R-E-S-P-E-C-T: Nurturing Inclusive Leaders and Building a Culture

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Spencer Levy
When our guest on this show was starting her career in the 1980s, she was a woman in a man's world trying to fit a mold by following the expectation of the boys club and a changing corporate culture. We've come a long way since then, but these days, the business world is still trying to figure out the best ways to cultivate leaders, build relationships, and improve company culture. On this episode, bold ideas about business leadership and inclusiveness with a thinker who's not afraid to push some hot buttons. 

Barbara Annis 
If we think that equal means the same, you know, we all try to assimilate in one mold. Right. And that's a problem because what happened was that women either don't advance or they leave. 

Spencer Levy
That's Barbara Annis, CEO of Gender Intelligence Group and an expert on gender, diversity and inclusive leadership. Thirty years ago, Barbara turned an award-winning career in sales into this education, executive coaching and consulting business. We'll hear more about her work and the insights behind the five books she has written or co-authored. Coming up, a conversation filled with ideas that are affecting and perhaps transforming organizational thinking around the world. I'm Spencer Levy and that's right now on The Weekly Take. 

Spencer Levy
Welcome to The Weekly Take. Barbara, welcome to the show. 

Barbara Annis
Thank you, Spencer. I'm delighted to be here. 

Spencer Levy 
Well, delighted to have you. Barbara and I had the privilege of seeing you speak at CBRE’s WE Conference. So tell me first, Barbara, thirty years in this space. Let's just start off at the beginning. How did you get into the space, Barbara? 

Barbara Annis
My first job out of college I was a salesperson. They called me sales-man of the year at Sony. And I was there and I won 14 outstanding sales achievement awards, MVP award. And I came to the recognition that – you know what? – if I can make it, any woman can make it. And I was the only woman out of 600 guys. So you can imagine. And that's, you know, thirty years ago. So I left and I started a workshop called Women in Business. And I thought if I could just train women and th at lasted about a year. And the reason it lasted a year was that I had a huge blindspot. I thought if I could just train women to fit into the current male paradigm. Right. Which is – sales culture was very alpha male back then, and they certainly took on that behavior. The reason it took on that behavior was that I was trained to do that. I was actually sent to San Francisco to a course called Guerrilla War Tactics for Women in Business. And I took on this extreme alpha male behavior, which actually then I became a very dangerous person at Sony. So it was kind of like a Catch-22. So anyway, I really shifted to saying, this is not about women, it's about men and women. So my focus has been about men and women working and winning together. It's not about separating women out into a pink silo somewhere, do you know what I mean? So that's been my mission for thirty years. 

Spencer Levy
Well, that's terrific. And so I think it's very interesting how you started the training you received and the way you framed it as alpha male behavior and and how far we've come to different forms of training today. What were some of the things you were taught and how are they different today? 

Barbara Annis
Yeah, great question. You know, there are still pockets where they're teaching this stuff they just call it “leadership presence” or something like that. But basically the tools that I was given was things like: Umm, your voice. Lower your voice. Don't high pitch your voice, and make sure it sticks to  the back of the wall. Crack the first joke. If they're swearing, you be the first to swear. That kind of thing, you know. And claim your space in, in boardrooms, etc. We were even doing ropes courses, terms of who would win and all that stuff. So it's a very militaristic, win-lose approach, right? That's why they ended it. I'm Danish, if you hear an accent. They ended up calling me at Sony “The Danish Sherman Tank” after I took that course because I became this tough chick. You know what I mean? Harvard actually has a study called The First Woman Syndrome. So a lot of women who started in certain industries when they were the first felt like they had to be one of the guys. Right. And I really think today there are courses, which is about authenticity. Being yourself. Bring your whole self to work. There should be more, but certainly there is. And then there's some leadership training out there that still trains this type of stuff. 

Spencer Levy
What is the fundamental difference between the training you received 30 years ago and the training that you try to give today to women in the workplace? 

