The Difference Between Men and Women is…Not That!!

Posted on Saturday, August 29, 2015

Today I was in a process group, and someone said that a situation reminded them of the typical differences between men and women. “No,” I shared, “that’s not what’s up!”

Some stereotypes have developed in our Portland culture – that women go faster, address and change up topics quickly, line drive in questions about how something makes someone feel…and that conversely, the guys are more mellow, sink into topics and questions, go deeper, etc.

In any given room, in any small gathering of people, these differences between the women and men might appear, but their sexes or genders have nothing to do with why these differences exist.

The biggest difference that was appearing in the group today was a difference in what I call Pacing. Pacing describes the rate at which people integrate new awareness, process that awareness, and communicate about it. People who are more Leisurely Paced take longer to share in words, they often move their body and speak more mellowly, they take more time discussing one subject before moving on, and they put more empty space between words and sentences. People who are more Quick Paced share quickly, change subjects frequently often circling back to the same topic again, move and speak at a rapid rate, and fill spaces more tightly. On average today, the men in the room were more Leisurely Paced, and the women in the room were more Quick Paced. It was the Pacing difference being noticed, not the sex or gender difference. On average in Portland, this difference appears between men and women too. However any man might be Quick Paced, and any women might be Leisurely.

Other ThriveTypes were different in this group too, further amplifying the divide. More of the men were Flexible Defense – adaptable, willing to go along and get along, more likely to avoid conflict. The women had more Structured Defense – deliberate, speaking what they wanted, making direct requests, and more easily facing conflict.

This was exaggerated too by the men being more likely to have Feel First Communication, identified by speaking more generally before getting specific. Conversely, the women were more likely to be Think First Communication, identified by speaking specifically and precisely.

With all three of these characteristics differing, the Quick-Structured-Think First women and the Leisurely-Flexible-Feel First men might have seemed like they were from two planets. It just wasn’t their sex or gender making the differences – it was their ThriveTypes.

Learn more about about ThriveTypes at: http://thrive-wise.com/resources/thrivetypes

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