down and confidently invited questions and open discussion.
Thats when it fell apart. All I remember is a horrifying barage of
questions couched in football analogies.
Do you think we dropped the ball on that one? one man asked.
Yeah, another responded. But can we make a fumble recovery?
Those two I understood. However, when it got to pass coerage and
intentional grounding, I started to lose it. When one
182
How to Really Make It Clear to Them 183
guy raved about a Hail Mary pass being needed to save the deal, I
suffered the ultimate humiliation. I had to ask, Uh, what does that mean?
The guys looked at each other knowingly and then smiled condescendingly
as they explained it to me.
That night I had sadistic fantasies of fifteen women running the
company and one man left scratching his head as we bandied about
childbirth analogies.
We wont get his new proposal til the third trimester, reports the account
exec.
Yeah, but thats six months away. Lets get it by C-section, responds the
comptroller.
Why bother? asks the marketing VP. All his ideas are deveoped in vitro
anyway.
Im about to go into postpartum depression, murmurs the CEO. The lone
male employee is left as confused and humiliated as I was in the face of
football analogies.
Ahem, the aim of this book is not to feed fiendish fantasies, but to
improve communications. To that end, I offer the folloing technique based
on analogies, not just football analogies. Because old-boy analogies are
unsportsman-like conduct with the girls.
On-Target Analogies Hit Bulls-Eye
Analogies can be an effective communications toolif you evoke images
from the life of the person you are talking to. Men dont use football
analogies to obfuscate matters or to confuse women but to clarify situations
for each other. Analogies from the sport bring situations to life for men
because generally they watch more football than women.
Moving on to other sports analogies: everyone knows what the speaker
means when he or she hears, Well never strike out
ooja
(Ooja)
#1