How to work with men?
I’ve been working in tech startups, so I’ve been in environments full of testosterone. I’ve realized there are several features of these kinds of environments:
- Less emotional communication and empathy
- Ego problems, especially among founders
- Bro-like communication but with a harmless intention
Little emotional communication
A few weeks ago, I saw this in another startup team:
Wrong, wrong, wrong. Most early startup founders don’t think about others because they are too busy and focused solely on their company. It’s not that they don’t care about their employees; it’s more like their brains don’t come up with asking or observing people how they feel. Encouraging them to think about it can go well or very very wrong.
I once asked a question similar to my ex-founder's: “Do you feel I’m working too slowly?” After that, I received a lot of random attacks on my capability, which probably wouldn’t have happened if I hadn’t asked. Afterward, I learned to show my capability rather than vulnerability. Maybe women bond with each other through difficult times, but it seems better to celebrate success together and process emotional struggles privately with tech bros. Nowadays, I don’t expect much emotional communication. That seems to be a bit too difficult for tech bros.
Ego Problems
Of course, we all have egos. Ambitious startup people, especially males, can suffer a lot from it due to personal interests or social background. Yet, I started to learn how to treat my ego and their egos with more compassion and open-mindedness.
Last time, I was arguing with my founder on how to do math.
During our calculation, I almost laughed at how bad Americans’ math is. But insisting on my computational methods would probably still cost lots of unnecessary arguments. So I said, sure, we can do it your way.
I used to fight fiercely for my ideas because I thought I was “right,” but nowadays, I realize that the ability to collaborate well matters more. And I could be wrong too! Even though I’m comfortable with math, it doesn’t mean my team or future teammates will be. I realized I need to open my mind to gender, social, and cultural differences to work with people’s egos.
Working with egos doesn’t mean I always lose. This week, my founder deleted my code because he thought another method was better. Rather than exploding with discontent, I let myself feel it, then came back and listed out the pros and cons of both ideas.
He initially wanted to push his idea, and I decided to open my mind and redid everything his way again. But it didn’t work. He said, “But your idea has another XYZ edge case problem too.” I quickly followed up, “Do you think there’s a way to bundle our data to solve the XYZ edge case problem then?” He then came up with an idea to do it. I didn’t lose, and he didn’t lose either. It’s our idea now.
We all have biases, egos, and sunk cost fallacies. Some have more, and some have less, but if we can open up to change our minds, we are more likely to change other people’s minds too.
Lastly, I learned the importance of taming others’ egos. As a woman, I started to learn how to leverage my strengths well. I learned that being like an alpha male didn’t work well socially and personally for me. Instead of being strong and fighting like a bro (it seems that men work well with each other in this way), being cute seemed to work much better for me.
Yes, you might say that there are some potential downsides to this approach, such as the risk of being undermined, but if you incorporate it well with other tendencies (for me, it’s curiosity, playful brilliance, problem-solving skills, and visualized communication), I believe socially admirable female qualities such as cuteness, sweetness, elegance, or sexiness can shine really well. If the front door is too heavy, why not open a smaller side door?
Bro-like Communication but Harmless Intention
“Don’t fuck this up,” he said.
It’s not something my girlfriends would say to me, but nowadays I learn that tech bros didn’t have any bad intentions. If our relationships go well, I don’t take it personally anymore. And then I adopted one or a few bro lines too. For instance, I stopped using sentences like, “Can you do X, Y, Z?” or “Do you mind…?” I started all these sentences with “You should…”
I learned this to upgrade my assertiveness till one day…
Well… adopting some new cultures has some downsides…
But the good side of this is, even if you say something wrong sometimes, I don’t think bros take it personally too. There’s not much overthinking needed. It’s simple.
If you are a woman reading this post, you might still think, “Argh… men are so messed up.” And I don’t blame you because I’ve met many females who went through lots of shitty male-dominant environments.
But over time, I learned that while some people have too much baggage, there are still many kind people out there who are willing to learn and change. Rather than accusing, I want to learn how to collaborate well and bring out the best in each other.
Well…at least I tried (wink).
