Breaking Free from Bias

Preventing Costly Complaints, Conflict and Talent Loss

Marilyn O'Hearne

• Publisher: PNP Press
• ISBN:
  9780970512222
• Topic: Betriebswirtschaft
• Subtopic: Personalmanagement

Learn how to break free from bias at work. Awareness is not enough!

We all harbor unconscious bias that creates barriers to success.

You may think "not me," but neuroscience research shows we are all affected.

You can learn how to be part of the solution at work, boosting IMPACT and the bottom line by implementing critical steps. Implementation, this book's purpose, has been the key missing element to date in breaking free from bias.

Breaking Free from Bias will show you how to:

• Prevent costly complaints, conflict and talent loss

• Improve organizational culture

• Upgrade talent recruitment and retention

• Refine employee experience

• Burst the barriers to advancement and enhance capacity

• Boost the quadruple bottom line (people, planet, profit, purpose) when diversity is leveraged

 

Chapter 1 - What You Do Not Know May Hurt You

The Dangers of Unconscious Bias

“Potential=Performance-Interference”

—Tim Gallwey, author of The Inner Game of Tennis

David’s Surprise Discovery

My leadership coaching client David, a human resources leader, was referred to me because his 360 assessment scores did not match those of his peers or those above him. He did not accept their glowing feedback. We unearthed David’s unconscious bias that was limiting both his impact and his mission of being of service and a positive change agent.

As a child, David had struggled with a speech impairment. He was teased when reading out loud and found it hard to communicate his thoughts in a way that others could easily understand. His bias was, “speech impairments limit capacity to make a meaningful contribution.” Now, if you had asked David if he believed this about anyone else he would have said, “Of course not!”

His unconscious bias led to his belief: “They (the senior leaders) are not going to want to talk with me or hear what I have to say,” which was holding him and his organization back.

Through their participation in my Breaking Free from Bias program combined with team coaching, David and his leadership team learned to increase their IMPACT through my six IMPACT step Breaking Free from Bias approach:

Identify unconscious biases held about self and others through the Harvard Implicit Bias Assessment as well as my own and other tools which we put into play in-the-moment.

Manage their own and organizational biases by exercising their respectful curiosity and asking “Is this bias harmful? If so, what changes will we make?” and creating and beginning to implement an action plan.

Plan How to Unleash Potential. Their analysis revealed they were “fishing from the same pond” in their talent recruitment and promotion practices, which was also reflected in the “look alike” marketing images. The changes they implemented in these practices including an advocacy program which paved the way for all to reach their potential, including the organization and its profitability.

Act on their Strategic Plan with Awareness and Accountability. David’s leadership team built in bias feedback and accountability in their strategic plan, calling out bias in a respectful way that keeps communication open.

Confidently Communicate about Bias to Reduce Costly Conflict, especially learning what to listen for that would signal bias was at play and develop a plan to manage it.

Take Stock of their Success and Repeat what is working well in order to reach full potential as well as avoid costly, unnecessary conflict. They scheduled this analysis quarterly.

The results? Each leadership team member as well as the organization was freed to reach their potential, and in the process, their culture and employee experience was enhanced, and conflict reduced by 20 percent by getting to this root cause. Talent recruitment and retention improved by 12 percent. David, his leadership team, and his organization enjoyed improved health and vitality with decreased stress. David was promoted as he updated his bias and beliefs and contributed more.

Of course, as in any coaching and bias work, the solutions were customized for David and his team. The IMPACT model is the distilled framework that you can quickly and easily begin to understand and implement for immediate results within your own context.

Why I Created the Breaking Free from Bias Process

My vision is living and working in a world of shared power leading to peace and I feel called to contribute to peace through this work. Bias is a barrier to achieving that vision and at the root of much conflict, where leaders like you spend so much of your time. In this book you will find ways to cut through the root of much conflict, unconscious bias, nipping it in the bud so we can live and work in peace, and creating a culture and employee experience where everyone can reach their potential, enhancing organizational results. You fulfill your mission of service, of being a positive change agent.

