Corrective Maneuvers
If no one is immune to bias, what can we do? The first step is to recognize it. For Bosteels, “It’s important that we move away from the label that who is biased is bad, and who is not biased is good. We’re all biased, and as soon as you start putting labels on people, bias becomes something nasty, and nasty things we typically want to keep under the surface. But we need to get it into the open, because as soon as you have people, you have bias.” Some specific tools include:
Personal Self Awareness
“One of the tools we teach people is called substitution. We ask people to substitute one person for another and ask themselves would I still feel the same way? Would I still respond the same way? Would I still have cast aside that resume?” Barnard says, “One anthropologist called it learning to do a bit of internal spying, to check yourself and think: why do I feel that way about someone?”
Another check on bias is to correct it through experience. Barnard invites clients to analyze their informal networks. “I get them to list two or three people in the workplace and outside of the workplace who they would go to if they had an issue to discuss. When they categorize those people in terms of education, gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity and so on, what most people see is that their unofficial advisory board very much look like them, and probably therefore think like them. So we can each challenge ourselves to seek out the perspective of someone different from ourselves, even if that just means grabbing a coffee with someone you don’t ordinarily talk to in the office.”
Adriana Prates at Dasein Executive Search based in Brazil says, “The question of unconscious bias has increasingly troubled me over the past few years; for example, in meetings when describing the profile for a certain position. There was even one time that during a coaching meeting with an executive, I noticed that he was making decisions based on his own unconscious bias. It was when I decided to do a course. I realized that if I managed to better identify my own unconscious bias, I could contribute more to my clients and even speak to them of my own experiences. One of the school’s characteristics is that class composition is as diverse as possible, in terms of aspects such as gender, social class, race, beliefs, values, age, and profession.” She says, “One of the modules I undertook with my 53 classmates was called The Walk of Privileges and as we live in a country of extreme inequality, on finishing the dynamic, we were astounded to see where each of us were on this path. Whilst working on these feelings after the experience, it showed us how painful and easy it is to negatively impact a person’s life with choices based on bias.”
Leadership Trials
Nick Hutchinson of Quinton Anthony describes a marketing executive at a global engineering firm who observed that the firm’s team leaders were all of a similar age, sex, education and experience, and questioned how the organization could think differently moving forward if the same type of people are always at the helm? “A decision from the executive team was made to re-shuffle and diversify the various sector team leaders in the region,” Hutchinson says. “By trialing new team leaders over a specified period of time, the business gained new technical insights, greater energy and input into the sector teams. This process also provided some relief to burned out team leaders. Those who had never been a team leader before—but who had different cultural, geographic and industry experience—were given a trial opportunity to lead their teams with the support of those around them, including the executive team.”
Blended Teams
Bosteels recommends organizations build blended teams to increase awareness of different perspectives. “Even though conceptually, people see a lot of benefit to creating blended teams, in reality people feel more comfortable teaming up with alike people. Nevertheless alike people may not be challenging themselves and each other. In blended teams, the composition of the group may increase awareness around unconscious bias."
Another take on blended teams is panel interviewing. Bosteels explains, “Managers often want to recruit who they see in the mirror in the morning. It makes them comfortable because that’s what they know.” She recalls a client that had success implementing panel interviewing. “Recruiting people with diverse profiles, from different industries, backgrounds, nationalities, was complemented by a more diverse interview panel which took some of the bias out of the process.”
Measure To Change
Personal measurements might include the Implicit Association Test from Harvard’s “Project Implicit.” It is a simple online exercise that measures associations between concepts, stereotypes, and evaluations. “The Implicit Association Test (IAT) measures attitudes and beliefs that people may be unwilling or unable to report. The IAT may be especially interesting if it shows that you have an implicit attitude that you did not know about. For example, you may believe that women and men should be equally associated with science, but your automatic associations could show that you (like many others) associate men with science more than you associate women with science.”
In reference to a UK measure published in the 2017 Institute of Directors report, Barnard says “one of the things that jumped out at me is when surveyed about the biggest barrier to getting more women in the board room, men tended to say there were not enough qualified women.” However, she says “35% of women on boards have masters degrees, compared to only 19% of the men, so there’s a different criteria. Also, more than 50% of male board appointments went to people who already knew at least one person on the board. Only 19% of women board appointments went to someone who was already on the board. The old boys network seems to be alive and kicking in those scenarios."
Many countries have elected to use data to motivate corrective improvements in how bias plays out in the workplace. Barnard says, “that’s why we’ve seen legislation in the UK like the gender pay gap reporting.” I do think a starting point is checking the data.
Watch Your Triggers
The theories of ego depletion and decision fatigue show how different forms of mental tiredness can lead to increased System 1 (automatic and thereby bias-prone) decision making. Barnard explains “Our cognitive resources are limited, and as the day goes on they decline. So when we’re tired or hungry, our brains rely more on that unconscious, fast processing, which studies have shown is more prone to bias.”
