Not For Women Only: Anyone Can Learn to Be a Better Multi-tasker

There are lots of "women's studies" books and articles on how much better women are than men, naturally, at multi-tasking, listening, noticing visual details and so on. And, I don't dispute that. Women tend to have more of the brain traits that make them good at those tasks (read Helen Fisher's The First Sex or Sally Helgesen's The Female Advantage, for more). However, I think we shouldn't necessarily assign certain traits as "female" or "male," when that isn't really the point.

If women could learn to be more linear, focused and assertive (or whatever they needed to be) in order to make it in a man's world -- as they clearly have, then men can certainly learn to tap their more typically female brain traits (that have been, perhaps, napping all this time), in order to make it in today's more conceptual/less linear place and time.

Saying "well, women are better at negotiation or listening, so we'll just leave them to it" is the easy way out, but it won't get us anywhere.

In the grand scheme of things, women did not say, "well, men are better at work, so we'll leave them at it." No, women learned to do things in what would be considered a more typically male way to get into the business game and then they morphed it into something that better fit their styles (flexible schedules, entrepreneurial endeavors). Women identified what existed and how they needed to operate, learned the "entry" language, and then made it their own.

As Brent Bowers wrote recently in his In The Hunt column for The New York Times, he has noticed that women, especially moms, have advantages in the small-business world. The things I've mentioned above being some of them (and, I'd say they aren't really mom-specific, but moms may have more practice): negotiation talent, listening skills and so on. He makes a great point, so I'll quote a few sentences from that particular column:

"Perhaps it is the other way around. Perhaps men ought to imitate the opposite sex. The tide is turning in women's favor, after all. They now account for 57 percent of college students. They are rising up the ranks in corporate America and invading formerly male sanctuaries like engineering and even construction. Most profoundly, they are changing the entrepreneurial landscape, with the number of businesses they own increasing at twice the overall rate for the last two decades, to 10.4 million today, or 40 percent of the total, according to the Center for Women's Business Research.

Sure, women would do well to borrow a few weapons from the male arsenal, like canning poor performers. But if they cultivate their innate strengths, they will gain a competitive edge."

I propose that men would also do well to borrow a few weapons from the female arsenal and continue to cultivate their innate strengths. Believe me -- if you, like most humans, do find yourself with those supposed "female" things called emotions from time to time, you can figure out how to tap them a bit more often in order to be a better manager. If you also occasionally find joy in listening to your kids' stories or hearing the birds chirp on a summer morning, you, too, can probably practice hearing what your colleagues or employees are trying to tell you, and get better at it. Right?

The women or moms you know may have some pretty great natural advantages in business (and I'd guess that would be in business of any size, not just in the small-biz realm that Bowers pointed to). So, why not identify those particular advantages that might help you in your business and study up. Women have long since seen and practiced the natural advantages men have in business and they've got it down -- and then some.

A drive to learn, improve and compete in an ever-changing world is human. No matter their gender, people have very unique skill sets and talents that can be packaged into the perfect combination for succeeding in work they love. Women and men definitely have their differences in mind and body, but the idea that "women have these traits and so can only do this," or "men have these traits and so can only do that" is a cop out.

Now, go check your Blackberry for urgent emails while you make coffee, fold your laundry, mow the lawn and pay your bills.

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