Men Are From Mars. What Planet Are Women From?

An honest man is overrated? I have to admit the headline was enough to push me through the entire op-ed piece. It turned out to be a light hearted comparison between the way men and women interact with others. "Don't tell your spouse or girlfriend that she's fat, ugly, or stupid," the author lectured. "She's really only asking, to hoodwink you into complementing her." The week before reading this cute piece, though, I waded through a more serious one where the columnist described male mentors advising that to get dates she should feign disinterest and then act like a slow poke. I started to think: if Romeo admires deceptive women slower than a seven-year-itch, no wonder I've never been compared to him!

In all seriousness, I hope women aren't being encouraged to carry these notions into the business world. The woman who tries to use an indirect question to obtain a raise will come away with only the indirect answer, even if the boss did get the hint. Similarly, being deceptive or down right lying does have its place in the business world, but it's hardly to win a job, a promotion, or the boss's affection. Sun Tzu, the Ancient Chinese warrior whose ideas are often appropriated as business philosophy, did teach of "doing certain things openly for purposes of deception," but this was to trick his opponents against defending themselves.

Generalizations of men and women are just that, each male or female is an individual. Even so, voters who love to hear Rush Limbaugh call Hillary Clinton a feminazi probably won't appreciate hearing her reply that he's a masculnazi. Because some people expect women to be softer or less direct, you won't hear Mrs. Clinton borrowing from Rush's playbook during this election season. On the other hand, don't look for Hillary to be the crawling turtle at debates or chief around-the-bush beater in national defense or economic policy discussions either. No one ever gets what she wants in business (or politics) by beating around bushes.

This brings us to today's Connerism for women (and men): If you want what's around the bush, dig there; and if you want what's in the bush, charge there. Beat around the bush when you really want it, only if you think this will improve your odds of taking the bush by surprise. And never, ever, or even ever, go slower than you must to own the bush!