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&lt;p&gt;Ever wonder what men really think of the women they work with?&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;We don&#39;t realize it, but when we work with men, it&#39;s kind of like working with a foreign culture,&quot; author Shaunti Feldhahn explains. &quot;If you&#39;re going to Paris or Brazil or France, you&#39;re going to be far more effective if you understand how what you do and say is going to be perceived.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.vault.com/VCM/articles/the_male_factor.png&quot; width=&quot;137&quot; height=&quot;171&quot; alt=&quot;The Male Factor&quot; align=&quot;left&quot;/&gt;She should know; Feldhahn&#39;s book,&#160;&lt;em&gt;The Male Factor: The Unwritten Rules, Misperceptions, and Secret Beliefs of Men in the Workplace&lt;/em&gt;, surveys hundreds of men on their private prejudices, bad experiences, and wish lists with the women they work with, and involved a nine year—and counting—interview process.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Both through the polls and Feldhahn&#39;s own interviews with hundreds of men in corporate, &lt;em&gt;The Male Factor&lt;/em&gt; presents fascinating findings about how men perceive women&#39;s behavior in the office—and how, without our knowledge of it, those perceptions may be holding women back from leadership roles or better on-the-job relationships.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;To the degree you&#39;re working with men, you&#39;re working with internal, unspoken, unseen unwritten male culture,&quot; Feldhahn says. And while you may not choose to do anything different, &quot;it&#39;s going to be in your best interests if you at least know what that is,&quot; she says.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Here&#39;s a look at where men and woman differ in their workplace modi operandi:&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;1. There&#39;s a &quot;Work World&quot; and a&#160; &quot;Personal World&quot;&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Ever wonder why men never seem to cry at work? They&#39;ve checked their emotions in &quot;personal world.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;The male brain, when we talk about it being compartmentalized, automatically tends to segregate things into where they view a certain area as functioning one way, and other areas functioning in another way,&quot; Feldhahn says. Thus, when men arrive at work, they shift gears to adhere to what they perceive are different rules for &quot;work planet.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Women, on the other hand, tend to view work and personal lives as parts of the same whole. &quot;Our brain is wired to view everything wrapped up; we don&#39;t view these two worlds, we view one big thing called life,&quot; Feldhahn says. &quot;Most women technically, biologically—about 87% of them--just don&#39;t have that mental segregation.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;But men, viewing things from their compartmentalizing brains, don&#39;t understand that difference—and often interpret women&#39;s holistic way of operating as unprofessional or weak. &quot;Basically, what I heard a lot of the time was, &quot;Well, she&#39;s a really good utility player, but not so much leadership material,&quot;&quot; Feldhahn says. &quot;That kind of comment, when I dug into it, was indicative only of the fact that they didn&#39;t see her functioning by the rules of the work world.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;2. No Crying In Baseball&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;According to Feldhahn, the main distinction men make between their emotions and women&#39;s in a work setting work is that &quot;we can choose not to show them. But we do actually have them.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Feldhahn jokes that this is an unfair advantage (&quot;I really don&#39;t know what that feels like, and I wish I did,&quot; she says), but in reality, it can be a challenge.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Feldhahn notes that in order to work more efficiently, the men she surveyed prefer to keep emotions out of the workplace. &quot;But what that means is that if they can&#39;t think clearly when they&#39;re processing emotion,&quot; Feldhahn explains, &quot;they look at you, as a woman, getting emotional and they assume you&#39;re not thinking clearly either. And that&#39;s quite damaging to us as women, because it&#39;s completely inaccurate.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;And &quot;emotional&quot; doesn&#39;t just mean crying--Feldhahn relates a story from a man she was interviewing told about a female colleague who got quiet during a difficult meeting. &quot;The partner was telling me later, &quot;I was so bummed [that] I couldn&#39;t trust her judgment of the whole meeting,&quot;&quot; Feldhahn relates. &quot;I think I actually just said, &quot;What?!&quot;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;That&#39;s really one of the main, overall pieces of the puzzle that we women have to understand about how men view emotion—because it&#39;s really true, and it&#39;s not just a preference: they think they presence of emotion, by definition, means that logic has ceased. That&#39;s not accurate, when it comes to women, but it is often accurate for them as men. So this is a clear disconnect. &quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;3. Keep the Office an Ego-Safe Zone&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Everyone wants to be easy to work with, but when it comes to men, comfort level is dependent on mojo-protection.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;It was shocking to me to see these very strong, with it, competent, confident looking men—that it&#39;s really just a surface,&quot; Feldhahn recalls from the men she&#39;s interviewed. &quot;Underneath that surface, they have a lot of private self doubt.