How to Turn On Your Unconscious Bias Radar

‘She’s not ready for that promotion.? Let’s give her another year or two.’

‘I don’t think he’s ever led a team before, but he’s so charismatic; I’m sure he will do just fine!’

‘Believe me, I’d love to hire more women.? But in the end, we had to select the ‘best’ candidate for the job.’

These statements represent the daily tension many experience in trying to actively promote Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and having to face up to the realities of work.

To the ‘untrained’ eye, these are genuine work contemplations of those who do their best to hire and promote more from underrepresented groups.? But we know better.? Each of these statements hides an?embedded?bias which most of us don’t notice (as it is, as the name suggest, unconscious).??So what can we do about it?

I offer?three tips on how to improve our bias radar:

1. Raise your awareness.
2. Second-guess your judgments.
3. Play your own devil’s advocate.

1. Raise your awareness

While many of us are already aware of the impact of our unconscious mind on decision making, it is of course difficult to distinguish bias from fact.? So how do we know when our decisions are not based strictly on facts and might fall victim to our own subconscious preferences and societal norms?

One might say that the answer is simple: make the unconscious, conscious.

To minimise the unconscious aspect of our decision making, we have to get a better understanding of what work bias often looks like.? There’s lots of good research that can help, such as?Bias Interrupted, a collection of 10 years of research summarised in a handy book.

In this book, for instance, you’ll learn that women (and others from underrepresented groups in the workplace) are often held to a much higher standard of work than white educated men?(the dominant group in the workplace of this region). They are asked to have more experience, prove themselves over and over, and suffer longer from a mistake they may have made years prior.? This is often?the reason that women are frequently?deemed ‘not ready’ while men tend to be judged ready based mainly on potential.? People from underrepresented backgrounds tend to be?promoted less often also because?their missteps from previous years?never seem to leave them, no matter how much experience they may have?gained since then.

Contrast that with those from the dominant group, whose?mistakes (unless overwhelming), are often quickly forgotten or re-characterised as a learning or a ‘rookie error’.? Sometimes, the motto ‘boys will be boys’ helps overcome the kinds of behaviour that would have cost a woman, for instance, a promotion.

Understanding?how our natural predisposition?works against us despite best intentions helps us scrutinise our decisions to ensure that biases are minimised.? Which brings me to the next point.

2. Second guess your judgments.

Once we know that most decisions we make about people from underrepresented bias can be highly susceptible to our unconscious bias, we?can start doing something about it.? We can, for instance, test our decisions.? Asking ourselves;

• Am I making this decision based on all the facts or might there be preferences at play here??or
• Would I think this way about a male/white/younger/more conventional looking candidate? or
• Why am I struggling to see this person’s true potential? Is it because I’m remembering something negative I may have heard about them years ago that may not have been true in the first place and certainly doesn’t appear to be true anymore??or
• Is it really the case that there aren’t enough qualified candidates from underrepresented groups or have we not looked hard enough/in the right places?? Have we made the job description appealing enough for more diverse candidates to apply?

Scrutinising our decisions in this way allows us to sift out potential bias.? In many cases, this type of self-analysis leads to fairer results and higher numbers of decisions in favour of more diverse candidates.? In other words, by noticing and weeding out bias, we are giving people from underrepresented groups the same benefit of doubt that we typically reserve for?those from more dominant groups.

3. Play your own devil’s advocate.

This third step helps us to test out scenarios in our mind pretending we made the decision in favour of the minority candidate.? Take the first statement example above, for instance.? ‘She’s not ready.’? Applying the devil’s advocate approach, you might ask yourself, what would happen if she did get the promotion?? Could she – in a matter of a short time period – become the type of performer that we need at that?level?? What additional attributes might she bring that, despite her lack of experience, might make her the better choice in the long run? And what is the make-up of the team she’ll be joining?? Does the fact that it is relatively homogenous?advocate in favour of a person from a different background or demographic, bringing along?different perspectives and experiences?? How would that enrich the collective intelligence of the team over the addition of a candidate who (although deemed ‘ready’) is very similar to the rest of the team?

This type of questioning allows us to tap into the additional benefits that derive from selecting a candidate whom we believe to be less ‘perfect’ but has the potential to maximise the impact of their role within only a short while and perhaps (if necessary) with a little extra training and support.

Busting bias is not difficult and can in fact be quite fun.? It gives us an opportunity to broaden our perspective about people, to recognise how limited our views currently are of each other, and develop greater empathy and understanding.? These are not just skills for great leadership, they are skills for life.? The more clearly we understand our subconscious tendencies, the more in control we can be of our actions and behaviours.? And isn’t that worth the effort?

This blog was first published on the Voice At The Table website ?

Sign up to our weekly newsletter here?

If you liked this blog, you can read more here?