LifeArt2B

Sit Down, Shut Up, and Get a REAL Job!

Amy Ricalde

JANICE ARIANTE, AUTHOR AND BUSINESS ENTREPRENEUR

Janice Ariante is an author and business entrepreneur at Ideal Job Offer, Nutley, N.J.  With over 25 years corporate experience in Human Resources for high tech companies and specialization in the Silicon Valley, she has been an independent staffing consultant for over 12 years.  Her primary enjoyment is mentoring aspiring business leaders and teaching.  This passion has recently inspired her to condense her years of experience into a three-hundred page book and DVD for infomercial distribution.  The DVD Project, entitled Sit Down, Shut Up, and Get a REAL Job! is her chosen venue in which she applies her knowledge to help individuals succeed in the not-always-fair business arena.

As an entrepreneur, she describes her leadership style as casual, informal, and hands-off.  Ariante feels that people like working for her and attributes this to her management style, firmly believing that if she hires qualified individuals who can work independently, there is no need to be a micro-manager—that is, as long as everyone is doing their job and quotas are met.

Her extremely “Objective” and unstructured work style empowers people from within. “I have been told,” says Ariante, “that ‘Women Listen and Men Preach.’ I look at what their strengths are and recognize that people do best at what they like.”  This means she might modify a position in ways that leverage the strengths of employees.  For instance, she might take away the frequency of report-making from an individual that is keen at building relationships and meeting sales goals, yet give that duty to someone who enjoys recording the information.  By building on employees’ strengths, leaders nurture individuals as they are which supports a healthy self esteem:

“Occasionally, this might mean losing someone valuable in order to help them achieve their career objectives,” Ariante explains. “You are either objective or subjective and there is no right or wrong or better.  Objective personalities get their energy from interaction with other people, while subjective personalities get energy from inanimate objects.  Subjective individuals often make better engineers and mechanics.  This does not mean they are judgmental because they are not objective.  The labeling often limits the understanding of their style.  We do need both. I believe that the best managers are objective individuals that can handle certain things in a subjective manner. For that reason, Objectives also make the best entrepreneurs.”

The notion of Objective versus Subjective personalities is not a new concept, yet it is not well known.  The Johnson O’Connor Research Institute, a non-profit organization has been testing inborn skill sets for quite some time.  The objective of their two-day ($600.00) testing is to determine the best suited occupations for individuals. By identifying what is uniquely special about an individual, one can better gauge her potential risk or success as an entrepreneurial individual versus other occupational pursuits.  “Star performers are in jobs that are suited for them!” Ariante explains.

“My leadership style is non-authoritive, and it allows others to come to their own conclusions.  This does not mean, however, that I am afraid to draw the line, ultimately.   If I’m not sure, I’ll get a book. How many men do you know, who would be willing to stop for directions…and more than once?”  Women might be more likely to go out and seek the information they need.  Interestingly, according to Ariante, some male CEOs have more of a feminine style and utilize pop-corning, brainstorming, or simply think creatively!  Ultimately, people want to feel needed and listened to.  Ariante reports that men are more likely to “preach” and use phases like, “This conversation is over.”  Ariante continues, “My leadership style comes naturally to me because I am objective and connected to people.”

Only seven women run fortune 500 companies today.  However, it is possible that this inequality is attributable to the fact that fewer women feel compelled to succeed in a male-dominated culture, opting instead to create their own by becoming entrepreneurs. This discrepancy is the subject of one of Ariante’s areas of research, focusing on the difference between confidence in one’s skills and self-esteem in the workplace.

There is an extremely high correlation between confidence and entrepreneurial success, yet many industry leaders, ironically, hit rock-bottom in self-esteem.  The two concepts are, according to Ariante, very different.  Confidence is so essential, yet without self-esteem, one might resonate the personality of a Woody Allen or Liz Taylor, outwardly successful, yet inwardly flawed.  Sometimes, financial success will be granted if you have confidence or maintain the right job or personal health.  This does not necessarily mean that you are connected to people.  Self-esteem comes into play within all relationships. Low self-esteem may lead to alcohol or drug addiction.  Sadly, Ariante states that women have more self-esteem issues than men do.  In Ariante’s research, she has discovered a widespread tendency of women to deny themselves happiness and fulfillment in exchange for approval.  To prove this point to me, Ariante asked, “How many men do you know that would date women in prison or wait for a married woman to leave her husband for him?” She continues:

“People are attracted to people who are most like themselves. What I want to do is help other people and if you do what you love, you’ll be good, the money will follow.  When people are in the wrong jobs, it impacts everyone around them.  ’Take this job and shove it, or take this job and love it’.  When you love what you do, you never have to work a day in your life!”

Ariante’s research also focuses on the different communication styles across gender boundaries. For instance, when women talk, they use more words than men. While men are usually visually dominant, women tend to be more tactile.  When men and women communicate, they should, at the very least, understand the basic parameters of male and female communication styles. For instance, metaphors of sense (sight, hearing) should be aligned when communicating (if a man states, “Do you see?” then it would be counterproductive to reply with, “I felt that too” and expect to connect with the problem.) By recognizing the dominant communication style whether it is visual, auditory, or tactile, one might minimize the language gap.

August 17, 2009 - Posted by Amy Ricalde | Uncategorized | nurture, Self Discovery, entrepreneurial women, success, covert problems, JANICE ARIANTE