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&quot;There are situations in which it&#39;s difficult for them to take their personal feelings out of it—we just don&#39;t necessarily see it. Basically, if we&#39;re unintentionally triggering an underground, beneath the surface sense of insecurity or sense of self-doubt that is running beneath the surface in all men, that we don&#39;t know is there. Men look very confident; we think of the male ego as being a very big factor. And what we don&#39;t realize is the male ego is a sham; it&#39;s a surface, it&#39;s a front, that men put up to protect the fact that on the inside, they have a lot of self doubt and they&#39;re basically saying, I want to tackle a challenge, I want to do great things, but I&#39;m really not sure that I know what I&#39;m doing and I hope nobody finds out.&quot; It&#39;s odd—we as women have our insecurities, but generally, that&#39;s not one of them.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Feldhahn says that all those little customs for showing respect that have evolved in the business world are a preferred &quot;mode of operation&quot; for men for this reason. This all looks like strange, secret handshake type of behavior to the average woman—but without understanding it, &quot;you can hit that nerve without having any idea that&#39;s what you&#39;re doing,&quot; Feldhahn warns.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For example, &quot;Why did you do this?&quot; is a question that two-thirds of men Feldhahn surveyed think means &quot;my colleague is questioning my judgment.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The alternative &quot;Help me understand your thought process here&quot; comes across as more respectful—and gets you an answer, minus an angry coworker.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Of course, Feldhahn grants that you don&#39;t have to change your style to suit the men you work with, &quot;but if you know how it&#39;s going to be perceived and you have to do some clean up later, you&#39;ll be aware of that,&quot; she says.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;4. The Devil&#39;s in the Details&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Aside from avoiding pitfalls, there are a few adjustments a woman can make to increase her effectiveness while working with and managing men, and expand her influence.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For example: getting to the point. &quot;As multiple men put it, when a colleague is explaining something in the meeting, it&#39;s uncomfortable for them to listen because they don&#39;t know whether what she&#39;s going to end with is &quot;isn&#39;t that interesting?&quot; or &quot;we lost the client,&quot;&quot; Feldhahn says. &quot;They don&#39;t know where she&#39;s going with it, so it&#39;s hard for them to listen that way; it&#39;s actively uncomfortable.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Instead, give the conclusion up front, a few quick details, and then resist the urge to elaborate on your hard work. &quot;They tend to trust that the person who did the work did all those details,&quot; Feldhahn says, &quot;and they prefer not to hear them unless they ask.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Another quick fix? Being generous with your kudos—and light with your micromanagement. As the concern is outlined in the book, &quot;Most men like to be challenged, but fear being seeing as inadequate in the process.&quot; If you can show trust in your male colleague&#39;s competence by giving them space to work out problems, and then applaud the results, you&#39;ll reap huge amounts of trust and respect in return.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Try it at a job interview, Feldhahn suggests. &quot;A statement of appreciation for something that that man has brought to the table is quite emotionally powerful for him… You&#39;d be seen as &#39;wow, someone who appreciates me—this would be a pleasant person to work with; they&#39;d be a positive presence on the team.&#39;&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;5. Be Yourself&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;For the sake of focus, Feldhahn wrote about complaints from her interview subjects—&quot;But that gives the impression that men just kept bringing up problems,&quot; she says, &quot;and that certainly was not the balance.&quot; &quot;Men would go out of their way to share positive things that they really appreciated and would never want a woman to change.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Among their top most valued qualities: women&#39;s interpersonal skills, listening abilities, a &quot;sixth sense&quot; for reading people (Feldhahn attributes this to a better ability to read body language), and in general, a unique perspective.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Feldhahn says that she heard the same story over and over from her interview subjects: that they&#39;d been in meetings composed mostly of men that had hit a wall. &quot;And then the [one] woman would bring up something completely different; a totally different way of looking at it,&quot; she says. &quot;And they realized, if she hadn&#39;t been there, they would have missed this huge perspective.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;That diversity is key to a thriving company, Feldhahn says, but in order to get more women into leadership roles, they need to present the appearance of &quot;getting it&quot; first. &quot;That&#39;s the main reason why the book is needed,&quot; Feldhahn says. &quot;When [men in leadership roles] are saying &quot;Who&#39;s leadership material?&quot;, we as women, once we&#39;re equipped to know what they think looks like leadership material, we can send those signals and still have the diversity of thought. Which is in everybody&#39;s interest… We&#39;re not changing ourselves, but we&#39;re learning how to send the right signals and we&#39;re still bringing our strengths to the table.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;

Cathy Vandewater

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