By: Jillian Miller - 01-18-2010 - (1) Comments - World of Business

I don’t know about you, but I find humans and relationships fascinating. One of my favorite things to do is to sit down in a busy place, like the downtown mall here in Charlottesville, with a cup of coffee (or a beer) and people watch. That’s it. Just watch people. We’re better than any TV show…well, I suppose that’s where the whole Reality TV obsession was birthed. But watching how people interact with each other, or just by themselves, is very entertaining. We truly are unique creatures, each with a totally different personality, thought process and mentality on life. This isn’t just in the social aspect of our lives, but at work too. It’s important to understand these differences (or at least know they exist) to be able to create a cohesive, open and creative working environment. If your company can harness all this uniqueness and get it to work to their advantage, that is success. You could have the most brilliant business model and all the financial backing in the world, but without the right people working together in the right way, your business will struggle.

Lately I heard of the book Men are Like Waffles Women are Like Spaghetti. The book is similar to Men are from Mars Women are from Venus in that it explores and uncovers the oh-so-real differences between men and women. The whole premise is that men think and act in boxes, much like the boxes of a waffle. Life is compartmentalized. Everything has its own box – washing the car, eating, veg’ing out in front of the TV. Men like to finish one box before jumping into the next. On the other hand, women are like spaghetti—all thoughts and feelings are mixed and intertwined together. We can be doing 3 things at once while thinking of the 30 other things we need to do.

As you can see, these are 2 very different ways of thinking, and acting, and could easily be confusing and even insulting if interpreted wrong. I read one man’s blog on this topic that states “In short, we as human beings can get very frustrated when someone doesn’t see things in the same way we do. And often we assume that a person does understand how we’re feeling, but that they just don’t care. Ninety-nine percent of the time this is not true.” So, 99% of the time we’re misinterpreting what people are really thinking?? That’s scary in the business world. What about your client? Or your boss? Or your business partner? Those are people you definitely do not want to misinterpret. So, just knowing that these differences exist, and spending some time getting to know how the important people around you think and act can only be a benefit to you. Also, this shows the power of clarification. Don’t be afraid to ask questions to make sure you are all on the same page when it matters.

If you’re a manager this information can be especially useful. Maybe this explains why Jane is so great at multi-tasking, or why John is so thorough. It will also help you to know what type of workload your employee can handle and how to present it to them; what goals to set that will be realistic but challenging for them; and why they may be struggling with something.

So, until the world is run by robots, let’s try to take a step back from ourselves, open our minds, and attempt to see how others may be thinking about things. Try and understand why others come up with the ideas that they do, or why they may not see your point-of-view right away. Try to harness all this individuality and skill and use it to the advantage of your company.