Bias is an Interference in Tim Gallwey’s equation that subtracts from performance to diminish potential. In addition to the business case, unconscious bias matters to me, and maybe to you, because of my passion about making the most of our resources. This reflects my value of stewardship and belief that people are our most valuable resource. This value and belief promote sustainability. I believe we are all connected and created to contribute through our unique gifts. An empathetic soul, I literally feel the pain when I hear the media stories of our not leveraging and utilizing everyone’s unique gifts; losing out on opportunities and even lives due to unconscious bias.

In searching for solutions, I have read and viewed hundreds of articles and videos which have helped shape my process and programs. I continue to receive several articles a day, keeping up to date with the ever-expanding knowledge base.

This has enabled me to cut through all the information to the essence of what will truly free you and your organization to live out your mission and for all to reach their full potential.

My Path to Greater Awareness

My bias journey, like some of yours, has been at times painful and discouraging. Bias is one of those topics where you see the word and say or think: “Not me!” Although so rewarding in terms of impact and results, it may be initially challenging to recognize your limiting unconscious biases. And experiencing others’ harmful bias towards you can be extremely painful.

What got me started on exploring bias? I mentioned in the Introduction how unconscious bias forms, partially through our own experiences, culture and environment. I hesitate to share these stories because they hint of my age, and I fear the ageism bias!

Beginning at age five when I started school, I noticed how expectations were different for boys and girls. Learning to read, the stories were about Jane watching Dick do all of the activities, “Jane sees Dick run.” These “reader” books, as well as female roles on TV, in movies, and in books helped perpetuate the bias that boys are active and girls are passive bystanders or in support roles. Thankfully this bias of women being in the background was counteracted by the stexample of my mom who was a doctor and an athlete. She also frequently told us we could be whatever we wanted to be. I have coached many rising female leaders to break free from this cultural bias to step into their leadership and influence, including taking credit for their work and negotiating their salaries. If I had not broken free from the cultural bias barrier toward women, you might not be reading this book.

By age nine, I had become painfully aware of additional cultural groups being perceived and treated differently, specifically Jews, African Americans, Japanese, and Russians. I found this confusing, unfair, and extremely upsetting. But certainly it was not as upsetting to me as it was to those on the receiving end of the bias. We had no African Americans in our school or neighborhood. One evening, however, my parents took us across town to an African American colleague’s home for dinner. I was startled to see barbed wire fencing around their property and was frightened by their German Shepard dog barking and growling.

Ever curious, I asked the family, “Why do you have a barbed wire fence and a mean dog?”

“We fear for our safety in this neighborhood.”

“Why don’t you move to another neighborhood, like ours?”

“Because we are not allowed to live in your and other neighborhoods.”

“Why?”

“Because of the color of our skin.”

WHAT?! I continue to experience the shock and horror of that moment. Of discovering racial bias.

Today we still have racial, gender and other dividing lines in our communities and organizations based on unconscious bias which in some cases has grown into prejudice. These dividing lines limit potential and are at the heart of conflict. For example, women’s earnings compared to men have barely improved since we explored career options in junior high school decades ago, and the number of Fortune 500 female leaders decreased last year. This can be a really discouraging realization. I still feel the pain especially related to how I have seen others experience bias, and now I can do more about it than I could as a child. You can, too. These bias-based community and organizational dividing lines are in sometimes violent conflict with the shifting of our world as it becomes more interconnected.

“Puta!” (whore) I was occasionally called in the streets of Madrid as a 20-year-old student, simply for looking like an American girl by wearing jeans, being lighter complected, and speaking with an accent—nothing to do with my behavior. Some Spaniards held this bias about American (US) girls traveling without a male family member. Men would try to also grab us. Spanish girls would not speak to us. “Ouch! Unfair!” I thought. This was one of my own “other side of the fence” experiences. I experienced quite a shock at this contrast from how I was viewed and treated in the US.

