Moving Beyond "Aha!"

Behavior not Bias

Being the guest on a lot of podcasts and virtual programs, now a standard part of any author tour, provides a rich resource for the kind of stories you end up wishing you’d included in your book.

For example, when I did guest duty on?Lisa Earle McLeod’s engaging?LinkedIn Live program at the end of February, Lisa asked if I intended my behavior-not bias approach for building inclusive cultures to imply that unconscious bias training is ineffective.

Not necessarily. The chief problem, in my experience, is that while unconscious bias training can offer important insights, it rarely shows us how to act?on these insights. As former CEO of Cardinal Health Care Mike Kaufmann memorably observed, “It’s all aha moment, without the now what?”

Another persistent problem is how unconscious bias training is delivered. The material it aims to surface not only lies within our heads, it’s also negative. After all, we’re talking about bias. When not handled with extreme sensitivity, the process can raise hackles and stir backlash.

I’ve watched this happened for years. But until I was on Lisa’s show, I hadn’t considered the degree to which it can reinforce the experience of being an outsider for some who participate. Lisa began her career as a sales superstar working for a global company widely known for the excellent training it provides. An early proponent of fairness and inclusion, the company became one of the first to roll out unconscious bias training to its leadership teams; this was in the mid-90s. The purpose was to raise awareness among male leaders (the leadership at the time was virtually all men) about the kinds of barriers women and people of color faced. And to provide insights for those outside the leadership mainstream about what their colleagues’ perceptions might be.

The firm hired to deliver the training sessions urged participants to get real about how working with people they perceived as different from themselves made them feel. The presumption was that giving people the opportunity to be completely honest and essentially tell on themselves–– a common therapeutic technique–– would create the conditions for more authentic and fruitful exchange. Lisa says, “I was accustomed to being the only woman in the room, and had gotten pretty comfortable with that. I assumed the men I worked with had also adjusted or were adjusting. I thought we had good relationships and believed I was pretty well accepted in what until had recently been an almost completely male world.”

Not really, as it turned out.

Lisa was stunned when male colleagues in the sessions began opening up about how uncomfortable working with women made them feel, and how they resented having to deal with women on their teams. The other outsider in these sessions, Todd, an African American male, was also alarmed at hearing his white co workers discuss how their families’ long-established biases against people of color influenced their perceptions and comfort level. “He and I were both like, so?this?is what they think of us?” Lisa recalls. “We felt completely blindsided.”

As the sessions ended, the trainers congratulated the participants on being open and honest and encouraged them to continue being so. But for Lisa and Todd, the experience was devastating. “After you hear the kinds of comments we heard,” she notes, “you cannot unhear them. They continue to echo in your head. It’s no surprise that Todd and I both ended up leaving the company not long after that. We’d thought we were pretty comfortable before we came in, but those sessions showed us that we’d misjudged the situation.”

The story Lisa told is not of recent vintage, but it reflects some ongoing issues with unconscious bias training. First, it remains highly reliant on being delivered with empathy and skill–– variables that are hard to control for. Second, the clear the-air, let-it-all-hang-out group therapy model from which it often draws is poorly suited for people who need to work together.

Knowing the random thoughts that run through our colleagues’ minds does not necessarily serve us, or serve them. It is in fact more likely to divide us than to bring us closer. So being clear about the “now what?”– the actions that need to follow insights, the “aha moments”–?is really key to building inclusive cultures. I hope that more workplaces will include concrete practices and behaviors we can take as a way forward and beyond bias.

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