Power, Part 2

In the Company of Women
by Pat Heim, Ph.D., Susan Murphy, Ph.D.

(Page 3 of 4)

Although you may not have been aware of it until now, everyone with whom you interact keeps a chip bankbook on you. All day long you are gaining and losing chips with your direct reports, peers, and higher-ups. They know where you stand with them at any given moment, and you know where they stand with you.

Indeed, one of the most important rules in Chip Theory is that we always make it equal in the end-that is, if someone tries to take away our chips, we will find a way to even the score. For instance, if upon arriving at work, your warm and friendly greeting to co-worker Brenda is met with a flat "Oh, hi," you will probably greet this person much less effusively in the future. In fact, you may eventually stop saying hello to Brenda altogether. Conversely, if that colleague is kind and generous with her chips, most likely you will feel inclined to return them in kind.

Pat learned that lesson as a university professor. Her secretary, Sarah, worked in a windowless cubicle all day, and Pat knew that she valued relationship chips-the simple "Hi, how are you?" "What are you doing?" "What's new?" interactions.

One day, Pat was working with her boss, Kim, in Kim's office. Sarah came in, dropped off some typing for Pat, and left. Perturbed, Kim turned to Pat and asked, "When did you give her that typing?"

"This morning."

"Does she always bring it when she's done?"

"Yes, of course," Pat responded, surprised at this line of questioning.

"Well I gave Sarah typing to do three days ago, and she still hasn't finished it. She never brings my work to me when it's done. I always have to ask her for it." Kim hadn't been paying Sarah her interaction chips, and Sarah had found a way to make it even in the end.

The exchanges that occur at holiday time are another way to understand Chip Theory. When we receive a greeting card, we usually feel compelled to send one back. Gifts must be of equal value-when they're not, both the giver and receiver become uncomfortable. (Some people even keep extra presents around, just in case someone surprises them with an unexpected one.) Men usually don't value the exchanges of greeting card chips as much as women do; they will rarely send male friends birthday cards. Men will exchange tickets to Lakers or Yankees games, however, which hold much greater meaning and value to them.

When we talk about Chip Theory, people sometimes say, "But isn't this manipulative?" Our answer is, "Yes, indeed, it is." But consider this: We all started manipulating other people at the same moment-Day One, when we realized there was a connection between screaming and getting fed-and we have continued to manipulate every day of our lives since then. We have just become unconscious of it and more graceful at it.

We all need to manage our relationships with people, and wielding chips is simply an automatic tool to accomplish that end.

Making It Even

Female managers often believe that because they're in charge, employees have to do what they say. But we've found that somehow, in some way, someday, female employees will always make it even in the end. Jill was hired to manage a group of people who had to travel to relatively undesirable cities. When employees took these business junkets, they were allowed a "safe-arrival call"; that is, once they reached their destination, they could phone home to say "I made it" on the company's dime.

Soon after Jill took the job, she discovered there was supposed to be a dollar limit on these safe-arrival calls. She diligently went through old files and found that several of her employees had spent more money on their safe-arrival calls than was allowed. Rather than simply let this go but make an issue of enforcing company policy in the future, she went from desk to desk and collected $3.10 from Lila, $7.45 from Terri, and $11.52 from Debbie, and so on ad nauseum.

Until this moment, this had not been a particularly high-energy group, but the electric charge that ran through it and the team building that suddenly occurred were astounding. Mysteriously, employees soon began turning up at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong equipment. Over and over again. Jill was putting out one fire after another, which cost her far more in time and energy than the $100 or so she had collected from her profligate and loquacious employees. She kept thinking there was some glitch in the scheduling procedure and didn't realize that the glitch resided in the chip deficit she had created with her pettiness. That's what she really needed to fix.

Women have really good memories. We tend to hold grudges for a long time. The game is never over for us, so chip deficits can last a lifetime if they're not rectified.

© September 2001, J. P. Tarcher, a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc, used by permission.

About the Author

Dr. Pat Heim is an internationally known speaker and consultant. Her Los Angeles firm, Heim & Associates, has been providing services in the areas of leadership, communication, team building, and gender differences to hundreds of organizations, including AT&T, the Los Angeles Times, General Motors, the American Medical Association, and Price Waterhouse. She has a Ph.D. in communication from the University of Colorado.

Susan Murphy, Ph.D., MBA, is the president of Energy Engineering, Inc. Heim and Murphy speak about workplace gender issues to more than 50,000 individuals each year.