How can you ensure your team recognizes and overcomes unconscious bias in the workplace?

In my opinion, to overcome unconscious bias at workplace can only be done by educating and discussing the same openly with the team. 1) Educate the team about unconscious bias and its impact. 2) Encourage the team to challenge and manage their biases. You can use strategies, such as perspective-taking, counter-stereotyping, and individuation, to help your team members reduce the influence of their biases on their judgments and actions. 3) Create a culture of openness and feedback. You can foster a safe and supportive environment where your team members can share their experiences, opinions, and concerns about unconscious bias, and listen to and learn from each other.

Overcoming unconscious bias starts with acknowledging its presence. Everyone has biases that can unknowingly affect decisions and behaviors. Identifying personal biases can be done through tools like the Implicit Association Test or reflecting on past experiences and feedback. Honesty and openness in recognizing these biases, understanding their origins, and recognizing their impact on actions are crucial steps toward addressing them.

A positive first step is to acknowledge that each and every person has some kind of unconscious bias. Next, we need to understand and identify what the bias is so we can work toward eliminating it. How can we do this? Introspection works wonders. Next is Perspective-Taking followed by being mindful of what you identified. Remind yourself that we are all individuals with our own unique characteristics. So, focus on the things we have in common. Then rinse and repeat over and over as this should be a continuous exercise of self improvement.

I think that one of the most effective methods for cultivating a progressive awareness of one's own mechanisms is to undertake an awareness journey (counseling, coaching depending on the case and specific need) to also acquire practical tools to get to know oneself better. It is not enough to ask questions or read the descriptions of the characteristics to be able to understand yourself in depth. It is a continuous work of honest and welcoming listening (we are made up of many parts that also change over time) the first step is therefore to develop constant attention and introspection that allows us to observe and choose. Mindfulness is very useful in this.

Los sesgos inconscientes son el entrecruzamiento de la singularidad de cada integrante del equipo, esto es producto de la historia, el presente y la forma, en la que cada uno de los integrantes, imagina el futuro. Todo ello combinado construye la singularidad del equipo por sobre la singularidad individual. Trata de detectar en las narrativas de las reuniones de tu team, las convergencias y las recurrencias del discurso. Es decir en que se coincide y que se repite. A partir de alli es que puedes empezar a actuar para modificarlo. Pero no puedes modificar aquello que primero no reconoces.

In addition to policies, it is also very useful to create spaces for dialogue and initiatives such as workshops to ensure that people can discuss the issues of inclusion and diversity, creating a shared meaning.

It’s important to accept the notion that most humans feel the most comfortable with those who look, think, and speak like them. Once someone has accepted this, the next step is to show that a team doesn’t have to be homogeneous in order to thrive. In fact, many studies and facts exist that proves diverse, heterogeneous, teams - in every sense of the word - are able to problem solve better than their more uniform counterparts. This is especially true when creativity and out-of-the-box thinking is required by the team.