August 11, 2014

"We have misinterpreted men’s transactional style as being dismissive or exclusionary. And men have misinterpreted women’s style as not being logical...Whereas it’s just a style difference that is very complimentary to one another.” - Barbara Annis

A lot of women run up against communication problems at work - everything from a failure to be heard in meetings to giving orders to having male colleagues misread something they said. In this show we look at how differently men and women use language in the workplace. And we find out what each sex can do to better understand the other's style, from interrupting to taking...a while...to get to the point. 22 minutes.

Reagan-Thatcher cabinet talks, 1981. Courtesy of White House photographic office. Thatcher certainly knew something about being a lone female voice in meetings.

Further reading: Robin Lakoff is professor emerita of linguistics at UC Berkeley. 

Barbara Annis is the co-author, most recently, of Gender Intelligence - Breakthrough Strategies for Increasing Diversity and Improving Your Bottom Line.