Recognising our inherent bias is the route to inclusion

Inclusion and diversity are rising up the corporate agenda, as we increasingly recognise how they can drive future growth. Many companies either have hired or are considering hiring managers dedicated to promoting inclusion and diversity.

In an earlier article I have shared my perspective on why diversity matters to an organisation. We also demonstrated the link between inclusion and diversity (inclusion being a must-have for diversity to stick). Many of you commented on the challenge of making inclusion a reality. There is no “one size fits all” formula. It needs to be calibrated to individual companies and cultural contexts. Defining inclusion is not easy. The OECD thinks about inclusive growth as follows:

“Economic growth that creates opportunity for all segments of the population and distributes the dividends of increased prosperity, both in monetary and non-monetary terms, fairly across society”

This also makes sense at the level of an individual organisation: being inclusive supports your long-term strategy as it leads to more sustainable prosperity, from which employees, customers and suppliers can ultimately benefit. Inclusiveness also helps to mitigate risks, such as your ability to attract and retain talent, be trusted and protect your brand value.

But becoming inclusive requires an organisation to overcome certain challenges, in particular addressing unconscious bias. We all use patterns, and recognising our inherent biases and the frames we operate in goes a long way towards improving the quality of our decisions. This matters, because biased strategic decisions can adversely affect return on investment. I like the example of the German electric utility, RWE, and the way they successfully addressed bias through cultural changes in order to make smarter investment decisions.

Why is it such a struggle to build awareness of our bias?

First, we are influenced by cultural factors from a young age. Some barriers are entrenched in the way society thinks. For instance, male over-representation in the media skews our perceptions of gender diversity – including in kids’ TV shows! Some even suggest that, starting from the age of 6, little girls have lost confidence in their intellectual ability: even when outperforming boys at school, they consider themselves as less smart and gifted, especially in mathematics. Why is that? Because they notice how society treats other members of their gender, and then they apply those stereotypes to themselves.

Also, when processing information, we are guided by our “system 1” which is fast, automatic, effortless and intuitive. In his book “Thinking, Fast and Slow”, Nobel Prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman explains how we only selectively use our “system 2”, which is slower and requires us to stop, think and make rational, informed choices that are less likely to be biased. On this note, I would encourage you to take this short reaction test, where you will be asked to sort words into 4 categories (male, female, career and family). The results are striking: most of us tend to automatically associate "male" with "career" and "female" with "family".

Recognising bias in ourselves and others is a first step towards inclusion. The next step is to identify the practices and tools, which will help us to counter our bias. Robots will not help us here: AI is learning our bias, so nothing is immune!

At McKinsey we have started to look at this issue and will soon offer some thoughts on these fundamental questions in a larger, updated and more robust data set version of our 2015 Diversity Matters report. I am excited about sharing our preliminary findings during the FT Women at the Top summit at the end of the month. This new report comprises a broader definition of diversity (including both intrinsic and acquired characteristics), an expanded scope (750+ companies, 10 countries, 5 regions, adding Asia-Pacific and Sub-Saharan Africa) and deep analysis of how some companies manage to harness the value of inclusion and diversity in delivering their corporate strategy. We also show what a company needs to do to emulate these top performers.

Watch this space for more on inclusion and diversity!

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Vivian Hunt is the Managing Partner for McKinsey & Company in the United Kingdom and Ireland. She advises leading British and global organisations on a broad range of strategy topics and is an expert on leadership and global talent.