Barbara Annis
The biggest insight I had was that when I was with clients, I was totally Barbara. Like, I didn't try to force myself into being an alpha guy right. It was inside the culture of Sony where I felt that I had to do that right. So the win of it, because I was so successful and I had such high trust with my clients, was the fact that that's what people want. Men and women want authentic people. They don't want people who are faking it until they make it kind of thing, right? So that was my biggest aha moment and that's what we do. We talk about the neuroscience of gender differences. We talk about honoring differences and the fact that their strengths and differences. Once you have the eyes to see them, you can capitalize on them. And they had a huge impact. So that's our frame of reference and it seems to really make a big difference. 

Spencer Levy 
Well, I think that the way and maybe you use a very similar phrase, keeping it real has never been something that's more important than it is today. And we certainly emphasize that be authentic, be you. And so would you say that is probably one of the foundational rules of modern business training? 

Barbara Annis 
I think being you people can smell it a mile away when you're not right. Especially in relationship type of businesses such as yours, it’s all about relationships. It's all about authenticity and building trust. However, there is an edit lens and Paul Frederick, who is a sociologist, said this. He said, When a man stands up and speak, people listen. When a woman stands up and speak, people look If they like what they see, they listen. So there is still women feeling that there's an added scrutiny for women on stage or being upfront there. Yeah. 

Spencer Levy 
This is a topic I think is so important and for a hundred different reasons. And not only just from very bottom line reasons, we need as many and as diverse of a workforce as we can get. But also being very honest that this is different than how I was trained early on in my career. And early on in my career, we were trained and I say this matter of fact, not to recognize differences, to try to view everybody the same. And what you're suggesting now is that and your research certainly speaks to is not necessarily treat people differently in a better or worse sense, but recognize there are differences. Is that a good way to frame it? 

Barbara Annis
The perfect way to frame it and you're absolutely right. How you and I were taught was of equality, right? So the whole feminist movement. ET cetera. Equality back then was about sameness. So anything you do, I can do kind of thing, right? And that created a huge blindspot. Because then no, if we think that equal means the same, you know, we all try to assimilate in one mold. Right? And that's a problem, because what happened was that women either don't advance or they leave. They leave organizations because they say things like, you know what, I feel like I'm a foreigner in my own country if I have to assimilate into sameness. And that's what I said many, many times when I was at Sonu said, You know what? My family wouldn't recognize me at work. Right? And that's a sad statement when you think of it. Right. To choose to split people, that's not a good thing, right? So, yeah, so definitely it’s about difference thinking, appreciating the differences. Yeah. 

Spencer Levy
And so big picture, before we get into some of the specific things you're training, just big picture, are people embracing your way of viewing gender differences in the workplace or is there still some reluctance along the lines of people were trained differently. 

Barbara Annis
There was definitely less resistance than we first introduced it. But yeah, there is a concern like, do we really have to have this conversation? You know, I've been trained not to even talk about differences, right? So when we talk about the neuroscience and I know you experienced that, men find it incredibly freeing. Say, oh, I can actually because I do see these differences, but I was never being politically correct. I'm not going to bring them up. Right. And women find it incredibly validating. They say, you know what, I thought there was something wrong with me. I needed a coach. I needed to be more assertive, I needed to be this, this and that. Right. So but it is really, thank goodness to the science out there that now is out that can really validate the fact that we are wired differently and it's a good thing. 

Spencer Levy
Let's now talk about some of that science. In general terms tell us about what the neuroscience actually says, about what are some of the gender differences you see? 

