career if that is their goal. Here are helpful insights...

"The pay gap can no longer be attributed to large-scale discrimination against women," Farrell theorizes. "Men who earn more do so not because of their gender but because of the individual choices they make." For instance he suggests women consider the following careers...

Get a technical expertise, and then sell. Example: Female sales engineers (who sell their company’s product) make 143% of male sales engineers.

Within your field, discover the sub-fields that pay the most. Examples: Nurse anesthetists and traveling nurses each make twice the pay of regular nurses--and traveling nurses set themselves up to be consultants.

Know the 25 fields of the future and how to spot fields that are making transitions. Examples: Pharmacists now earn more than medical doctors. Many medical fields, such as dental hygienists, as well as assistants to physicians, or to occupational therapists or to physical therapists, will in high demand and paying highly. Ditto for many computer fields, such as network systems and data communications analysts; computer software engineers and database administrators. Technology is taking many muscle industries, like steel, and making them into mental industries. Great for women.

Farrell contends that men work longer hours at more dangerous and disagreeable jobs according to a Publisher's Weekly review.

They more readily accept night shifts, hardship postings to Alaska and entrepreneurial risks. Men get in-demand degrees in engineering, while women get degrees in French literature. Female librarians earn less than garbagemen, not because of discrimination, but because so many applicants compete for the safe, clean, comfortable, convenient, fulfilling jobs women prefer. Indeed, the author insists, statistics show that women and men with equal experience and qualifications, doing the same job, for the same hours, under the same conditions-get paid the same.

On the other hand, physical differences in men's and women's brains can contribute to choices each sex makes according to Ellen Weber. "Men's brains come hardwired for faster aggression... Women, on the other hand, tend to show more indirect kinds of aggression such as exclusion and gossip." Might we gain more from both gender's brainpower if we...

1. Value specific strengths each one brings and state that value often
2. Accept the fact that brains hardwired differently – and best results often differ
3. Reward creative use of unique talents to reach higher standards
4. Encourage opportunities for men to learn from women and visa versa
5. Ask and act on both men and women’s solutions to daily workplace problems

Hmmm, women, we'll just need to engage our noodles for a great strategy to request a pay raise rather than settling for 77 cents on a dollar that a man makes for the same work!

Thoughts?

Men Don't Think - Women Think Too Much?

When you think about thinkers does Roudin's sculpture of The Thinker come to mind? Traditionally men, Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, signified the field of philosophy, the art of reflecting on the world through logic. But what's the other side of that, when men don't think and women think too much or vise versa?

Alvaro at Sharp Brains posted Top Ten Tips for Women Who Lead Men in response to Ellen Weber's challenge for a man to show the other view of her post Top Ten Tips for Men Who Lead Women. His list, especially tip number 2, piqued my curiosity...

"Don’t think too much-we don’t. If we do, we try to find ways to self-talk us out of that uncomfortable state."

Hmmm... What pops into your head? Here's the scene I see... the Cortisol Crank boss at work comes in and takes everyone's head off! He did and said that without thinking, People who work for him are really stressed and yes, emotions taxed. But in some cases, emotions can run rampant...

Interestingly University of Michigan reasearcher, Susan Nolen-Hoeksema, dug into Women Overthink and uncovered fascinating findings...

1. Overthinking is a national epidemic among young and middle aged adults but is relatively rare among older adults: 73 percent of 25-35 year-olds overthink compared to 52 percent of 45-55 year-olds and just 20 percent of 65-75 year-olds.

2. Women are significantly more likely than men to fall into overthinking and to be immobilized by it: 57 percent of women and 43 percent of men are overthinkers.

If overthinking is bad for us why do we fall into the trap of doing it? Nolen-Hoeksema shows why...

The organization of our brain sets us up for overthinking. The thoughts and memories stored in our brains don't sit there in isolation; they are woven together in intricate networks of associations.

When you are in a bad mood of some type—depressed, anxious, just altogether upset—your bad mood tends to trigger a cascade of thoughts associated with your mood. These thoughts may have nothing to do with the incident that put you into a bad mood in the first place, as when a poor job performance causes you to think about your aunt who died last year.

Men and women do think differently, where the anatomy of the brain is concerned. Men think more with their gray matter and women with white matter... Here's why... men have nearly 6.5 times the amount of gray matter related to general intelligence than women, whereas women have 10 times the white matter realted to intelligence according to University of California research. Their findings suggest that there're two different types of brains designed for equally intelligent behavior by pinpointing these gender-based intelligence areas. Here's how they're different...

In human brains, gray matter represents information processing centers, whereas white matter works to network these processing centers. Men and women typically excel at different types of tasks. For example, men tend to do better with tasks requiring more localized processing, such as mathematics, while women are better at integrating and assimilating information from distributed gray-matter regions of the brain, which aids language skills. So you see why men are more apt to tunnel down into logic and women see more how ideas relate.

Now if the boss could tame his flaring temper and the senior assistant could reign in emotional tsunami's, what's left in the soup?