So to reduce the chances of bias breaking through into behavior, Barnard recommends having a snack or taking a break. “Within eight minutes of drinking a sugary drink, bias levels fall,” she says. “When you look into this from a search perspective, how often do we spend the whole day analyzing resumes or interviewing candidates, and then we make the decision at the end of the day when we’re tired and hungry? The best practice from my perspective would be to not make the decision at the end of the day but to leave it until the following morning.”
Ongoing Training
Mickey Matthews, International Chairman at Stanton Chase acknowledges how the mind jumps to conclusions. “I’ve certainly had people come into my office when I was expecting one gender, solely based on a name, and the opposite gender entered,” for example. “But those are the obvious examples; in reality, we don’t know what we don’t know – this is inherent in the idea of unconscious bias.”
Experts in the field agree that unconscious bias training is never a matter of one and done. Matthews says, “Twice a year all of our consultants meet, and the Diversity and Inclusion leaders organize trainings for our team to identify and overcome unconscious bias. These trainings include tests on making the individual aware of his or her biases. Identifying and recognizing these biases is the first step to overcoming them in our daily work, and we see this as vital to the success of Stanton Chase and our clients.
Check Your Culture and Manage Change
Bosteels tells of a personal experience coming up against culture. “I was brought in as a more diverse talent into an organization. My wiring was less technical, and more commercial and business-minded, and I was hired into a very senior role in a beautiful organization filled with great technical experts. I was used to an open environment, so at the start I asked a lot of questions, wanting to learn and understand. However, what was normal to me was making people uncomfortable in the new organization. It took me over a month to establish relationships and help people understand that I wasn’t criticizing—I wanted to learn. But for people who weren’t used to the “questioning” approach, it might be frightening, and as a newcomer it was not necessarily welcoming.”
That first-hand experience led Bosteels to be a firm believer in change management. “If companies want to change the culture of an organization by hiring a diverse workforce, they have to include change management, otherwise that diverse workforce might not be successful and there might be retention issues in the end.”
Leverage technology
From initial screening in recruiting, real-life simulations in assessment, and “blind,” data-based performance review, advances in technology can help employers limit the impact of unconscious bias in their workplaces. Bosteels says, “I’ve been reflecting on the role of technology, because if you think about recruitment with AI and the prescreening of CVs, I strongly believe you can take a lot of the bias out.” However, Bosteels warns, “Trough machine learning, the robot picks up the feedback humans give and integrate it for the future. I’m wondering how long before the robots start to build in bias?”
Resist
Project Implicit is a non-profit organization that seeks educate the public about hidden biases and to provide a “virtual laboratory” for collecting data on the Internet. Project Implicit recommends a strategy of not giving implicit biases the chance to operate. One example is “blinding” oneself from knowing an individual’s irrelevant demographic details when making a decision about them. Another example is learning to compensate for implicit preferences. “For example, if you have an implicit preference for young people you can try to be friendlier toward elderly people.” The project also recommends “people consider what gets into their minds in the first place. For example, this could mean going out of your way to watch television programs and movies that portray women and minority group members in positive or counter-stereotypical ways.”
The Role of Search
“One thing search professionals can do is arm themselves with the data around profitability and diverse executive boards and leadership teams,” Barnard says. “There are significant research that will help clients understand the relationship between diversity in management and both innovation and profitability.”
Search consultants also have an opportunity to challenge what clients think they need. Barnard explains, “If you think about the average search, clients often say we’re in manufacturing and we’re looking for someone who has x years experience in manufacturing, with this level of leadership in manufacturing. But it’s when you have a group of people from mixed industries that you’re more likely to get greater, more profitable innovation; more than if you only have people who’ve ever worked in manufacturing, for example.”
Search firms often lead by example. Tyler & Company’s Dennis J. Kain says, “For over 20 years, we have had a policy of including diversity candidates on every slate, for every engagement. At our executive search firm, diversity candidates are encouraged by motivating the research staff in identifying and placing them.”
For example, Kain says, “Health system leadership teams should reflect the population of the service area, which requires the hiring team to recruit within the changing demographics. The truth is that unconscious bias is a given. New generations can reduce unconscious bias by being more culturally aware of changes in our society.”
Search consultants are uniquely positioned to show clients that they do not have to trade top qualifications for diversity. Mpho Nkeli, Director at Search Partners International / AltoPartners, says “When getting a brief for an executive placement or board position that only has race or gender criteria listed, I actively engage the client to help them focus on first defining the actual skills that are required for the specific position, and then have a discussion about race and gender afterwards. And, more often than not, discussions like this lead to the skill requirement changing and an emphasis placed on those requirements. After an understanding of the exact skills that are required, we then have the discussion about any additional criteria, such as gender or racial. I would rather find someone who will add value to my clients’ businesses than just be a front or someone who will tick boxes. The value we add as search consultants is the ability to have these conversations and be strategic advisors to our clients.”
Occasionally, even well-intentioned clients struggle to take the unfamiliar path. Barnard observes, “At moments like that, I think it’s useful for a search firm to be that trusted advisor.”