Barbara Annis
Okay. So first of all, every single cell in our body is either X,/X, X/Y, 95% of us. So X/X are male hormones X/Y are women, 95% of us have X/X or X/Y, and then there's a 5% that has all kinds of intermixed differences. And that exist in every organ from the brain to our liver to our kidney, like our lungs everywhere. The challenge was that – and if you've seen my TED talk, you will know that – is that it wasn't researched until 1990. Prior to that, there was an assumption that other than what the science called the bikini factor, there were no differences between men and women. So they didn't want to include women because of the hormonal changes or mess up the data. Right. So just to keep it clean, they would have male animals and male men,right, studied. And that created a huge breakdown for women. And the biggest breakdown was that 72% of women who have heart attacks, which is a number two killer for women, have very different symptoms of heart attack. They have flu-like symptoms. So what happens is that they get sent home or you have anxiety or flu or something like that and they end up dying. So that was the biggest, biggest wake up call. And Dr. Marin Legato was one of the first doctors who was asked to do research around that. And I think you saw the video interview of her where she said, why would I want to check women's heart versus men's? Because in medical school, I was never taught that. And she did that. And she realized that not only the heart was different, but every single body system is different in women than men. So that was the biggest wake up call. And since then there's been or 1 million people, 60 countries, all continents being tested from race to ethnicity to all aspects where they see these differences occur. 

Spencer Levy 
This brings up an age old question about behavior, which is nature versus nurture. And I think where your science is so important, but once again brings up a little bit of discomfort for people who have been trained differently. What you're saying that there's a lot of this is nature, not nurture, is that what you're saying? 

Barbara Annis 
Yeah, There's still an argument to what percentage is what. But when you go in an MRI scan or a CT scan in the brain, you actually see these hardwired differences even in the first and second trimester between the male and a female fetus. So we know that there is nature there. We also know this nurture. Of course, all men are not the same. Right. There's a whole different aspect. There's a bell curve for men in this bell curve for women. Because we're brought up a certain way for example, say, my husband. I would say he's more gender intelligent because he had three sisters, right? He was exposed to that and worked with a lot of women. Right. So he was much more sensitized to that. But his brain is male. You know, it's very loud and clear. Right. We could argue, too, what percent percentage. But what we do know is that there is the hard wiring. And also, we do know that we can learn new things, right? We can rewire certain parts of our brain and certain parts of the brain we cannot right, It's just wired that way. 

Spencer Levy
How do you get your message across not just to women? I think, you know, clearly the message is going to be received differently as a woman or as a man. Do you change how you deliver the message? 

Barbara Annis
Totally. So for women, the story, right, the experience, the journey is very important. So that's why everything that we do is research based, right? So it's not something that we kind of make-up, right. And we checked 240,000 men and women. We ask them, what are the challenge you experience working with each other? And we see these things that emerged, right? So I share that. But what's really important is that it's not about blame. It's about understanding. So you really want to present in a way that there's a win for men and there's a win for women, right. And the win for men is to get okay, I get it, but what do I do? Because men tend to be very action oriented. And women are seeking understanding. You might have noticed it because you are you're on stage a lot. But it's a very fine art to be able to create that balance when you have male audience versus female audience because you want to present the business case, right, Which men love, right. And you also want to give that experience to women where they can have that conversation with themselves and they can say, yeah, you know what, I experienced that, too. So that was kind of the blend of strategy at that event. 

Spencer Levy
Let's shift now to the practical application of your research to some of your clients. So tell me just generally speaking, who are – you don't have the name if you're not comfortable – but what kind of industries are they in? How do you treat them differently? How do you train them? 

Barbara Annis
Well, we work with a lot of financial industry banks, Bank of America. We work with Wells Fargo. We worked with a lot of Canadian banks, actually, BMO, RBC, CIBC, etc., and some of the global banks as well. But we've been in every industry, Silicon Valley, a lot around there. And right now we're in manufacturing and mining. It's amazing to see how great a need there is for that. I think there's a lot of battle fatigue around gender equality. A lot of companies have tried many, many things and found that they didn't work. Or they thought they were going to solve certain things that they didn't, right. One of our proudest moments is working with American Express, an example. Simply because they really took it on and embedded it in their DNA of their culture. Ken Chenault was the president and the CEO at the time, really declared that and made it very symbolic and very strategic in terms of how to implement it. And I think that's super important that you can measure progress because there's so much lack of progress still, you know. And then the pandemic, of course, has hit us, too, around women, and advancing women as well. 

