You are listening to a short talk about unconscious bias and how to counteract them.
I'm Kerelien Nootwaard and I wish you a very warm welcome.
Let's start together with a short experiment.
I invite you to close your eyes for a moment and to picture the following situation.
About a year ago,
Sam became a proud parent.
Sam has been spending a precious time at home with the newborn.
And after nine months at home,
Sam now is back at work.
You can open your eyes again.
While I was reading those sentences,
Which gender did you associate with Sam?
Due to the fact that more women take parental leave compared to men,
Most of us spontaneously would think of Sam as being a woman,
Even though in this case I had written those few lines as Sam being a man.
So let's try this again.
You are the leader of a team and you are in charge of dividing assignments.
Who will receive the analytical assignment?
Is this Juliet or Peter?
Who of those two,
Juliet or Peter,
Will receive the communication assignment?
Well,
In this situation,
After some research on this,
Many of the unconscious bias,
The unconscious assumption,
Might start steering our decisions.
For example,
Few of us might have the unconscious assumption that men have better analytical skills than women and therefore give the analytical assignment to Peter.
Others might also think that perhaps women are better at communication and therefore might assign the communication skill to Juliet.
Is there something wrong with this?
Well,
Not necessarily.
Although many unconscious assumptions can be helpful,
Sometimes they can also lead to ineffective decisions and even discrimination.
And in this case,
We are making ourselves and also others the victim of unconscious biases.
So let's have a look at that.
What is unconscious bias?
Well,
About every second our brain receives about 11 million pieces of information.
But only 50 of them are captured by our brain with just 7 of those processed by our working memory.
So how does the brain do that?
Well,
To process this mass of information,
Our brain filters and orders incoming information extremely quickly by using mental shortcuts.
And although these shortcuts can be very useful to act quickly when exposed to information overload,
They can also unconsciously lead to bad or ineffective decisions.
And in the latter case,
We're talking about unconscious bias.
Unconscious biases can be assumptions.
For example,
Men have better analytical skills compared to women.
They could also be certain preferences.
For example,
I like Tom,
My colleague,
Much more because he supports the same football team.
Unconscious biases could also be habitual thinking patterns.
For example,
This has never worked out before,
So why will it work today?
And these unconscious assumptions,
Preferences,
Or habitual thinking patterns,
They could lead to stereotypes and unconsciously lead to incorrect decisions or discrimination.
And that's when we talk about unconscious bias.
So do these unconscious assumptions,
Preferences,
Or thinking patterns always lead to false or ineffective decisions?
Well,
Absolutely not.
If you are looking for a lunch partner,
Then your colleague Tom,
Who loves the same football team,
Might be the perfect choice because you'll have a great talk.
However,
When you are giving a promotion,
The preference that you hold for Tom should really not influence this decision.
When it unconsciously does influence this decision,
That's when we're talking about unconscious bias.
So what can we do to avoid unconscious bias?
Well,
Although a strategy needs to be worked out for individual cases,
Some general rules apply in all situations where unconscious bias can lead to discrimination or ineffective decisions.
First of all,
It's important that we all accept that it is very likely that we are driven by unconscious biases.
You can check your biases with the project,
The Implicit Association Test.
This is a test that was developed at the Harvard University,
Which in a very clever way measures whether you're driven by unconscious bias or not.
I really recommend you to do that,
The Implicit Association Test.
So first of all,
Accept that we all have these unconscious biases.
That's the first step.
And secondly,
It is important to consciously structure the decision process in a following way.
When we're making decisions,
So let's go back to giving a promotion.
And we have one colleague that we like a lot,
Tom.
First of all,
We're asking ourselves the question,
What's the aim of our decision?
And the aim of our decision in this moment is to give a promotion.
We want to give promotion.
And it's important that we set up well-defined criteria for making this decision.
What are the criteria that somebody needs to fulfill to receive the promotion?
So this is the first part.
What is the aim of our decision and make well-defined criteria for this decision?
The second step is the question,
What information do you have available to make this decision?
So you can make a distinction between externally available information.
These are really the objectives that one can measure,
That all your colleagues can see.
What are the performance indicators,
For example,
That you can measure that everybody can also see?
And what's the internal information that I have available,
For example,
My personal preference for somebody?
It's especially the internal information that only you can see,
That only you can feel,
That can lead to unconscious bias.
So to sum that up,
The second step is,
What information do we have available to make this decision?
For example,
The promotion decision.
And if you look at that information,
Which information is more external?
Meaning that everybody can see that,
We can measure that,
We can write it down.
And what's more internal information,
Namely information that especially is unique to me,
For example,
My personal preference for a person?
And the third and final step is to look at those pieces of information once more and decide which pieces of information are relevant or which ones are irrelevant to reaching that particular decision.
And as an extra check here,
What you can do is you explain,
For example,
To a colleague why you have made this decision.
And this person,
At best a neutral person,
Should be able to logically come to the same conclusion based on the arguments or bits of information that you provide.
So dear listeners,
Whether you make a decision into hiring somebody,
Giving a promotion or giving certain assignments to your team or your colleagues,
Just take a moment to reflect on those shortcuts that are driving your decisions.
And perhaps this will help you to become more aware of potential unconscious bias and to make better decisions at work.
