Have you ever felt that men talked more in your meetings than women did? Did you find other people in the same meetings didn’t think this happened? There is an app that tracks if men or women speak more in meetings:
I love that this exists! I love that you can get nice infographics to give to people who say everyone gets equal time to prove that they don’t – or to celebrate the groups where people really do get equal time.
I saw a cartoon once where a manager says to a woman at a meeting something like, “That’s a great idea Miss Jenkins. Would any of the men here like to make it?” (I just spent way too long looking through New Yorker cartoons trying to find it. I didn’t, so you’ll just have to picture it.)
When I go to networking events, I often ask people if they’ve ever been in the kind of meeting where only a couple people speak up, and no one else says anything? It’s really interesting to me that some people say that all their meetings are like that, and some people say none of their meetings are like that. I always wonder about their experiences. Could it be that there are people who have never, ever, been in meetings where one person dominated? Or where people disengaged because no one seemed interested in hearing from them?
I don’t want to make assumptions about people’s perceptions of how much men and women talk, but I find myself making up stories. I secretly assume that the people who think everyone participates in their meetings are the ones who dominate, and who don’t notice people on the fringes not participating. Maybe they think that the people who don’t speak up don’t have anything to say? Maybe they are busy making up their own stories about why those quiet people are quiet – they’re introverts, they’re happy to do what other people want, their opinions don’t really matter?
Brene Brown recently stated that if she could give people one tool, it would be to talk about the story they are making up in their heads. It’s really powerful! I tried it recently when my husband and I were talking. I asked to change the subject, and he agreed, and took his hand off my shoulder. I told him the thing, and then asked why he moved his hand. In my mind, I made up the story that he was worried about what I would say, that he assumed it would be something negative about him, and that he was already getting defensive. In fact, he moved his hand off because I kept gesturing, and he felt like his hand was getting in the way of my moving my arms. There is so much possibility in being open to another interpretation of events! I was able to see my husband as kind instead of walled off, and he could reassure me that my gremlins were not in fact real.
When I make up stories about how other people’s meetings actually go, I don’t really have a way to know. But if any of these people get curious, they can use this app to investigate. I would love to get real data from people about how their teams operate!
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