Spencer Levy [00:14:59] Well, we had on this show about a year ago of Wendy Mann, and she is the global CEO of CREW, which is Commercial Real Estate for Women. And what she said on the show was that the pandemic materially and adversely affected women more than it affected men in terms of career trajectory and other factors. Do you agree with that? 

Barbara Annis
Yes, I do. It's amazing to see even clients that we work with in the past to see how the pandemic has hit women, in particular working moms. And we're actually really working very hard on reinventing the workplace around creating Work-Life Harmony. Because I think it's so important for women to have that option to do that. And also, women have felt that working from home, there was a huge concern of them being invisible in terms of really having more good opportunity for advancement. And that's actually played out in certain industries where we see that women are advancing it's slowed down. Some people say we've gone back 20 years. I see pockets of that. I don't see that it is an overall theme, but certainly it has had an impact on women. Absolutely. 

Spencer Levy 
Well, I love the fact that you use the term work life harmony rather than work life balance. Going back to what I said a moment ago regarding women being materially more negatively impacted by the pandemic than their male counterparts. Perhaps there's a silver lining that I always like to see, a silver lining in certain things. I think the silver lining perhaps, is that certain forms of hybrid work, certain forms of work from home at a maybe a more regular pace have become more institutionally accepted. Is that a silver lining? 

Barbara Annis 
I think there's definitely a silver lining, especially as I mentioned, for working parents, both men and women, but particularly women. And I think to be able to now be able to negotiate your own work life harmony, that's the silver lining here. If companies are willing to be agile in that way, I mean, I know that there are certain jobs like we work with a mining company and there's certain jobs where you have to be in the mine, Whether you're an engineer, a geology or a geologist or so on. But there certainly are certain industries where you can be much more flexible. So the old mindset, if I don't see you in the office, do you really mean you're not committed? It's shifting. That's shifting big time.

Spencer Levy
There have been a tremendous number of academic studies, as I'm sure you've read a 50 times the number that I have read from Stanford University in particular talking about, you know, back in the day, telecommuting and its negative impact not only on your career advancement, but also on your emotional well-being. Is that an angle here that we should be considering? 

Barbara Annis
Yes, I really think 2023 is going to be about well-being and about productivity. In a well-beingness way, if you know what I mean. Right. When we look at why women leave versus why men leave organizations. Women tend to leave because they don't feel valued. Men tend to leave because they look for better opportunity elsewhere. And well-being part is huge if you actually really care about people's well-being, that's a huge value piece, right? That can reduce the turnover greatly. If you begin to really look at that piece of valuing people's well-being. 

Spencer Levy
So you've worked with some of the most prominent organizations in the world, and I was proud to see you at a CBRE event. But if you were walking in the door to another financial institution, just give me the thumbnail sketch of how you like to set up your program. What are some of the key takeaways you hope that the audience will have? 

Barbara Annis
First, we meet them where they are, and usually these large organizations have a lot of data, right? They have a lot of survey results and so they don't know what to do with it sometimes, but they do have the data. So we go in and we put a gender lens on that data from every aspect of race, ethnicity, generational, LGBTQ, all of it. And then we begin to come up with themes in terms of what exactly are you solving for and how do you do it right. In a way that is sustainable and measurable, right. So that's been our thing. I remember about 15 years ago I sat with my associates and I said this: Look at our client list and let’s ask a tough question. Who has actually done it right? And that list went from 72 to about seven. And that was a very daunting moment, maybe more like 20 years ago. And then I said, Why? And what I realized was that because the mindset was that it was an initiative. It was like we would go in there and would give some training and they would fill out the happy sheets and it would be all wonderful. And then they would go back five days later to business as usual. It wasn't embedded inside the culture. So we really shifted 20 years ago to say, You know what? We'll go in if we can measure progress with you. We want to partner with you to go all the way to measure it. So the measurements are turnover, right, in terms of men and women. The measurement is advancement. The measurement is culture, of people valued inside the culture. The measure is in leadership accountability. Are leaders really walking the talk around it. And then the talent management? Are you embedding gender intelligence in your talent management? Because again, how you were brought up and trained and me around sameness, if you have a sameness lens, when you look at leadership competencies or leadership strengths, you have a problem. And you may automatically not misassess women because they tend to have different leadership styles. So it's a big job, but I've seen companies have been able to do it in a year when we used to think it would take 5 to 7 years. 

