Everyone has them, even if no one wants them: unconscious prejudices. Read here six facts that will help you and your company.
1. everyone, without exception, has unconscious prejudices.
Our brain works in a resource-conserving manner. This means that for the majority of the day it falls back on already stored, learned patterns and associations. This happens unconsciously and virtually on autopilot. That's why, for example, you know right away that 2+2 equals 4. In addition, our brain forms associations. For example, when you hear the word "France" you may associate it with red wine, baguettes and croissants - stereotypically, because you may have learned or experienced it that way. This association affects your emotions, which in turn affect your decision. For example, you decide to spend your vacation there because of the pleasant feeling about France. Most of this process happens unconsciously. Every brain works this way and forms these (pre)judgments. Business psychologist Daniel Kahneman described exactly this in his bestseller "Fast Thinking, Slow Thinking."
Unconscious bias has a huge impact on your professional life.
Do you lead teams or decide on people's career paths? Regardless of your hierarchy or experience, the unconscious biases of our brain are levelled like trails. Once a bias is ingrained, you unconsciously walk that path over and over again, reinforcing the unconscious bias more and more (the Confirming Evidence Trap). This is why we unconsciously tend to see men as leaders in our minds, perceive women in leadership positions as unsympathetic or have more empathy for people who are similar to us (cf. Choudhoury 2017). How much your biases influence you can be tested, for example, with the Implicit Associations Test (IAT) from Harvard University. It is available for different areas (e.g. gender, race, etc.).
3. it costs your company to deal unreflectively with unconscious prejudices.
Clearly, our ability to rely on our gut feeling and experience is absolutely necessary to deal with the daily flood of information. But it is precisely this gut feeling and intuition that eats your diversity strategy for breakfast: unconscious biases influence who you invite for a job interview, who you give more speaking time to or who you promote. Not to mention social responsibility: unconscious thinking patterns are a hindrance if you really want to treat all talents inside and outside your company with equal opportunities - regardless of gender, social or ethnic origin, age, sexual orientation or religion/belief. And in a company where I as an employee cannot be who I really am, where I am not seen and where there is a prejudiced culture, employees will not stay. And this is exactly where money is at stake.
Unconscious bias is only one of the barriers to diversity and inclusion in companies.
Other barriers unfortunately exist: conscious prejudice, bullying, sexism, harassment, structural and individual racism, discrimination, a sense of not belonging, a lack of psychological security, a lack of inclusive corporate culture - just to name a few. These barriers are present in companies in very individual forms and they should be identified in detail. This can be done with the help of quantitative and qualitative data: for example, recruitment data, promotions, salary figures, performance data or anonymous employee surveys on corporate culture. So you should always look in several directions. It's not enough to just offer unconscious bias training without doing the anti-discrimination work that goes with it. Read more about why we, as humans, look so much for people who are similar to us and test your Mini-Me Bias.
You can learn to become more aware of your unconscious biases.
Dazu gibt es ganz unterschiedliche Strategien. Um das stereotype Denken deines Gehirns zu durchbrechen hilft es zum Beispiel schon, dich mit Menschen mit ganz unterschiedlichen Hintergründen und Denkmustern zu umgeben. Abonniere unterschiedliche Social Media Kanäle von Menschen mit Behinderung, trans Frauen, Women of Color, – insbesondere dann, wenn du diese Identitäten als anders empfindest. Jedoch ist es natürlich nicht die Aufgabe von marginalisierten Menschen, dich kostenlos aufzuklären.
6. training in the company & D&I strategy must go hand in hand.
Yes, it is important that everyone has heard of unconscious bias. But where is the concrete need in your company? Which target groups should receive training first, what should happen afterwards and how do you measure success? In addition to training, you should also develop bias-aware processes within your D&I strategy. Hand in hand you will achieve the best results.
In my Unconscious Bias Workbook, I've written three exercises to help you become more bias-free right now. Get it here by signing up for the Diversity & Inclusion bites.
