TOPIC: #DIVERSITY UNCONSCIOUS BIAS – TIME TO SLOW DOWN OUR THINKING HERE OR MAYBE WE RISK BECOMING CONSCIOUSLY INCOMPETENT Diversity news Last month we led with a piece about the trend for organisations to embrace ‘unconscious’ bias with open arms. A trend evidenced clearly over the past three years in the US and now very much the ‘now’ topic within professional services in the UK & Europe. However, as the diversity market becomes increasingly saturated with bias awareness interventions ranging from keynote addresses’ at leadership events to e-learning ‘solutions’ to ensure regulatory boxes are firmly ticked. I would like to throw my hat into the ring & suggest we pause for breath. Isn’t there a danger of us becoming ‘consciously incompetent’ if all that is happening is a ‘dip’ approach to bias? From my perspective, I completely agree there is a very real need to embrace ‘Neuro-Leadership’ and facilitate a greater understanding of ‘self’. There have been so many exciting developments within neuroscience in the last few years & businesses of all types (not just the legal & financial sector) can leverage off these findings. However, in order to move forward & reduce unconscious bias within the workplace we need a joined up holistic approach – A collaborative process that addresses bias from a multi faceted perspective. Lets look deeper at the external brand bias – how does an organisation present externally; this is clearly critical if the desire is to attract diverse clients & employees. Ideally, we need an approach that addresses internal processes – selection, performance & flexibility and I think increasingly as I focus deeper on the subject matter – it’s important for the organisation to offer an intervention that enables the people that work there to actually identify what unconscious biases they have. The leadership is visually impaired without this – think about bias within deal team selection – who gets chosen to work with which client & thus who gets a chance to shine? How can anyone develop that deeper sense of self without actually knowing what biases they have – implicit bias is by its very nature ‘unconscious’ and thus hidden. It’s a bit like wandering around in the dark holding a torch but not flicking the switch. We need to enable people to turn on the torch & learn what implicit biases they have before we can collaborate on de-biasing. It’s not ideal to lead a vast group of people into a dark room – enlighten them generically & then depart saying “good luck with that”. We use Implicitly, which is a collection of tests, which can be used to help uncover our unconscious biases and their likely impact on behaviour. It can be valuable in team development contexts as well as part of organisational audits and development programmes. Source: inclusivediversity.co.uk/
Posted on: Fri, 14 Mar 2014 16:28:03 +0000
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