I just received this question on ‘Ask John’
“I have been interviewing for a male dominated position in grocery sales. The question keeps coming up of how would I motivate and relate to the male team. (Such as an overnight stock crew and sales team.) My question is how would you suggest building this team differently than any other?”
It is disappointing and discouraging that we are still talking about male dominated positions in this day and age. It is even more disappointing that we are talking about a person’s gender as opposed to their ability to perform the job. I won’t even go into the legal and HR ramifications of this! I would first ask if you are sure you want to work for this organization? If so, then you need to focus on your strengths, not your gender.
The company wants to know what you will do for them. You need to focus on increased and improved performance and productivity. These will increase profits which is what a company looks to achieve.
You need to explain to them how you will integrate the team building with real-time work goals, by establishing a systematic workplace integration and follow-up process.
By our psychological make-up men and women respond differently to the team building process. Not always but typically, men tend to be more competitive than women, or at least they show it more readily. Explain how you can use that competitive nature to your advantage. Which team will stock the shelves faster, unload the truck faster, and have fewest mistakes or no accidents. This is the type of team building that I think would be effective.
You need to discuss how motivating and relating to the team, any team, is about creating an environment in which people have an impact on decisions and actions that affect their jobs. By getting the team’s buy in, asking for their opinions, will increase participation and as a result should improve performance.
I would explain how fostering teamwork is creating a work culture that values collaboration. In a teamwork environment, people understand and believe that thinking, planning, decisions and actions are better when done cooperatively. People recognize, and even assimilate the belief that “none of us is as good as all of us.”
What do you bring to the table? What are your skills and strengths? Focus on your past accomplishments. Explain how you have mentored, motivated and related to past groups of people.
Explain how you will use the team itself to model the behavior you expect from the team.
You should avoid discussions about gender and focus on goals, expectations and performance.
For you to remain positive there are a couple of things that you should keep in mind. The following is from “Chipping Away at the Glass Ceiling” by Dawn Rosenberg McKay: In 1999, Carly Fiorina became President and CEO of Hewlett-Packard Company. In 1997 New York City’s famous Plaza Hotel hired its first female doorman (or doorperson). During the same year, the NBA announced that they had hired their first female referees. These stories are only the fairly recent of many “firsts” for women. The following information was found in the ABC-CLIO Companion to Women in the Workplaceby Dorothy Schneider and Carl F. Schneider (ABC-CLIO, Inc., 1993): in 1881, Louise Blanchard Bethune, the first female professional architect, set up practice in Buffalo, New York. In 1903 Mignon Nicholson became the first woman veterinarian. In 1910 the first woman police officer was appointed under civil service regulations in Los Angeles. Just think — so many years later we are still talking about women breaking ground by taking non-traditional jobs.
So you see, you can do this!
You need to stay positive and have a detailed plan drawn out as to how you will improve the efficiency of the team as a whole. You need to have a sense of humor and perhaps be a bit more assertive. If they ask you again how you would relate to the male team you might tell them that your focus is on performance and productivity, and that you won’t hold it against them that they happen to be men!
Remember there are a lot of bee’s in the hive but only one Queen!
John – I totally concur that it is, indeed, shocking that we are still having these conversations about gender and work at this stage of history. I’m old enough to remember well how prevalent they were 30 years ago. Yikes.
One thing that you mentioned but that from my experience as a career and life transition coach I feel is an extremely important point to be stressed is: what would motivate someone to want to work for a company/industry which is so dated in its thinking that this kind of job interview conversation is even happening. It speaks to a corporate culture which is not especially forward thinking, where little training about human rights/diversity/soft skills is provided to senior management and where the human side of ‘human resources’ may not be especially valued.
I’d encourage the person posting the question to seriously consider how her own long-term career needs and expectations will be met in this type of environment. As a coach, I frequently help people begin to notice how much of their unhappiness in work could easily have been avoided if they had paid attention to these kind of contextual cues provided early on in a work situation. By ignoring them or undervaluing them, people set the stage for much misery to follow!
Cheers
Gwen McCauley
My Dad was interviewing folks to work in the lumberyard he managed – He came home and said that he had a guy that would fit in well but wouldn’t work for the wage scale offered. The only other candidate that seems motivated etc. was a young woman. I said hire her. He said – But she calls lumber 4×2′s. I said the contractors will love her. He said she has a great attitude but really doesn’t know much about building materials. I said she will learn from the contractors. So he hired her, took the risk and she went on to manage her own lumberyard. At my fathers funeral a few years later she told me that she was forever indebted to my Dad for giving her a chance. It is not potential employees that need to change their gender bias – it is the hiring managers.