Lean In, Be Liked, Join the Fad

Researchers Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman report in the Harvard Business review that "New Research Shows Success Doesn't Make Women Less Likable".

As I read it, the research doesn't actually say that, even if you accept the label "likeability" for the thing that they are measuring. At the very most, their research shows that the women who do succeed are women who are slightly more "likeable", on average, than the equivalent men. But that doesn't mean that ten times as many women who were "likeable" on that scale didn't get blown aside in the struggle for success, so the headline is just not supported by the research.

Here's the quiz itself. Unfortunately Zenger and Folkman demand your full contact information to review it, so here's the items from that list:

1. Do you stay in touch with issues and concerns of individuals in the work group?
2. How well do you balance "getting results" with a concern for other’s needs?
3. Are you trusted by all members of the work group?
4. Do you promote a high level of cooperation between all members of the work group?
5. Are you a role model that sets a good example for his/her work group?
6. Do you give honest feedback in a helpful way?
7. Are you truly concerned about developing others?
8. How well do you inspire others to high levels of effort and performance?
9. Are you trusted by others to use good judgment when making decisions?
10. Do you work hard to "walk the talk" and avoid saying one thing and doing another?

Some of those questions are reasonably related to likeability, but they just aren't what most people think of when the word comes up, especially as regards female managers. "A concern for others" is properly on the table for "likeable", but the heart of the question asks how well you balance "getting results" against that concern. Thus, it is a question not of likeability, but of effective management. A truly likeable person can score low on that question because he overemphasizes that concern for others, not just because he underemphasizes it.

The bottom line is that the researchers selected pre-existing questions about managerial or executive competence from their database, and rechewed that existing data based on relabeling those questions "likeability". They come to the following conclusion based on their results:

Our conclusion? Likability and success actually go together remarkably well for women. Parents can accurately and unhesitatingly tell their daughters, "Aspire for positions of power and influence, and when you get promoted, it is totally your choice whether you act in a way that will have people continue to like you or not."

Not a bad advice, whether or not the data tends to support it. But I also note the following quote and think there's another piece of important advice to be had.

Both men and women took a hit in likability when they moved from first-level supervisor to middle manager. But this drop was more precipitous for men. After that, the women made up some ground, while men's standing continued to erode, significantly widening the gap between them.

The advice is for men, and it's this: when you get into management, spend some time giving honest feedback, developing others, and letting people know you are in touch with their concerns, even when you aren't necessarily going to decide their way. It will make you seem more effective, and also more "likeable", at least as defined by Zenger and Folkman.

What They Won't Tell You about Pew

Interesting new data from the new Pew study.

You'll see lots of talking heads pick this up, but there are a lot of truths they won't say.

Here's How they won't phrase it -

• On average, men put in more hours than women. When the father is the sole breadwinner, he puts in 11 more hours than his spouse or partner.
• Since 1965, men have more than doubled their housework, while women have about halved theirs.
• Men do 64% of the work outside the house, while women do 64% of the household chores.

Take a look at the details. Between work, chores and child care, men work more total hours on average than women (54 vs 53 hours).

Among two-earner families, the men do 5 hours more work, 1 hour less chores, and the same number of hours of child care as men in the average family. The women do 10 hours more work, 2 hours less chores and 2 hours less child care than women in the average family. So, the hours at work is the factor that puts the women in two-earner families with a slight edge over the men (59 vs 58 hours).

Of course, none of this means anything anyway, because if you, me and Bill Gates are standing in a room, on average we're billionaires. I'd love to see the median figures - whatever the median of a three-dimensional graph would be.

Dang, I probably knew that once back in college calculus-based stats. If I had to make it up, I'd probably base my method on the physics center of gravity of the whole mess.

Obesity, Lesbians, Federal Money, Bias and Blindness

Okay, so it's all over the internet that the Federal government decided to fund a multimillion dollar study to find out why lesbians are fat. That's one way to put it.

