Sharing your story - making connections

This week we facilitated a session to jump start the relationship between a new leader and her team. As part of this exercise, we spend time with the team talking about their leader and gathering constructive feedback.

We had a situation where a woman leader was managing a team of nearly all women.

While there was strong consensus that this person is a leader in her field, a role model, and someone to learn from...

She was reserved and quiet... 

We heard what I felt to be an unusual amount of concern about her shy nature...

• "We don't know the real person"
• "We don't know how to connect to her"
• "We feel like we are working with a robot"
• "We don't know what she does outside of work"
• "We don't know what she likes to do for fun"
• "It's hard to relate to her"

I had to wonder, is this the woman-to-woman dynamic? When women work together is part of the relationship built on sharing personal information about ourselves? Do we hurt ourselves if we are too private?

We have learned to share our stories as a way to connect to other women. This is the grease in the relationship and allows for the hard conversations and helps us handle personal challenges. It helps us create a sense of empathy and camaraderie with our peers.

So if we don't share these stories with the women on our team, are we creating an uncomfortable dynamic? I think we are. And I think we can foster a much more collaborative environment by sharing who we are. But the stories we share at work are different than the ones we share with our girlfriends over wine.

• Share decisions you are considering (school for the kids, new home purchase, new car purchase...) - these are non-threatening ways of talking about things in your life and gathering information from others
• Share events/activities you are planning (movies, theater, sports, hobbies) - again non-threatening and a way to share some things that are important or relevant to you

Remember though, this is how to work with relational oriented people. Most women are relational and want this level of connection. Most men do not. So these stories would likely bore and frustrate a man because it is wasting time before getting to what is really important - work!

Look for cues as to how much the women (and men) on your team want to know about each other.
Are they asking about your weekend? your kids? your commute? Are they telling you about something they did? Try asking them about something outside work before you start your meeting and see what their reaction is. This will indicate their style.

We need to play to our strengths. When we work with women we have an advantage - we know how to connect and build relationships. We know how to share our stories. Not only does it make everyone feel better, it helps us get things done and it creates loyalty and trust. Take advantage of it!