So what exactly is Gender Intelligence™?

According to the Society for Human Resource Management, 74 percent of companies have diversity programs in place. That's a good start, but it sidesteps perhaps the most striking diversity component in the workplace: the personality differences between men and women. This is where we need Gender Intelligence, or GQ™.

Either knowingly or unknowingly, both men and women fall into specific behavioural patterns and stereotypes in professional settings. When this occurs, the results are damaging for everyone involved. This is exactly why we need to improve our GQ™.

And here's a shocker: many corporations are not ready to hear that men and women have different communication styles that can seriously impact their ability to work effectively together.

As Tom Peters says, "Women love to talk. Men talk silently to themselves. Women multi-track. Women are indirect. Men are direct. Women talk emotively. Men are literal. Men listen like statues. Boys like things. Girls like people. Boys compete. Girls cooperate. Men hate to be wrong. Men hide their emotions."

Eve-olution aims to address these issues through the gender diversity consultancy tailored to the needs of major organisations, as well as through the GQ™ for Women Leaders seminar for women with ambitions to be successful in what is still typically a male-dominated workplace.

We examine the underlying nature of gender differences and how they can manifest in the corporate world. For example, if women have different conversational rituals and styles of management, then could the vast drain of female talent be attributed simply to a bad fit between the genders? In fact, one might argue that the few women who make it to the top of the corporate ladder are on the "male" end of the personality spectrum. Are men promoting women who most closely resemble an image of themselves? If so, this subconscious stereotyping will continue until we make a serious commitment to understand it and then change it.

In particular, women need to spot issues and learn response techniques that mesh with their unique personalities. For example, one female executive might respond to an uncomfortable situation with humour, while another executive's sense of humour could be the kiss of death to a touchy scenario. The key? Know yourself well and then know the nuances and techniques to handle gender differences in a professional setting. Ultimately, before women can worry about sensitizing men to gender issues, they must develop the GQ™ to take accountability for their own roles in gender issues and handle them appropriately.

If corporations are serious about retaining women in their organisations, then they need to send the message that different is equal. Otherwise, they miss out on tapping into a different but highly effective talent pool. Moreover, if corporations do nothing, they still have made a choice – that they are happy with the status quo.

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