Understanding the Differences Between How Women and Men Communicate- May 2001

Keeping in mind these notions of status versus creating connections, and expertise and gender, what implications might they have for you?

Scenario I: Imagine you set up a meeting with your athletes, both female and male, in your club. You are looking for input into next year’s training program and suggestions about what is going well and what isn’t. If you are aware of the potential differences between how your female and male athletes might speak up in such a setting, you understand the necessity of listening well to each athlete, to what is said, and particularly to who is speaking and who is not. You seek the opinions and thoughts of athletes who did not say much during the meeting. You might plan to meet individually with each of those athletes.

Scenario II: Imagine you are the sole female coach in a group of provincial coaches invited to a meeting to discuss issues that have arisen within your sport over the last six months. Being 3M NCCP Level 3 certified, you are more qualified than any of the others and have suggestions on how to resolve some of the issues. How do you ensure your voice is heard? First, recognize that you have expertise in this area. Second, prepare well in terms of thinking about what you want to say and how you could go about making the suggestions (preparing a clear message, thinking about tone of voice, listening well to queries). Third, recognize that the men may challenge you and prepare answers to potential questions.

A Success Story
Neal Marshall, three-time Olympian in long track speed skating (Albertville, 1992, Lillehammer, 1994, Nagano, 1998), with world records in 1500m and 3000m, was coached by Ingrid Paul for four years, from 1994 to 1998. Ingrid had been on the Dutch national speed skating team and competed in the 1988 Calgary Olympics.

"Ingrid was a great coach. It was not a factor at all that she was a woman. She was good at her job. She was organized, good at communicating, and an expert at training from a physiological perspective. She wasn’t intimidated by us. All athletes are critical and we were a bunch of young, aggressive, ‘go-get-em’ guys who questioned everything," said Neal. He explained that Ingrid was good at listening. She also took the time to explain clearly how she designed his training program and she was prepared with knowledge to defend that program.

As Neal achieved world-class performances, their relationship developed to the point that, as he says, "if I felt I was doing too much, she listened and took it into consideration." Ingrid had a high level of confidence in her expertise and yet, at the same time, understood that it was OK and, in fact, normal that her athletes would challenge her.

You need first to develop your coaching expertise through courses, practising critical reflection and self-assessment, reading this Journal and, most importantly, by coaching over a number of years. Second, when you have developed a significant degree of knowledge and expertise, you need to recognize that some athletes and colleagues will still challenge your expertise, so you must prepare to speak up for yourself – not in an aggressive way, but in an assertive manner. (See "Communicating with Clarity" [Journal, January 2001] for the difference between being aggressive and being assertive).

Along similar lines, it is relevant to look at the differing uses of "I" and "we". In her research in the workplace, Tannen noted that men said "I" in situations where women said "we." From a sport perspective, this raises a number of different aspects for discussion. First, as you probably well know, sometimes it is entirely appropriate, for both genders, to give an "I" message. In "Communicating with Clarity," one of the skills I discussed was giving a clear and concise message using "I." This kind of message requires you to state the issue and take ownership for what you feel and what you need. In situations where such a conversation is required (athletes coming late for practice or not putting equipment away, for example) you, as the coach, take the lead and ask for what is needed. In other situations, such as building your group of athletes into a team, using "we" is much more appropriate and necessary. Within such a context, both male and female coaches and female and male athletes need to put their egos and personal needs aside, use "we," and work towards helping each other, which will, in turn, ensure growing into a fully functioning team.

Being Highly Skilled and Being Part of a Team
Tannen also found that "…women are less likely than men to have learned to blow their own horn. And they are more likely than men to believe that if they do, they won’t be liked." Often young women athletes are as concerned with being liked by their teammates as they are with being skilled. As a coach working with these young women athletes, you want to help them understand that they can be competitive, excel at their sport, and still be liked and appreciated by the team.

On the other hand, in my work with a number of Olympic level women athletes, both in individual sports and team sports, I have seen incredibly intense, highly skilled athletes who sometimes appeared to not care at all about teammates or what others thought of them. Needless to say, there was conflict.

In this kind of situation, what you do not want to do is single out the intense, driven athlete as the "perfect" athlete. Don’t say, "Look what Janice did today. Why can’t the rest of you work as hard as she does?" This only serves to isolate the athlete even further from her teammates and escalate the conflict. What you do want to do is meet individually with that athlete and encourage her with specific suggestions on how she can help her teammates train harder and be tougher. She can do that by example as much as by words. At the same time, through dialogue and meetings, you can listen to athletes’ concerns and help them understand that the level of intensity and competitiveness of their teammate will actually help the performance of the team.

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le Journal en français

MAY 2001
Vol. 1, No. 5
Front Page
CONTENTS

Understanding The Differences Between How Women And Men Communicate

Being Highly Skilled and Being Part of a Team

Confidence

Asking Questions

The Rituals of Apologies, Feedback, and Opposition

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