We've been going through ISO training here at my company and learning how to be internal auditors. The woman who has been training us has been an auditor for over 20 years and a consultant for about 10 years. Marie's a 60 year old brunette who was born in New York. She has a raspy, soft voice but can speak pretty boldly when she wants to. Very calm and well organized.
She shared several stories with us about her experiences being a business woman, including the following:
In the 1980s she got hired as a manger of a warehouse for a high-tech company. The other applicant considered for the position was actually a man from the warehouse who didn't end up getting the job because he spoke broken English with a Spanish accent and was hard to understand. So right away, Marie knew it was going to be an uphill battle trying to get everyone to like her being in a leadership position among these workers.
The first day she went to work there she brought some donuts and walked through the warehouse only to find all along the walls were posted pictures of naked women from pin-up magazines and porn. Imagine a professional business woman standing there in a business suite beside a wall of women sprawled out bearing it all.
She had an opening meeting with the men in the warehouse and told them that she wanted the pictures (which had been there for years without question) to be taken down. They did nothing. The pictures remained. So Marie went to her manager and told him about the problem and that is was not acceptable to allow those sort of images to be displayed. The manager then had a "gentleman's meeting" and afterward they discontentedly took down the images.
Marie said that while she worked there, a man named Frank would often give her problems. She was often asked to work with Frank since most of the other women who worked there avoided him. He was usually in a sour mood and acted very angrily towards those around him. Once, Marie was in his office asking a few routine questions when he got angry and came at her with his hand raised. Unafraid, Marie asked him, "Frank, what are you doing? Are you really that upset over these questions? Why are you acting this way? You could lose your job over this -is that what you want?" Frank then paused and asked for 20 minutes to himself. Maries said ok and came back 20 minutes later.
"What is the problem?" she asked Frank. He looked at her and said, "I don't like women working. They have no right to tell me what to do." Mare said very calmly, "Thanks for being honest with me. But the fact is we have to work together and you hitting me is only going to get you fired. Let's just work together quickly and get this over with." After that Frank complied, though he was still unpleasant towards her and other women in general.
Marie said that by the end of her days working there, she had encouraged the man who originally applied for her job to go to speech therapy so when she left he was the one who stood to inherit her position. She said that the other men in the warehouse had grown to respect her and enjoyed having her around. She went around winning the men over individually instead of trying to get along with them as a group. By having individual work relationships with them she was able to make a place for herself in the company and get along with the men she worked with.
Later Marie shared another story about similar issues she ran into in Japan. She had spent weeks working on a business plan that would go over various trainings that covered different areas of business practice and department organization. When she finally arrived in Japan and stood in the board room with the 7 executives in charge of facilitating these trainings, they surprised her with an update: We want to change the entire plan. They didn't like the concept of a woman training men in business on business so they figured they would create their own plan and ignore the one she had created.
Marie had different plans. In a very calm, professional tone she told them, "Well if you do not let me train you and the employees here on these things we all agreed to then I will have to leave here and report that this branch of the company has Failed the trainings that were agreed upon." She then grabbed her things and headed to the door. The men quickly changed their minds and told her they needed a couple minutes to discuss things. They then went outside and talked for about 10 minutes. When they came back in they agreed to her terms and allowed her to teach them.
It was amazing to hear these stories and see how resilient she had been and how dedicated she was to getting the job done in as pleasant a way as she could despite the disagreeable nature of the men she occasionally had to work with.
She never really took things personally. She just took the hit, remained composed, and moved forward with her initial intentions. She also gave great advice on how to deal with difficult people:
1) Acknowledge the Behavior they are making and let them know what they are doing and how they are being perceived.
2) Do NOT disrespect them or insult their integrity and competency.
3) Ask the person, "What can we do to resolve the issue?"
4) Reassure the person that you understand why they are upset/having issues and ask them what they would like to have happen.
5) Affirm, acknowledge, and validate their feelings while still remaining firm on your position/objectives.
6) Be calm, rational, and patient. There's no rush and no need to argue back.
7) Aim for the Head: When they start becoming overwhelmed by their emotions, ask them rational questions to think about to bring them back to their common senses.
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