Empathetic and systemic

It is time to move away from the male / female contrast, as it is just a little too simplistic. Simon Baron–Cohen describes the two brains as Empathetic (largely women) and Systemic (largely men) - “The Essential Difference” Simon Baron–Cohen: Penguin 2003. He points out that most of us are a mix. My own daily vocabulary, for example, is greater than that of my wife, though, true to stereotype, I would probably wear a grey suit and blue shirt every day if she did not insist on adding colour!

Baron–Cohen’s labels of Empathetic and Systemic are useful, not just because they help to avoid possibly provocative male/female stereotyping; they are descriptively useful too. In the main, the Empathetic person is more interested in relationships, in how people feel and in both protecting and building these relationships together. Their conversation, gestures and their behaviours are extensive, inclusive and mutually supportive, rather than confrontational. This is at least one reason why women don’t earn as much as men. Linda Babcock, an Economics professor at Carnegie Mellon University, has found that women of all ages are far less likely than men to initiate salary, career or even project negotiations ( “Women Don’t Ask” Linda Babcock: Princeton University Press 2003) . They tend to accept whatever is offered by their employers. Other studies have resulted in similar findings. Of a sample,

  • 7% of women negotiated their salaries; 57% of men did
  • 70% of women thought themselves worth the same as others
  • 70% of men thought themselves worth more
  • 17% of women thought it was up to them to make sure their company paid them properly
  • 85% of men thought it was up to them to make sure their company paid them properly

Part of their hesitancy is that many women do not want to appear “pushy”. Their low–testosterone, empathetic character traits are also playing a part. The empathetic lady does not want to be aggressive, because she has little drive to beat others, little instinct to be competitive, to have to win. Whereas she (because, in most instances the person is a ‘she’) does want to develop her relationships, friendships and associations with other men and women, she does not want to be disliked by her own peers. An article in The Economist found that, at the 2003 Academy of Management, 26% of male business owners wanted to be thought of as authority figures, but only 5% of females wanted to be seen this way.

This all matters for those leading businesses. We men may need to watch carefully to see that it is the best candidates for a job who succeed, not just the ones that are most pushy to our male eyes.

Empathetic people are concerned with relationships. Systemic people (largely male) are far more focussed on things, how engines work, with precise facts and with measurement. It is no coincidence that it is mostly men who collect stamps, who are train–spotters and who record cricket scores. All tend to be solitary, quiet, introverted activities – all are about completing gaps, about facts. And as part of this, the systemic male is focussed on being right, accurate, and on winning the argument. His bonding ritual will involve football, cars and earning–power, and always with a little edge.

One final point: most women, certainly most empathetic women, will have at least one best friend with whom she talks every day. The talk, often over the phone, appears motiveless, almost idle. It is a regular frustration to so many men – “They just talk; they aren’t talking about anything, no purpose, nothing happens as a result, and it goes on for hours!” But herein lies a formidable weapon for female sanity. Just by talking, she will be bonding with her friend, generating oxytocin and reinforcing her own sense of wellbeing. She will be recharging her batteries and opening up for the day ahead.

The systemic and lone male will, meanwhile, be creating no such self–help structure, as he stoically plods to work. Instead, his very lack of vocabulary and expression often lies at the heart of his own frustrated relationships. Some of my clients have failing marriages and, on so many occasions, we go through the following tragic exchange:

  • Me: “But do you love your wife?”
  • Him: “Yes, absolutely, of course I do”
  • Me: (after a pause) “Do you tell her often?”
  • Him: “No.” (another pause) “She knows I love her anyway.”

If only the systemic brain could understand how great the Empathetic’s need is to be spoken to, stroked and reassured. If only the Empathetic can learn that the silences and the lone collecting of stamps, or whatever, are not meant to exclude or to reject. If only both types could learn to listen to the other, to understand what is in their heads.