Spencer Levy
So I've been through many, many workshops and there's often a reluctance in these workshops to how do I put this reveal yourself because you feel like there's certain elements of yourself that may not be accepted culturally. Or may not be perceived as leadership qualities. Do you see that and how do you have people overcome that reluctance? 

Barbara Annis
It's a very good question. I see it especially in the beginning of a workshop. Especially when you talk about gender. I mean, come on. If I was in an audience with more men and women, I would have men at one table and women at the other. And I would ask them the challenges they experience or the differences they notice working with one another. And it takes a while for men to feel safe enough to be able to speak up. You know, women feel. oh, great question. Finally, you're asking me this question so they feel very freed up. I know you get to hear me out. You know, as you saw in that event, too, they were very engaged. But men are more reluctant. And why? Because men feel like they've been blamed for a long time for the way the culture is or the male dominated paradigm and all of that stuff. So it's really, really important to remove the blame and address the why. What’s the big idea and why should we care. And that's why I always put the business case upfront, because it just makes business sense. You know, when you think about it, when you even look at consumer spending, 82% of women are the purchasers in the world of ours. In Japan, it's 90% do not even put it on an app it's 80 between 82%. That's a big economic factor just right there. And in your industry, too, real estate women are key influencers in deciding what to purchase and what not to purchase. And I'm sure you have lots of business case around that. But back to your question. Yeah, it is hard, but if you create that safety and one man speaks up, all of a sudden they feel very free. And the neuroscience of course helps because it kind of validates the fact that we are different and we can talk about it. 

Spencer Levy
I love the way you frame it. I guess you go right back to what you said earlier in the conversation. Men want give me the business case and now I feel free to talk about it perhaps differently than the way women perceive it. But the workshop is one thing. What happens the day after the workshop is a whole other matter. Right. And that comes down to not just many of the measurements which you've suggested, which include productivity, which is hard to measure. But turnover is probably the best metric of whether or not you're succeeding. People moving up the ladder is another measure of you succeeding, but also courageous conversations. And very often, particularly in the male, female, and also in other contexts where people have different backgrounds, people are afraid to have that conversation, should they? 

Barbara Annis
So you can create insights, you can create aha moments in workshops. You can give people deeper insight in terms, eyes to see what's going on. But if they don't take action afterwards, it's really hard. Courageous conversation is one that we recommend. I always used to quote Mother Teresa: “Understanding means there’s nothing to forgive.” So if you could have a non-playing, courageous conversation about not assuming any intent or ill intent, but good intentions and just accelerate understanding. Boy, we could have solved a lot of things. 

Spencer Levy
Let's now talk about the real estate industry. We touched on work from home, which I think I don't want to put words in your mouth net-net, you think, is probably a good thing for women to have more of this harmony, to give them some more flexibility. But in our business, we're trying to and I say this, you know, very matter of factly, we want people to go back to the office. Would you agree with that? And how far should we push it in terms of asking people to come back to the office? 

Barbara Annis
There's some interesting research, so there's 60 companies recently who did a pilot. IBM was one of the sponsors for it. IBM Japan did, a pilot saying, let's do, so Japan is all about office, all about face time, all about being there till midnight kind of thing, Right? That's the culture. It's work, work, work, work, work. And they experimented then working four days a week. And they actually saw that not only was it better for their wellbeing because that's a huge challenge, Japan. But it also accelerated productivity. Now that's four days a week. So the way I would answer it is this. I think that you need to create a hybrid situation. So the ones that are doing really well, it depends on size. You know, we have some clients who do three days a week, four days a week in the office and make it flexible. But be smart about it because there are some clients of ours who say, go into the office and then you end up in the office alone on Zoom with your colleagues. Like, that's a problem, right? So you want to be smart about how you do it too. And people love to be with people. So there's a huge bonding that goes on there that's so important as well. Right. But again, flexibility is going to be the key today  and to really be smart about how you do it. 