You do not have to leave your own city to experience bias. My first job out of graduate school was working in a community support organization where the director wanted me there. The majority of the families in that community were Italian-American and did not welcome me. The unconscious bias was “do not trust people who are not Italian-American.” I am not Italian-American. Finally, after many months, trust was built so that I could fulfill my role. The director helped by using her influence to advocate with the families to make use of my services.

Other experiences include not being initially chosen to co-lead a US bias training activity because I am white. I was chosen to coach United Nations leaders and then had to wait several years for a place to open due to a quota system. I have also experienced being one of only two Caucasian women in Kluang, Malaysia while teaching Organizational Behavior and International Business for Ottawa University. Children turned around to stare at me in restaurants. Although some of these experiences were painful at the time, I can be thankful to have experienced a little of what it is like to be viewed as the “other” so I can be more empathetic. That I still retained some privilege as a professor in Malaysia, a revered status in that culture, made that experience easier. In contrast, my lower rank status in Spain as a young American woman traveling on her own made that experience more challenging.

From interviewing people of color for my White Privilege Faculty Group and what I have heard throughout the years from coaching clients, program participants and colleagues, my experiences are only a tiny taste of their “other side of the fence” experiences. They frequently experience hiring, salary and promotion bias as well as micro-aggressions over their lifetimes. For example, Taneesha was told, “You are so articulate. You sound white.” A micro aggression may seem to the sender to be a friendly comment but can reveal an underlying bias and be painful to the receiver. The implication was that sounding white was linked to being articulate and therefore sounding like someone of color was not.

Many examples exist of female leaders being mistaken as assistants when arriving at meetings. My mother, in her medical school interview, was accused of wanting to become a doctor just so she could find a husband. A gay colleague was questioned about his physical ability to handle construction work. I have heard recruiting teams express their uncertainty with how to address what accommodations might be necessary while interviewing people with disabilities. They need the information and do not want to offend. Military veterans sometimes face bias when re-entering the civilian workforce. With one organization, the CEO was biased in favor of hiring veterans, but there was not enough support given to the veterans in making the culture change to the organization. This resulted in costly talent loss.

Your IMPACT Story

No matter which “side of the fence” you grew up on, wherever in this world, I invite you to:

1. Be still, take a few deep breaths.

2. Access some of your earliest memories about your own and others’ cultural identities (ethnicities, gender, ability/disability, socioeconomic level, age, gender, native/non-native speaker, and so forth).

3. Consider how you noticed your own and others’ cultural identities impacting behaviors and opportunities.

4. For now, simply make a note of what comes up for you. We will come back to this in Chapter 3, where we will also explore ways to use storytelling organizationally. Remember we all have unconscious bias. The key is to break free from it one bias at a time, an ongoing journey.

Chapter 2 - Breaking Free from Bias for IMPACT

“We must come to grips with our biases, or they will surely keep a grip on us.”

—Edward Mooney, Jr., Ed.D., author of “The Pearls of the Stone Man”

You find yourself spending so much of your time dealing with conflict, frustrated by its negative effects on your organization’s culture, employee experience, and talent recruitment and retention. You are resourceful and have tried lots of solutions, but something keeps pulling people, and therefore the organization, off course, like a strong undercurrent. You may be fearing for your position, losing confidence, momentum, and motivation, and you know you are not the only one in your organization experiencing this. Have hope. Help is on the way!

Pat, the huma...

Table of contents

• Description
• Title Page
• Copyright Information
• Advance Praise
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Introduction
• Chapter 1
• Chapter 2
• Chapter 3
• Chapter 4
• Chapter 5
• Chapter 6
• Chapter 7
• Chapter 8
• Chapter 9
• Conclusion
• Further Reading
• More Information
• Scorecard
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Table of Contents