Smarter in my own language

“Do you even know how smart I am in Spanish?”

On the surface, this is a humorous statement.?A popular quote, now a favourite meme, by the character Gloria in the US Sitcom Modern Family, played by Sofia Vergara.

Yet it resonates at a deeper level for many bilingual people, who choose to live in English speaking countries, and have similar experiences to those portrayed by Gloria.

English is my first language, so I may be an unlikely author, but I wanted to write this article to help highlight the prevalence of this problem in English speaking society. Lets start with some stats.

• More than 20% of Australians speak a language other than English at home.
• Greater than 50% of all Australians are first or second-generation migrants.?

For comparison, in the USA, the statistics are similar for language spoken at home, and about 25% of the population are first or second-generation migrants.?

This affects a lot of people

Recently I have had three separate people contact me who believe that their accents are a significant contributor to their lack of career progress, despite suitable qualifications and experience. They believe that accents are undesirable in Australia for leadership and management roles. It's a story that I have heard consistently through my career and has been corroborated with former colleagues, recruiters, and my current peers.?Accents and language matter a lot more than they academically should.?It appears to impact on both the ability to secure senior roles and the opportunity to be successful once in the role.

But that sounds like racism

Maybe not explicit racism or xenophobia, but definitely a form of ethnocentrism.?Humans are very astute when it comes to accents.?Studies have shown that it takes less than a second for a listener to identify a “foreigner” from voice alone. ?You may have this experience. Is that call centre really in Sydney??

When listeners hear an accent, they often attribute unrelated traits to a speaker based on their accent.?Unexpected traits like height, attractiveness, and social standing. But more importantly, traits such as education, intelligence, and character. ?The traits that are heavily weighted when evaluating candidates for senior, management, or leadership roles.

Research in this space has also been done in the UK, where there is a broad mix of accents both domestic and foreign.?It has such a strong impact (or perceived impact) that many native English speakers in the UK intentionally change their accent to suit what they believe to be desirable for a role or industry.

So why is this important?

This topic doesn’t get much airtime, but I think it’s important to talk about it. This form of discrimination is insidious and quite prevalent.?People are quick to identify as not being racist, but we need to acknowledge that this bias could be casual racism, passed off as a lack of “local experience”.?I’m sure many of you are familiar with this phrase.?Perhaps have even used it.?Yet, we all agree that racism has no place in our society or workplaces.??We can do better than this.

Economically, when we don’t put our best resources to use, we collectively suffer.?A prime example is the current labour pressures in the mining, infrastructure, and health sectors.?We have companies struggling to fill technical and people leadership positions, while there are over-qualified people jostling for mid-tier roles.?The higher skillsets of our migrant workforce might just be that untapped resource we need.

What should we do about it?

There is a level of conscious bias that is readily identifiable.?If you reflect upon it right now, you probably can think of examples where you may have these biases.?Which makes them relatively easy to manage. It’s the unconscious bias that is difficult to identify, and important to address, if we wish to create a diverse and equitable workplace.?Especially when making assessments of soft skills like cultural fit, teamwork, and competence.

Awareness is always the first step to managing biases. ?Hopefully this article helps.

Bias is a very complex topic.?Far bigger than the scope of the article, but I have seven quick tips that might help on your leadership journey.

1.??????Recognise we all have biases, both unconscious and conscious

2.??????Test your own unconscious bias.?Head over to https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/

3.??????Use structured processes, especially when qualitative elements are required.

4.??????Increase the diversity in decision making, to help avoid like-me bias.

5.??????Undertake training to improve awareness and provide tools / techniques.

6.??????Avoid using generalisations to fill information gaps

7.??????Measure, assess, hold-to-account and refine the process.

I hope this article has been helpful and you put some of these tips into use.?Feel free to add your best bias-beating tips in the comments and please share with your network if you think this article would add value.

I’ll leave you with a closing thought.?When you hear someone speak with an accent, it’s worth a pause to think.

• This person speaks at least two languages fluently, most likely more.
• They migrated to a foreign country, with a foreign language, it’s a tough thing to do.

Perhaps this bias is completely wrong.?An accent should be considered as a desirable trait.

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David Bainbrigge is a passionate, people centric leadership expert, business executive and career coach with 20+ years of experience. He has qualifications in engineering, business, leadership and is a skilled advocate for diversity, equity, and inclusion. He has held management, leadership and executive roles spanning multiple industries, businesses, and team sizes.