Everyone has them, even if they don’t want to have them: unconscious prejudices. Here are six facts that will help you and your company.
1. everyone, without exception, has unconscious prejudices.
Our brain works in a resource-saving way. This means that for the majority of the day, it falls back on previously stored, learned patterns and associations. This happens unconsciously and virtually on autopilot. That’s why, for example, you immediately know that 2+2 equals 4. Our brain also forms associations. For example, when you hear the word “France”, you may associate it with red wine, baguettes and croissants – quite stereotypically, because you may have learned or experienced it that way. This association affects your emotions, which in turn influence your decision. For example, you decide to spend your vacation in France because of the comforting feeling it gives you. Most of this process happens unconsciously. Every brain works this way and forms these (pre)judgments. The business psychologist Daniel Kahneman described exactly this in his bestseller “Think fast, think slow”.
2. unconscious bias has a huge impact on your professional life.
Do you lead teams or decide on people’s career paths? Regardless of the hierarchy or your experience, the unconscious biases in our brains are like beaten tracks. Once a bias is anchored, you unconsciously walk that path again and again, reinforcing the unconscious bias (the Confirming Evidence Trap). This is why we unconsciously tend to see men as leaders, find women in leadership positions unsympathetic or have more empathy for people who are similar to us (see Choudhoury 2017). The Implicit Associations Test (IAT) from Harvard University, for example, is a good way to test how much your biases influence you. It is available for various areas (e.g. gender, race, etc.)
3. it costs your company to deal with unconscious prejudices without reflection.
Clearly, our ability to rely on our gut feeling and experience is absolutely essential to deal with the daily flood of information. But it is precisely this gut feeling and intuition that eat your diversity strategy for breakfast: unconscious bias influences who you invite to a job interview, who you give more speaking time to or who you promote. Not to mention social responsibility: unconscious thought patterns are a hindrance if you really want to treat all talents inside and outside your company equally – 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 a prejudiced culture prevails, employees will not stay. And that’s where the money is at stake.
4. unconscious bias is only one of the barriers to diversity & inclusion in companies.
Unfortunately, there are a number of other barriers: conscious prejudice, bullying, sexism, harassment, structural and individual racism, discrimination, a feeling of not belonging, a lack of psychological security, a lack of inclusive corporate culture – just to name a few. These barriers exist in companies in very individual forms and 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. You should therefore always look in several directions. It’s not enough to just offer unconscious bias training without doing the associated anti-discrimination work. Read more here about why we as humans actually search so hard for people who are similar to us and test your mini-me bias.
5. you can learn to become more aware of your unconscious biases.
There are many different strategies for this. To break through the stereotypical thinking in your brain, for example, it helps to surround yourself with people from very different backgrounds and thought patterns. Subscribe to different social media channels of people with disabilities, trans women, women of color – especially if you perceive these identities as different. However, it is of course not the job of marginalized people to educate you for free.
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 what is the specific 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 as part of your D&I strategy. Hand in hand, you will achieve the best results.
In my Unconscious Bias Workbook, I have written down three exercises that will help you to become more bias-free right now. Get it here by signing up for the Diversity & Inclusion snacks.
