Let's Talk About Job Skills

Men and women love to think that women are less skilled than men. They believe it is this lack of job skills that keeps women where they are. I have known so many women who were capable of doing "men's jobs" but never knew it. This issue frustrated me so much that I decided to write this book. What are these elusive job skills that we lack and men possess? Where do we get them?

Phyllis Martin, author of Martin's Magic Formula for Getting the Right Job, lists the most common responses of top executives in any field when asked what skills and attributes they seek:

• A good command of the language
• A high energy level
• A grasp of important figures
• The ability to work in harmony with others
• Respect for the bottom line
• Integrity
• The ability to remain unflappable in an emergency
• A feel for the organization's problems
• the ability to perceive (as well as to solve) problems
• Flexibility
• A respect for and grasp of new technology
• Patience

Yes, these are important job skills in any job. Yet do you know any one individual who is strong in all these characteristics? Do you lack all these characteristics? Don't assume that other people have some exotic qualifications that you lack. We all possess some strengths and lack others. Millions of poorly paid women have many or all of the qualities in this list. They just keep thinking they need something else, but they don't. They do need to behave differently in some ways. They do need to make the jump to the other side.

The rules of business are old and well-entrenched. They are also unwritten. To oversimplify, men are raised to understand and play by certain rules of business, and women are raised to understand and play by a different set of rules. I use the word play, because in many ways, business is a game. Try to accept this, instead of resisting it. If you are currently in a female position, you are playing the game, too. You just happen to be working the concession stand, while the more highly paid people are on the playing field.

 

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