Read an Excerpt

An excerpt from
Genderflex™: Men & Women Speaking Each Other's Language at Work

The Communication Conflict

Conflicting communication patterns between men and women are both a cause and a consequence of past hostilities. For the past five years, I have continuously conducted research on and monitored workplace communication problems between men and women. I used a descriptive survey that posed several questions to 500 participants, an equal number of men and women from a variety of different work settings. The initial question asked was, “Are there communication problems between men and women in the work setting that you think arise primarily from gender differences?” Sixty-seven percent of respondents said, “Yes.” When asked what were the three most common communication problems between men and women, respondents answered:

1. Men are too authoritarian
2. Men don’t take women seriously
3. Women are too emotional 

. . . If men and women are going to be more effective in understanding each other, influencing each other and working together, then each sex needs to become more skilled in changing the natural communication pattern and adapting to the other gender.


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An excerpt from
Say What You Mean, Get What You Want

"...People’s internal conversation usually falls into one of three categories:

• I’m not good enough
• You’re not OK
• Why bother? Nothing’ll change anyway 

There are Olyimpic caliber negative thinkers who can fall into all three of these categories, sequentially or at the same time. The first pattern, I’m not good enough, refers to a patterns of thinking where most of the internal conversation involves putting oneself down in various ways. Perhaps you’ve disagreed with a coworker, Selena, on the best way to accomplish a task. You did it your way, but since then, you can feel the tension between you. You’d like to say something to her, but you’re afraid. When you’re thinking about communicating directly with Selena, your internal monologue might sound like this:

I’ll sound like an idiot. I’m going to stumble over my words, and not say it right. I know I’ll hurt her feelings and then she’ll always be mad at me. I should let this go. I’m being oversensitive by even letting it bother me. As usual, I’m making a mountain out of a molehill. I should never have let it go this far anyway.  ...