For argument’s sake…
2011.10.13
00:32:27 |
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My friend has been having some boyfriend problems recently. She’s upset that he isn’t as expressive as she’d like him to be – she doesn’t know how he’s feeling and when he’s unhappy, she has no idea what it’s about and he refuses to talk about it.
So my question to her was, “Why don’t you just tell him how you feel and talk about how you’d like him to open up a bit more?” To which she told me they don’t get to see each other very often because of work, and she doesn’t want to spoil the night by getting into a fight. Her other point was that she doesn’t want to be a “typical” girl who’s whining and throwing tantrums over something so “small”.
It made me realise that many of us have this problem – whenever we have concerns, we shy from voicing it out because we’re afraid of confrontation or they way people will perceive us.
This becomes a bit more complicated when it comes to the workplace. Studies have many a time proven that women tend to play nice, in fears of being seen as the office bitch. Not that that fear is unwarranted. In a study, three quarters of men said they’d much rather work for a man than a woman. And the women surveyed also agreed with that. Female bosses were described as being “sharp tongued”, “moody” or “irritable”.
It’s not that we make worse bosses, it’s really because women and men are so used to seeing us as nice and non-confrontational that when we assert ourselves at work, people are more prone to take it the wrong way. So what’s a girl to do? Being nice doesn’t earn you respect or get you noticed by your boss. In fact, a study showed that agreeable women make US$3,213 less a year than disagreeable ones. But what’s the alternative? Speak up, push for your point and be prepared to fight to the bitter end and risk alienating everyone else?
Well, if you check out the Smart Report in the November issue of CLEO, you’ll see that there is a way for you to stand firm and get your point across without gaining a bad reputation. For me, I find being consistent at work or in your personal life helps. That means you make it a point never to speak rashly (even though that’s easier said than done) especially at work, and you never make personal accusations.
The reason being: women constantly get accused of being temperamental. You snap, people say you’re PMS-ing. You lose your cool, people immediately think it’s just one of your days. So what you want to do is to never give people the chance to think that of you. If you make it a habit to speak in a calm, collected and professional manner, after a while, people start to take you seriously when you speak. Because they know that when you disagree, you’re not doing so because you’re in a foul mood – it’s because you have a point.
One other thing I’ve learnt is that being aggressive is counter-productive whether you’re dealing with your friends or your colleagues. I knew this girl back in my university days and she was convinced that the louder she spoke, and the more times she repeated herself, we’d be won over. She never “won”, we just didn’t have the energy to fight it out with her. And after a while, I just stopped hanging out with her.
You see, winning an argument is not about shoving your stand in everyone else’s face. Listening to other people is just as important as what you have to say. It shows other people you respect them (because really, that’s important when dealing with people anytime), and they’re more likely to reciprocate.
This only means that if your point is valid, you up your chances of being heard and winning the other person over. Listening is also really important because it gives you time to evaluate your point. For all you know, you’ll realise that the other person has a more valid point and the two of you can come to a compromise. Because after all, winning an argument for the sake of it is a waste of time. You don’t need to be right all the time! |
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