For the leader or manager, it is important to encourage a mix of these personalities. They each bring relevant and different skills, ranging from the purposeful and focussed problem solvers, to those who encourage each other and perceive the feelings of the audience or marketplace. This matters especially because these are the traits that characterise and drive the systemic male. We have been touching throughout on what could be called the biological roots of men’s persistent one–upmanship and aggressive need to win. We need to understand as well, that, at his most creative , many men are driven by a mild form of autism and so are especially demanding to deal with.

Alpha Males are into power and, superficially at any rate, they revel in it. “The greatest joy a man can know is to conquer his enemies and drive them before him,” said Genghis Khan, “to ride their horses and take away their possessions.”. He conquered two thirds of the known world during the 13th century, amassing an empire that stretched from Eastern Europe to Korea: He is credited with 20,000 descendents. Today researchers believe that 8% of the people living in his former Empire bear his genes. The point is that, as we have already intimated, many testosterone–driven males remain very similar to how we were 800 years ago. We are driven to dominate, to be socially superior, no matter what the cost. We show the need as early as 13–month old toddlers. By 6, boys have already established hierarchies of dominance within their groups, whilst girls (empathists) are already developing co–operative play. Boys fight, girls withdraw their friendships.

High testosterone levels lead to aggressive competition and to the need for winners and therefore losers. Does this matter? Yes it does, and in several, possibly unforeseen, ways.

In the first place, managers and boards need to recognise that empathetic people are unlikely to provide the driven leaders their companies may need. They no less need to understand that the high testosterone Alpha Male systemic left unhelped is likely to get out of control. The same drive that makes for outstanding leaders can culminate in a never–ending and almost unwitting abuse of sensible standards of behaviour. In structuring projects, hierarchies, challenges for executives, leaders would be well–advised to provide realistic opportunities for them to be seen to win and celebrate. Success is a great motivator, when coupled with recognition and caring criticism.

Not everyone, however, can succeed. The triumph can only go to one person (usually male / systemic) at a time. Many people subliminally know this. They become followers; they tend to mimic their leader, and gain their reward in a reflected glory. We need to be wary of such acolyte structures. The thought challenge has gone, values and standards are threatened. Suddenly there is an in–crowd. At the time of writing, the newspapers are full of Tony Blair’s copying the swaggering walk of Bush. The mimicking can lead rapidly to a stifling of debate at a whole organisational level. We will touch on this in the chapter on leadership.

Establishing status, creating hierarchies is not just a habit or cultural tradition. It is instead a design feature of the systemic psyche – a biological drive that is rooted in the nervous system and regulated by hormones and brain chemicals. The drive shapes our societies and we are not necessarily the worse off for it. As we will see in more detail, under a benign and adult leader, organisations can be transformed and the hierarchy becomes part of an understood culture – “the way we do things here”.

One further thought about this largely male or systemic brain’s need to win. Success almost literally breeds success, a feeling of joy, of becoming unstoppable. So, by the same token, we have to understand the consequences of failure, and, most of all, powerlessness. This too is toxic. In the 1980s I worked with Mrs Thatcher’s government to help cope with the unemployment of the period. We created job and training opportunities for those experiencing long–term unemployment. Regardless of the merits of those opportunities, many men failed to respond, so devastatingly depressed had they become by what they felt was the hopelessness of the position.

It is a vital role for leaders and managers to demonstrate that “success” in organisations is not just about being higher up the ladder. It is not pious humbug to say that everyone, from the doorman and canteen manager, to the chief executive, can and should be motivated to excel at their job. They can, and it is vital that their excellence at whatever role should be respected.

