In my conversations with women leaders one of the common threads I hear is that their colleagues don’t listen to them. Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant wrote about this in the New York Times on January 12. Their article is entitled “Speaking While Female: Why Women Stay Quiet at Work”. I highly recommend it. Since then Kathleen Edison has published a graphic to address this situation. Her graphic, 7Ways to Combat ‘Manterrupting’ can be found at behance.net. The steps are
- First acknowledge gender bias
- Establish no interrupt rules for everyone in a conversation
- Practice bystander intervention
- Create a buddy system
- Support female colleagues
I encourage you to see the graphic for the smart and funny way it addresses this factor of Manterrupting.
For the women readers, what methods have you found effective in combating Manterrupting?
For my male readers, what experiences have made you aware of this factor?