The world’s leading gender specialists, Barbara Annis and Keith Merron, present THE GENDER-INTELLIGENT ORGANIZATION, the seminal work that examines today’s workplace challenges and opportunities through both an economic and social interaction lens and shows how gender balance can only be achieved by seeking gender unity – not gender equality.

For too long, companies have played the “numbers game”—attempting to tackle the problem of gender imbalance by forcing affirmative action policies and numeric standards on organizations in order to increase the representation of women in management—but these efforts are rarely sustained. Quotas only serve to create resentment on the part of men, who view the process as unmerited and unfair, and frustration on the part of women, who eventually leave each unwelcoming and unappreciative environment.

In THE GENDER-INTELLIGENT ORGANIZATION, Annis and Merron propose an alternative approach – building an organizational culture based on inclusiveness. Quotas alone do not ensure better business results but rather the effort of women and men working together in a naturally occurring and openly invited gender-blended relationship. This inclusion mindset, the essence of Gender Intelligence, honors and respects each other’s gender and maximizing the contribution of women and men, not by expecting them to think and behave the same, but rather by drawing strength from their differences.

The first step is toward this cultural awakening is awareness. Research that began in the 1990s, but is only now beginning to appear in any significant way, demonstrates that there are brain-based differences between women and men that affect behavior. This has brought about a revolution in our understanding of gender differences beyond that of cultural differences.

In THE GENDER-INTELLIGENT ORGANIZATION, Annis and Merron present cutting-edge, scientific research into the different neurological frameworks and functions of the female and male brains and the effects these natural, neurological differences have on our behavior at work and in our engagement with members of the opposite gender.

Annis and Merron also reveal the results of their own extensive studies sourced from more than 20 years of diagnostic workshops involving tens of thousands of professionals in Global 500 companies.

Through years of experience as practitioners, Annis and Merron have discovered that the only way to achieve gender unity is by moving beyond gender equality arguments based on politics and social justice and by building an economic business case for such change. Paralleling this economic perspective, Annis and Merron assert that organizations must undergo a cultural awakening to ensure that whatever gender congruence is achieved can also be sustained.