Marcus rushed home from the airport hoping to get the computer room organized. This was his quiet place of refuge after a long day and he considered it his home office. Normally, he knew exactly where everything was and everything had its own little place. His business journals were stacked on the upper right corner of the desk. The stapler and tape dispenser were neatly aligned just below the journals. A small picture frame of his family was positioned on the upper left corner of the desk. The top drawer of his desk contained all of his home finance files including previous tax returns and financial statements. The bottom drawer was filled with clearly marked files that ranged from “Current Projects” to “College Cost Comparisons for Children” to “Consumer Reports.” Normally, when Marcus walked into the computer room everything would be exactly as he left it. But today would be different.

Marcus had been out of town for five days and his sister had come to visit his wife Carmen while he was away. His sister had two teenage daughters who loved to spend hours on MySpace and Marcus knew they probably ransacked his computer room. Carmen didn’t seem to understand his need to have everything so perfect and she let her nieces hang out in the computer room while he was away.

When Marcus walked through the door he immediately tripped over a backpack left lying near the entry. Trying to hide his frustration, he picked up the backpack, set it on a chair and proceeded to give his wife a hug.

“How was your trip?” Carmen was excited to have him home.

“It was the same as always.”

“Did you get to show them your new ideas for the software updates?”

“Yeah. They liked it.” Marcus seemed a little distracted.

“That’s great honey. Listen, your sister went to the mall with the girls to do some school shopping. Do you want to have some coffee and catch up on what’s been going on?”

“Actually, can we do that later? I would really like to get some things organized in the office and get a couple of things off my plate so I can relax.” Carmen forced a smile and nodded understandingly as Marcus turned toward the computer room.

His steps slowed as he neared the door. His heart started to beat a little faster as he feared what might be behind that door. His hand reached for the door knob as he drew in a long breath. He held his breath in anticipation as his hand turned the knob and the door inched its way open. He could no longer stand the suspense so he thrust the door completely open. The music from “Psycho” rang in his head as his eyes darted around the room. His worst nightmare was unfolding. The stapler was on the floor. His journals were scattered across the desk. Pens were out of their container. Yellow sticky notes with drawings and smiley faces stuck to his computer screen. He could feel the veins protruding in his neck!

As Marcus began to put everything back in its place, Carmen entered the room.

“Is everything all right honey?”

“Yeah it’s fine Carmen. I just need to get some things done.”

“Okay… well is there anything I can do to help?”

“Nope.” Marcus didn’t even look up as he continued to reorganize his office.

Carmen left the room thinking, “Typical male. Comes home, goes into his cave, and doesn’t even want to talk.”

UNRAVELING THE SCENARIO

As we look at this real life scenario (names have been changed), we begin to see where some gender stereotypes can be perpetuated while others don’t make sense. For example, this situation would appear to confirm that women talk more than men; women want relationships and men want to accomplish tasks; women pursue and men withdraw; or women want to talk at the end of the day and men want to retreat to their caves.

A deeper look into social style better explains the actions that are taking place. Additionally, once we examine and evaluate the social style of each person here, we can start to understand why they are behaving the way they are. As we do this, we see that gender is not the driving issue—social style is.

I conducted a social style survey/evaluation on Carmen and Marcus to confirm their respective social styles. I had a pretty good idea of what their social styles were by listening to their scenarios and observing their behavior, but having the confirmation always makes it easier to get them to understand why they do the things they do.

Marcus came out as an Analytical social style and Carmen came out Expressive. They are complete opposites. See chart below.



When we look at their situation under the magnifying glass of social style, everything starts to make sense. Analyticals are very organized people. They don’t like their stuff moved and they don’t like chaos. The Analytical knows exactly where to find everything. And they want it left there. Analyticals are by nature task-oriented which means they gravitate towards getting tasks completed before socializing. In fact, Analyticals would prefer to stay clear of super social situations as they feel uncomfortable and awkward in those environments. Analyticals also avoid conflict and would prefer to just keep things inside because they are introverted in nature and think some things are just better left unsaid.