In the first place, the Peter Principle is one of the most wasteful and futile sequences identified. “Wasteful” because it dooms so many to continue to feel that they have to strive for more, even when that will inevitably lead to them overreaching and failing. “Futile”, because so unnecessary and valueless. In practice, our contentment and happiness is greatly supported by the confident knowledge of doing a job well done. In fact, we cannot all be Number One. And great teams need great contributors at all levels. It is essential that organisations should have holding roles throughout the structure. There are points at which excellent performers can stay for their careers, rather akin to the invaluable NCO ranks in the army. Such men and women are “Trusties”, long–term, important influencers of culture and behaviour within the firm. They should be honoured and managed with a distinct respect and trust. They are the vital contributors at each level of the organisation.

The higher the testosterone levels in the foetus, the more strongly systemic will be the child and, gradually, as Simon Baron–Cohen (Director of the Cambridge University Autism Research Centre and author of “The Essential Difference”: Penguin Books 2003) has described, we will move towards the extreme systemic (largely male) brain – towards autism. Baron–Cohen defines autism as an imbalance between the empathetic and systemic brain. Most autistics (80%) are male, and they are characterised by an extreme, apparently obsessive focus on patterns, numbers, how things work. The autistic male may find human communication difficult. They will have little ability to interpret facial expression, will focus on literal detail, rather than ambiguities and abstraction. They will be driven to complete, to be precise.

Society needs its semi–autistic people – without them we would greatly slow our progress in science, research and indeed in the arts. We should not dismiss such people as “geeks”, the offensive term coined to describe the men of Silicon Valley. Instead we should study and integrate them carefully into our organisations. All are human, many suffer because they seem different. Some are the greatest minds in our world.

Professor Baron–Cohen’s book usefully describes the characters of Einstein and Newton – both had not only highly–developed systemic skills, but also a low empathising capability. Newton “always kept close to his studies, very rarely went a–visiting and had as few visiters ….. I never knew him take any recreation or pastime, either in riding out to take the air, a–walking, bowling or any other exercise, thinking all hours lost that were not spent in his studies.”

Einstein was described as solitary, lonely, not making friends. He was not fluent in speech till the age of 10.

“I’m not much with people,” he said, “Social encounters distract me from my work and I really only live for that.” Most physicists are men. But Baron–Cohen quotes a rare female academic physicist, Helena Przysiezniak, discussing her male colleagues at the European Organisation for Nuclear Research:

“They lack basic social skills and some do not take care of themselves….. we all (myself included) have one characteristic and that is ‘arrogance’. We want to prove something is right, and that everyone else is wrong.”

Foot note 29:Professor Baron–Cohen is director of the Cambridge University Autism Research Centre and author of “The Essential Difference”: Penguin Books 2003

Nor is autism confined to the world of physics. Michelangelo may have been an artistic genius but he was a social cripple. A loner, self–absorbed and driven by the obsessive need to control every feature of his life – like the architect, John Nash, who also had high–functioning autism – he had few friends. Unable to show emotion, having difficulty communicating or holding a conversation; he would often walk away in the middle of an exchange. There are “specialist high achievers” in all the serious professions. This should not be surprising. Architecture, engineering, medicine, law and accountancy all demand years of disciplined study. Those who excel are likely to be self–selected, needing to be right, to have the power of precise, often arcane knowledge, and to be obsessively concerned with the minutiae and detail of their world. It is astonishing how antisocially aggressive they can be, for example in carrying out a design appraisal, in evaluating a junior’s tax report or in contemplating alternative medical procedures. Their wives are often frustrated and unhappy, or tolerantly putting up with their husbands, whom they jovially treat like a loveable pet.

The trouble is that few organisations seem to understand the different brain sets of their colleagues. Often, anyway, they all share a milder form of specialist high achiever syndrome – one reason for the uniquely dysfunctional pattern of meetings and communications that characterise so many professional firms. Those that appreciate this, and have the foresight to appoint empathetic and sophisticated management teams, create for themselves a real opportunity for market leadership. Of course achieving such appointments within an equity partnership is particularly difficult – the empathetic candidates are unlikely to have excelled as professionals, and so may be dismissed by their peer group as being inadequate or second–rate.

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