Tracy Packiam Alloway Ph.D - Think Like a Girl

Neuroimaging clearly shows that the female brain has many unique strengths, and in this fascinating book, Tracy Alloway gives women a blueprint to take advantage of that three-pound supercomputer between their ears.

DANIEL G. AMEN, MD, AUTHOR OF CHANGE YOUR BRAIN, CHANGE YOUR LIFE AND YOUR BRAIN IS ALWAYS LISTENING

Think Like a Girl is a practical and inspiring book, full of groundbreaking insights for women in every field. For readers looking to harness their natural abilities, grow in their confidence, and take leaps forward in their careers or personal lives, this book is an important read!

MARSHALL GOLDSMITH, NEW YORK TIMES #1 BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF TRIGGERS, MOJO, AND WHAT GOT YOU HERE WONT GET YOU THERE

Dr. Alloways book is not only a call to lean into the very real and beautiful things that make the female brain unique... it also lends scientific validity and... permission to do so, proudly and unabashedly.

KIM CARAMELE, EMMY-WINNING WRITER AND PRODUCER

Dr. Tracy Alloways new book, Think Like a Girl, is a briskly written and engaging account of how women can leverage their unique competencies in ways that promote both personal and professional growth.

ROBERT HOGAN, PHD, PRESIDENT OF HOGAN ASSESSMENTS

ZONDERVAN THRIVE

Think Like a Girl

Copyright 2021 by Tracy Alloway

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ISBN 978-0-310-36314-9 (international trade paper edition)

ISBN 978-0-310-36122-0 (audio)

Epub Edition February 2021 9780310361213

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Alloway, Tracy Packiam, author.

Title: Think like a girl : 10 unique strengths of a womans brain and how to make them work for you / Tracy Packiam Alloway.

Description: Grand Rapids : Zondervan, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references. | Summary: In Think Like a Girl, award-winning psychologist, researcher, and TEDx speaker Dr. Alloway presents powerful myth-busting research about how the female brain is different, why this matters, and ten tactical ways women can leverage these differences as strengths to level up in both their personal and professional lives Provided by publisher.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020051839 (print) | LCCN 2020051840 (ebook) | ISBN 9780310361206 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780310361213 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Thought and thinking. | WomenResearch. | BrainResearch.

Classification: LCC BF441 .A44 2021 (print) | LCC BF441 (ebook) | DDC 153.4/2dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020051839

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020051840

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Zondervan Thrive, an imprint of Zondervan, publishes books that empower readers with insightful, expert-driven ideas for a life of thriving in todays world.

Cover design: Curt Diepenhorst

Cover illustration: Mario Pantelic / Shutterstock

Interior design: Mallory Collins

Printed in the United States of America

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To Rita, my grandmother, whose indomitable

spirit and sense of adventure were ahead of

her time and left a blueprint for me. I hope

you are looking down proudly. Love you.

Contents

To many, an exclamation point is nothing more than a punctuation mark. But to Nancy Camarota it was odd, very odd. She leaned over her desk to stare at the email. She didnt know she was the recipient of consulting company Deloittes new strategy to approach women differently than men or that this strategy was the brainchild of Cathy Benko, vice chairman and managing principal at Deloitte. Benko encourages her team to understand where women are coming from because businesswomen shop for services differently than men.

Benko learned this the hard way. Just two years earlier, her team lost out on a multimillion-dollar account with a hospital. At first, they were mystified. What had they done wrong? They had spent hours going over their pitch, taking care to adopt the perspective of their potential client. During the presentation, the team felt confident that they had covered all the issues raised. But Bill Pelster, one of the senior partners on Benkos team, later described that the rapport felt off, that the team and client representatives were never on the same wavelength. It was only later that Pelster realized why: half the hospital reps were women. In a high stakes meeting like that, the team should have significantly altered their pitch to match their audience.

Since then, Benko has been championing a shift to adapt to women in the workplace, from punctuation in emails, to seating arrangements during negotiations, to purchasing behavior. It came as a surprise to Benko to discover that at the time, analysts did relatively little research on the purchasing behavior of women. So Pelster and Benko decided to undertake some research of their own. They interviewed men and women from eighteen large organizations and used their insights to create a playbook to understand female decision-making in the workplace.

Benko was a trailblazer. She realized that not enough was being done to cater to a growing market, and it was bad for business. She also saw that very little research on how women think and approach problem-solving had left the ivory tower of academia and made its way to the public.

This book addresses that gap. This isnt a book about how women are better than men or how the world got it wrong about us. It is a book I wish I had read when I was finding my way into adulthood. This book looks at the statements we hear, the myths we tell ourselves, the platitudes we reciteand pulls back the curtain to see what is really happening inside a womans head.