Mark Greene argues that the "man box" culture demanding certainty and control suppresses creativity. Diverse, inclusive leadership boosts innovation and profitability, according to Deloitte research. When men embrace uncertainty and collaborative networks instead of rigid roles, they access creative spaces traditionally coded as feminine.
Chapters
I want to go back to some of the language that Jean-François has already used in this conversation because that language is also central to my better understanding of gender and a lot of other aspects of my life. He talked about emergence. And he also has spoken about a larger web of relationships, whether that is at the, you know, at the microbial level or at the social level. I think that one of the things, one of the damaging aspects of what I refer to as man box culture is that in this process of stripping connection away from boys, we have a very isolating, individualizing culture, right? Men are expected to know the answer when they walk into the room. They're expected to be in control all the time. And what this strips away is the possibility for not knowing, for holding uncertainty, and for what emerges out of a collective creative process. Right? So everything that we know about organizations and corporations now in terms of research that's coming out from from folks like Deloitte and other organizations, is that when you have a fully diverse and inclusive leadership at the top levels of organizations, and this can be BIPOC, it can be women, whatever, when you have that fully diversified, you get dramatically higher levels of creativity, innovation, long-term value creation, profitability. Everything goes through the roof in terms of performance. So what we're actually understanding now is that what emerges out of a process of collaboration where men bring all of their gifts and capacities, but they hold some uncertainty. They hold their ideas more lightly. They wait for a moment and see what everybody else is bringing as well, and they find out where they fit in that process. In other words, we take our isolation and our individualized programming and we set it aside, and we begin to understand what it is to be in a network of connection. That's where creativity resides for us. And in the moment that we find that creativity, we also find social connection, which is key to being, to living a happier, richer life.
So are you saying that this ability to navigate into uncertainty is a form of a feminine experience?
It may be. It may also simply be setting aside this idea that that men are unable to say, "I don't know the answer." It's very liberating to say, "I'm sorry, I don't know the answer. Let's talk about it. Let's find out what emerges between us." Because in our work, my partner, Dr. Saleha Baba, and I also do work around what's called relational practices, which came out of social work and psychology in the '50s. But it's the idea that Whatever is happening, even between you and I in this momentary conversation, is happening in a third relational space between us. We're co-creating something. And how we view that and whether we choose to care for the relationship over our roles is one way in which we more readily co-create and get creative. That is, I'm going to center our relationship and see what emerges out of that. If that's feminine or masculine, Right now I can tell you it's definitely viewed as feminine because men are punished for, for seeking to do that.