The Atlantic writes a couple more:

All of which is to say, these headlines would have been accurate as the inverse: "Obama administration spends $1.5 million to figure out why straight men are fat." Or: "Obama administration spends $1.5 million to figure out why gay men have rocking bodies." Or perhaps: "America is overweight (except for gay men?) and scientists are trying to determine why."

Which is not quite true, though. Read this quote from one of the researchers, which appeared in a CNS news piece:

“It will be impossible to develop evidence-based preventive interventions unless we first answer basic questions about causal pathways, as we plan to do,” they said. “Our study has high potential for public health impact not only for sexual minorities but also for heterosexuals, as we seek to uncover how processes of gender socialization may exacerbate obesity risk in both sexual minority females and heterosexual males.”

So, you can see that it is not a study to see why lesbians are fat at all. It is a study to see how processes of gender socialization make lesbians fat.

That's just sad. A total blindness on the part of the researchers. Heck, even a caller on the Rush Limbaugh show can come up with an obvious, sensitive, scientific and rational explanation that has nothing to do with "processes of gender socialization".

The lesbian woman doesn't have to deal with a visual, shallow man. She just has to please her partner, and usually women are less concerned with physical attributes and more concerned with ... their personality and so forth. And the homosexual man, he has to please a man, who is visual and shallow. Therefore, if a woman doesn't want to give up all her cookies and it's okay with her partner, no big deal, okay?

I've tidied up the quote out of habit, but the "likes" and "you knows" are there in the Limbaugh transcript if you really need them.

So, let's pretend for a moment we were actual scientists, trying to identify the possible factors that lead to 75% of lesbians being obese, as compared with 50% of heterosexual American women. Let's list the theories, shall we?

• Whatever brain and body chemistry causes homosexuality in women also predisposes them to obesity. (The "Made That Way" Theory)
• Their lovers' acceptance of bodily variation reduces the stigma associated with obesity in homosexual women, thus allowing more of it. (The "Less Stick" Theory)
• Since women have a greater acceptance of bodily variation, some obese heterosexual women may choose to become adaptive homosexuals. (The "More Carrot" Theory)

Okay, so there's a few obvious theories that fit the observed facts and can be intuited by anyone possessing even a rudimentary understanding of sociology, biology, and psychology. Notice, none of those theories require "processes of gender socialization" in order to apply. In fact, I can't figure out what the so-called scientists that produced this report might even mean. Let's pretend they're not total wackos, and make up another theory or two, hey?

• Some traumatic events that cause women to become homosexual predispose those women to (over)eating disorders. (The "Trauma Implant" Theory)
• Some homosexual women unconsciously overeat in order to become less attractive to men. (The "Guys are Icky" Theory)
• Gender socialization in heterosexual women gives them a gender-identity-based ability to resist obesity. (The "Better To Be A Babe" Theory)

Those are reasonable ideas, and not particularly controversial in the abstract and on the margin. The percentage of lesbians who have experienced sexual trauma is extremely high, at least according to the few dozen that I've had intimate conversations with. (I used to live and hang out near Santa Cruz and Monterey, California.)

But, here's the question: If you studied those last three theories, and found them to be true, what would the resulting societal prescription look like? Nothing that requires theories of how "processes of gender socialization" cause the problem in lesbians, right? The only gender socialization in any of those theories is the one that draws heterosexual women to emulate Barbies.

If this study was designed or overseen by the person that wrote that revealing quote, and if the study authors really see "gender socialization" as the likely source of the critical difference that needs to be studied, then the study isn't science, it's some kind of pseudo-scientific social agitation, having nothing to do with obesity at all. They have their eyes closed to several obvious factors that each is an order of magnitude more significant than anything having to do with gender socialization.

Dang, I'm starting to type that phrase without quotes...

It's too bad, because an actual study on the reason for the difference might be interesting and worthwhile. Don't expect anything rational or insightful out of Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Mass, though. Sigh.