Spencer Levy
And I think happiness is not just being with people, which is we're social beings. Right. But let's talk about women in real estate. Real estate is a big business. So let's start first with the sales culture. What type of advice do you give to men and women in the sales culture? 

Barbara Annis
There's two approaches in sales, right? And we see gender differences, men and it's not all men so keep that in mind when I say this, these are tendencies. Men tend to be more transactional in sales, and women tend to be more relational in sales. So what we find is that women and sellers look at relationship long term when they're relational. So they don't look at, okay, when can I get a deal out of this person right, or close the deal, etc. They look at more, getting to know the person, getting to know the family, getting to know their values, their needs and so on. And sometimes it'll be five years before they actually have a transaction. Right? And for men, it tends to be more short term transaction. You know, I want to be able to close a deal with this person within a year. Right. But what we find is that if you combine those two relational, transactional, beautiful strengths, both of them, we see the success rate in your industry go exponentially. And I think that you make an assumption right now. Spencer, you probably have a model like that. That I'm just talking about rate, relational interest, that actual model and my fair to assume that. 

Spencer Levy
Oh, it's absolutely, absolutely true. And I would suggest to you that and I say this with absolute I mean, there are some of the women professionals here and all those name her because I revere her Mary Ann Tighe,who's been on the show twice now. And she treats everything and I want to speak for Mary Ann, but in my perception relationally. And she has relationships that are not just for the deal in charity work in social settings as well. She is the complete professional. Is that kind of what you're trying to say, that looking at it holistically versus transactional? 

Barbara Annis
Yes, exactly. And Mary Ann probably has a lot of people focus, too, Right. How are people doing? Are they well, etc.? Right. And we see that in organizations, we see women leaders be more concerned about people's well-being. And male male leaders be more concerned about the numbers. Right. We have a amazing and I can't mention the name because it's confidential, but one of the biggest pharmaceutical companies that we're working with who since the pandemic has seen men fall into or go into more of a heroic leadership. Right. We got to, you know, carpe diem. We got to P&L’s are super important. So a lot of focus on metrics and the fact that they're delivering to their clients. And there's some huge concerns because there's an emergency where they can't get certain medication to countries, etc.. So very heroic. And women are getting more concerned about people. There's a book called Warriors Versus Warriors, and that's kind of more of a socialized situation where men tend to be more warriors and women tend to be more worriers about the well-being of people. And the combination of those two when we listen to one another, there's the win-win, right? You're actually doing both. That's the win win. 

Spencer Levy
Let's stay on that leadership area for a moment. What are some of the characteristics that you think are pitfalls or are things that you try to emphasize so that people continue to advance in their career in the management slash leadership ranks? 

Barbara Annis
So one of the things that women more than men, although some men to fall into, is what I call the loyalty trap. And what I mean by that is that they get the job and then they say, okay, I'm going to work long enough, hard enough, and I'll get noticed. Right. And what I say to them is, you won't get noticed. It's really important that you make sure that you share your achievements and have others share your achievements.That's why things like sponsorship is super important for women, that they actually have sponsors that advocate for them. Right. We've seen that American Express has done a brilliant job at that. Where they actually called it the sponsorship challenge. Sponsor somebody who's different than you. So the loyalty trap is something you want to do. But it's really important. And that's why I share this research for free for women at all ages to be aware of that. 

Spencer Levy
Okay, Got it. Well, I'm sitting here with five of your books in front of me. But you have so many terrific books that you've written or co-authored, and I'll just name a couple of them. Gender Intelligence, Same Words, Different Language, Work With Me, Results at the Top. You've been writing these books out for how long? And how has your thinking as an author evolved? And how has some of your thinking changed with your most recent writing? 

