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Did you know? A study conducted on over 250 seminars in 10 countries showed that men were two and a half times more likely to ask questions at the end of a conference than women. A gap that can also be observed in meetings and other professional encounters. According to sociologists, this imbalance reflects persistent structural differences in educational patterns. Boys are encouraged to assert themselves and fill space very early, whereas girls are more invited to display their humility and integrate into the collective—at the cost of sometimes fading into the background. Even though society is evolving, many of us still have to deal with these cultural legacies. Fortunately, some very simple practices can contribute to restoring a balance:

- At the close of a presentation, give the floor for the first reaction to a woman. It has been demonstrated that this opens up other people’s voices, allowing everyone’s point of view to be heard and benefited from.

- In a meeting or seminar, ask everyone to first take a moment for individual reflection—for instance by recording their questions or comments on post-it notes or on a mobile app, then go around the table to invite each person to speak.

Source:  The Authority Gap, Mary Ann Sieghart, Doubleday, 2021.

Do you want to promote feedback? Good call: in a study conducted by leadership development consultancy Zenger Folkman, 94% of the 2,700 respondents thought that well-presented corrective feedback improved their performance.

Do you also want to enhance the diversity within your teams? Indeed, that is the direction history is moving in. And the company has everything to gain by fostering a more varied mix of viewpoints.

But beware: combining these two ambitions raises some difficulties. A criticism or an advice expressed by a person from another culture often engenders defensive reactions. We feel less secure with someone whose codes we do not master. For example, the American culture seeks to preserve self-esteem, thus the emphasis placed on positivity. An American will therefore be easily rattled by criticism from a colleague hailing from a more direct culture, such as Germany or France—whereas Asian cultures, based on less explicit communication, will find “American-style” criticism brutal…

One solution consists in implementing structured feedback loops, in pairs—or, ideally, collectively, if the team members know one another well.  This positions feedback as a legitimate element of cooperation, and not as an aggression. What’s more, the reciprocity of exchanges helps everyone to better account for the culture of their interlocutors.

Source:  When Diversity Meets Feedback, Erin Meyer, Harvard Business Review, September-October 2023.

Finding meaning in one's daily missions is a growing expectation on the part of employees and a powerful lever for commitment. How can managers contribute to making their teams' work more meaningful? Research shows that they have every interest in drawing on the reactions of the people directly concerned by this work: customers, colleagues, partners, etc. Allowing employees to see the tangible effects of their work greatly fuels their commitment, more so than explaining to them why it is useful to invest themselves in this or that mission or objective. Indeed, psychologists have documented that this responds to the deep-seated need to feel that our actions have a positive impact on those around us. Here are some practices that will enable you to activate this lever:

- Create opportunities for direct exchanges between the employee and their interlocutors around questions such as: “In what ways does my work have an effect on your activity?”; “In what ways does it help you to achieve your own objectives?”

- Encourage your employees to express their gratitude to one another as soon as an opportunity arises.

- Systematically collect and disseminate testimonials that offer feedback on your employees' work, even those that may seem anecdotal.

Source: The Simple Way to Inspire Your Team, David Burkus, TEDxReno, May 2023.

What about setting challenges to your teams to reinforce their cohesion? Research in neuroscience shows that the impact is real. A team at the Center for Neuroeconomics Studies has been working for years on this key question: what brings people to trust each other? It started by showing that trust is linked to the production of oxytocin: this hormone encourages individuals to interact and to rely on each other. It then focused on the managerial behaviors that foster the production of oxytocin. Unsurprisingly, it pointed out the fact of acknowledging the quality of the staff and leaving them margins of maneuver, but also the fact of regularly proposing “micro challenges” to the teams. How does it work? When we assign a team a difficult yet reachable objective, the moderate stress of the task releases neurochemical substances—notably the famous oxytocin—, but also adrenocorticotropin. These intensify concentration, reinforce social bonds and help people better coordinate their actions. Beware however: this approach only works if the objectives seem realistic and have a concrete aim. An excellent lever to create a culture that combines collective effectiveness and trust.

Source: The Neuroscience of Trust, Paul J. Zak, Harvard Business Review, January-February 2017.

During the 2003 World Athletics Championships’ final, the French women’s team won the 4x100m relay race. Yet, facing them, the American team gathered the fastest runners in the world. How to explain this apparently paradoxical result?

This French team performance stems from a better cooperation: each athlete was ready to set aside part of her energy geared at her individual performance to guarantee a better efficiency during the baton exchange, for example by shouting to indicate her precise position to her partner and to communicate her energy to her. To encourage such a state of mind in companies, we must be ready to review some organizational “best practices” that hamper cooperation. For example, it seems rational to precisely document the roles, to clarify the scopes of action and to measure the performance according to these well-defined scopes. Yet, in such a situation, what is the interest for the individuals to collaborate with their teammates or other departments? What do they gain by getting out of their scopes to help colleagues?

What is gained in clarity and rationalization is often quickly lost in smoothness. To remedy this, ask yourself the question: do all the job descriptions, all the processes and all the key performance indicators put in place encourage individuals to collaborate, or do they create obstacles and conflicts of interest?

Source: How too many rules at work keep you from getting things done, Yves Morieux, TED@BCG London, September 2015.