Not too long ago, we conducted a Gender Intelligence workshop with a senior leadership team responsible for global innovation and marketing. As part of the session, we asked both men and women in the workshop to describe the biggest difficulties they have working with members of the opposite gender. One of the senior women spoke up first, expressing a deep-felt frustration shared by the other women in the group that got right to the heart of the issue for everyone in the room. “When it comes to making decisions,” she said, “they don’t think things through. They just react, react, and react!” The top executive in the room, who happened to be male, quickly retorted, “That’s our job. We’re supposed to be efficient in narrowing down our options in order to make the best decisions.” “No,” the woman disagreed, “our job is to be effective.” “But that’s the most efficient way of being effective! Otherwise, we’ll never get to a decision and assign resources. We don’t have time to just reflect, reflect, and reflect! We have to react quickly.”

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