Barbara Annis
Great. So the first book I started was 25 years ago and that’s Same Words, Different Language and what fascinates me and kind of saddens me too, is that it's still relevant to a lot of countries. And it also fascinates me that a 26 year old find it incredibly relevant today. But as things evolve, yes, things have evolved in terms of advancement of women, women in the workforce. I mean, I've seen some of the banks, like the Canadian banks that we worked with when we started they had about 7% women and now they have 44% women in senior management. And the best results, by the way, too, in terms of the metrics and so on. So I see progress. Is there more to do? Yes. And the whole diversity inclusion, when you add ethnicity, race and all that other it complex, it makes things more complex, right? Because certain cultures have been brought up a certain way. And the example I can give you, which is just really recent engineering company where there was an engineer from India who stood up in the workshop and he said, I've never worked with women, I've never worked with women. And it was such a beautiful thing because he was so authentic and willing to be courageous about it and saying, I never was brought up with women or girls. I was in boys school. Right? And he said, And now I have a female boss. Right. And it's a challenge for me. I mean, that's see, once you can have that language, you could speak about it. You can actually do something about it. Right. And have the eyes to see it. Now, he's like a rock star, as long as we don't come from blame, but we come from understanding. And that's what's saying. 

Spencer Levy
Well you also bring up a very important point here. Different countries. And so I have done business around the world. Our company is global, as are many of your clients. And there are clear cultural differences within the United States versus places in Europe, places in Asia. How do you handle that? 

Barbara Annis
It is. I mean, that's the thing. That's why we should not do the American thing. And I'm being very clear about that. What I mean by that is let's not do one size fits all. You know what I mean? Where we go out. So SAP is an example. Train 5,000 managers on gender intelligence around the world. So when we were in India, my associate in India, there's no way that I could go and facilitate that workshop in India to remain. I had associates do it. They did it their way, how they facilitated and so on. Even the colors of the PowerPoint, like everything shifted. In Japan it was different. I had a Japanese associate. So it's really important to put the cultural context into it as well. But what's beautiful about it is that the neuroscience of it is so relatable regardless of where you are in the world. So that's kind of what I call the cosmic glue of the education or the awareness. And then you just want to be culturally intelligent how you do that. 

Spencer Levy
Let me repeat that phrase, because this is going to be a pull quote. The cosmic glue of increasing understanding is that the neurological aspects of this are similar, if not the same, across humans around the world. Is that a fair statement? 

Barbara Annis
Absolutely. 

Spencer Levy
I think that's actually an inspiring note. I think that our sameness is actually more relevant than our differences, even if we have tremendous cultural differences. There's ways that we could maybe bridge those gaps, etc. Is that a takeaway? 

Barbara Annis
Common ground. Absolutely. 

Spencer Levy
Terrific. On behalf of The Weekly Take, what a privilege to have you today. Barbara Ann as the CEO of Gender Intelligence. Author of five books, multiple articles. Thank you, Barbara, for joining the show. 

Barbara Annis
Thank you, Spencer. It was a pleasure. Thank you. 

Spencer Levy
For more, please visit our website at CBRE dot com slash The Weekly Take.  Barbara Annis’ books, of course, can be found online as well, including her most recent title, which she co-wrote with Richard Nesbitt. Results at the Top: Using Gender Intelligence to Create Breakthrough Growth. And for more deep dives into business leadership, look no further than The Weekly Take library on your podcasting platform. You'll find my conversations with lots of inspiring business leaders and big thinkers such as Sam Zell, Parag Khanna, Mary Ann Tighe who we mentioned earlier on this show and CBRE’s own Bob Sulentic to name a few highlights and more. We'll be back to learn more about better business thinking in the weeks to come. Specifically, a show about the role of data and data literacy in decision making. I know some people think of data as a scary monster, but tune in for the business case to hear what it's really all about. Finally, as always, don't forget to share the show as well as subscribe, rate and review us wherever you listen. Thanks for joining us. I'm Spencer Levy. Be smart. Be safe. Be well.