By Barbara Annis and John Gray
May
Palgrave Macmillan; $27
Pooling their considerable expertise, John Gray and Barbara Annis revisit an issue close to both their hearts: gender miscommunication. Gray, author of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus: The Classic Guide to Understanding the Opposite Sex , and Annis, co-author of Leadership and the Sexes: Using Gender Science to Create Success in Business and former chair of the Women’s Leadership Board at Harvard University’s Kennedy School, cite eight areas that most often lead to misunderstanding, tension and frustration. The book is interspersed with “gender facts” that illustrate the chasm between men’s and women’s understanding of each other. Here’s a telling set of statistics: 82 percent of women say they feel some form of exclusion by men—whether in business social events and casual meetings, in conversation or in receiving direct feedback—while 92 percent of men don’t believe they’re excluding women. Although a good part of Work with Me retreads the familiar ground of Gray’s book and Deborah Tannen’s 1990 best-seller, You Just Don't Understand: Women and Men in Conversation , the book offers plenty to ponder for both male and female managers, executives and employees. Use the information within its pages to spark conversation with your team members. The responses will be enlightening.