Marcus is a very strong Analytical. He shared that he actually feels immense stress when things are disorganized. One of his major frustrations was having a wife who left things lying around, let the kids leave things strewn throughout the house (like the backpack at the door), and seemed to be in a constant state of chaos.

Carmen saw things a little differently. She said it wasn’t chaos at all. It just wasn’t important to her to have everything in its perfect place. She hated routines and schedules and wanted lots of spontaneity. She said she was frustrated with Marcus and his need for routine, predictability, and constant order. She wanted to have more fun, talk more, and socialize with their friends more.

Carmen is a typical Expressive. It’s not because she’s a woman that she wants to be more social, it’s because she’s an Expressive. Her disorganization defies the gender myth that men are slobs and women are neat. Maybe some would argue that she is an anomaly. I would have to respectfully disagree.

Expressives who do not have a strong element of Driver or Analytical to them tend to be disorganized overall. Their priority is to save energy and there are much more fun things to be doing in life than keeping everything in its exact place (at least that’s their line of thinking.).


Who's the Talker?

You will see Josh and Bri pop up in quite a few examples. One of the reasons is because they are exact opposites in social style. Another reason is they defy many of the gender stereotypes and would appear to confirm some of the stereotypes if you didn’t understand social style. A third reason is I have frequent interaction with them so I am able to observe their behavior on an ongoing basis.

When it comes to the stereotype of men being slobs and women being neat, it would appear that Josh and Bri fit the mold. Bri keeps the house very clean. When it’s not clean, she feels stressed. When Josh doesn’t pick up after himself, she feels frustrated. Josh can’t seem to understand why Bri needs to have the dinner dishes cleaned and put away before everyone has even left the table. He offers to do the dishes later, but later to Bri means she has to look at them stacked in the sink getting crusty and it stresses her out. She wants them done right away.

Josh leaves his towel on the bathroom floor. Bri hangs hers on the hook. Josh leaves clothes lying around the bedroom while Bri puts them in their respective places. Josh leaves his hair gel and shaving cream sitting out on the counter. Bri prefers to have the bathroom counter clean. Josh leaves his mail sitting on the kitchen table. Bri bought him a mail basket but he doesn’t like it—he needs to see the mail to remind him that it needs to be processed. While they adore each other, they can’t always understand why the other can’t be more like them.

An outsider might say, “Well Josh is a guy and men are slobs and women are neat so just deal with it.” That’s not the case. Josh is an Expressive and organized perfection is not a priority for him. Bri is an Analytical and she can be obsessive about having things clean and organized. So it’s not a matter of gender, it’s a matter of social style. And while social style is innate and ingrained, we can still choose our behaviors.

So even though it isn’t a priority for Josh to have things as clean as Bri, he still makes an effort to go beyond his comfort zone and put things away or do the dishes sooner. And even though Bri’s natural reaction is to want to have everything clean and perfect immediately, she still makes an effort to socialize and have fun with Josh when she can hear the dishes calling her name.

Understanding social style helps you to identify innate differences and make behavior changes to accommodate each other. If you continue to attribute gender stereotypical myths to the opposite sex, you may find yourself trying to make accommodations that don’t apply. In this situation, it would appear that men are slobs and women are neat, but our beginning story of Marcus and Carmen reveal otherwise.


SURVEY SAYS

In our survey, we didn’t ask people how many hours a week are spent on household chores. Instead, we asked respondents to mark true or false to the following statement: “I keep things very neat, clean and organized.”

More men than women said they were neat, clean and organized. In all fairness, more men than women responded to the survey (219 males versus 203 females). One sector that we sent an email announcement to regarding the online survey was the fire service. There are predominately more males than females in the fire service.

Most of the respondents who said they were neat, clean and organized were either Analyticals or Drivers. The vast majority of those who said they were not neat, clean and organized were Expressives and Amiables. Some of the secondary social styles played into the responses, but overall gender did not appear to be a determining factor in whether people were neat or slobs.

-Excerpt from Kimberly Alyn's book titled Men Are Slobs Women Are Neat... and Other Gender Lies that Damage Relationships (co-author Bob Phillips)