Maybe we are all a little bit biased

Let’s be honest here. Whilst many (most) of us want to work in organisations that treat people equally a lot of people don’t actually give a shit. Whilst there are a number of companies who do push for a more diverse and inclusive workforce and being transparent there are others who don’t.

Being able to treat people the same regardless of gender, orientation, ability, race, faith or any other constructs takes hard work and actually requires most of us to dig deep and alter the frame many of us grew up with.

In my formative years, I grew up surrounded by many biases. In the interests of transparency, I will share them from the perspective of the community I grew up in.

If you were homosexual you were gonna burn in hell. Batty man fi bun.

White working class English smelt of milk and were known as fleabags.

Irish were all paddy’s and not very bright.

Indian and Pakistani neighbours drove Datsuns and smelt of curry.

African colleagues called Caribbeans jammos. We called them booboos.

Mixed race people were called half-caste or half-breeds.

Programmes like Love thy Neighbour, Rising Damp and Mind your Own Language reinforced a number of racial stereotypes.

All South Africans (according to Spitting Image) were racist ignoramuses.

I spent a lot of my late high school and college years being more integral. Having to unlearn a lot of those hateful stereotypes. Hanging out with different races, those with different sexual orientations to mine and engaging with a lot of social groups I once upon a time would never have been involved with.

Then I entered the world of work with the notion that I had to work twice as hard as white people in order to succeed! 

I sat through a meeting where a director complimented me on my work and moments later criticised someone for their lack of clarity, stating that trying to find out what they had to say was like trying to find a nigger in a woodpile. (Yeah)

Many a Christmas party involved drunken colleagues asking me if it was true what they said about black men.

My brief work in the City exposed an incredibly homophobic and misogynistic culture and I was often “complimented” that I was not like the others. 

I say this not to make people uncomfortable. Actually, I do want to make you feel uncomfortable. 

I think discomfort actually allows us to really check where we are coming from. We all have our biases and come from backgrounds where family and friends reinforce these and then we come to workplaces where we are challenged on this. It is like a double consciousness where we know if we say something out of place we can be reprimanded or worse still, sacked. Pretending we don’t have biases can be quite dangerous.

This year I have had a number of speaking requests to speak about diversity. Much of this has stemmed from the visibility around my role as a founding member of UKBlackTech, a network aiming to signpost more students, professionals and entrepreneurs from African and Caribbean backgrounds into tech. 

Now I am not sure what people expect, but I come to diversity, not from the perspective of “hey, I’m a black guy let me tell you my woes”, but more from the position of leadership.

What does diversity actually mean to you? 

More importantly, what does inclusion mean to you?

What conscious or unconscious biases affect the culture you work in? 

Why should anyone want to be part of an inclusive workforce if the leaders haven’t explained a clear vision for this?

For me, the issue of placing emphasis first on how we communicate interpersonally rather than some afterthought about diversity and inclusion is a sign of good leadership. 

I mentioned a number of my own subconscious biases from my formative years. Having to unlearn a number of stereotypes was a steep learning curve. It meant having to stop and think not only about my own embedded biases but also having the courage to speak out against inappropriate behaviour and language. Challenging people who didn’t take to well to your response by saying “It’s only a joke”

And yet there were times too when I kept quiet. Or laughed at an inappropriate joke. When I didn’t support someone because they seemed to be in on the joke too and felt it was harmless banter.

Navigating the world of work is not easy. Many will just go into work and get on with what they have to but it just takes a simple conversation around a political issue, either internally or externally to your workplace to open up a can of worms. Or a simple initiative around a new Diversity and Inclusion programme. Or a speaker like me to come in and challenge with humour and honesty, whether we are treating our fellow colleagues with the respect we want for ourselves. This can make us come face to face with our biases and whether we want to confront them.

The thing is this. Self development is a continuous journey. 

We all have our biases. Our worldview. It is what we have that protects us. Being challenged on that or having to see the world though a different lens is tough work. It can be seen as threatening, disruptive and uncomfortable but also as an opportunity to be more empathetic to those with different experiences than us.

Mistakes will be made on the way for sure, but if we can admit that we all have biases and are willing to learn from them, maybe just maybe we could actually have better workplaces, where many of us spend most of our waking time, and who knows, it may even make us better people.

Thoughts?

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I am a speaker, faciliator and coach. My main focus is around leadership development. Helping leaders communicate better for themselves and their organisations.

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