Unconscious bias & Diversity
Welcome to week 2 of Sridhar’s newsletter. Appreciate you being here, so we can connect on interesting topics. If you haven’t subscribed yet, here is the link (https://sridhargarikipati.substack.com).
Google trends reveals that U.S is searching about racial injustice more than ever before. Above are few searches which people are looking out for answers. June 19th, 2020 when my client has declared a free holiday, that is the very first time I came to know about a day called Juneteenth being celebrated in Texas state every year. Not knowing about it, triggered me that day to spend most of my time in learning about it. done few courses to know more about it. More than me, here is the link - what-is-racism which explains about all this much better.
Do you think, we have racism in workplace as well?
That would call for fire alarm in workplace if happens. When occurs, they will either result in getting away based on position one holds or gets fired. Give it a thought, you will find this with alternate way at workplaces as slow poison. The reason why I say slow poison is because this is something which person say or judge other person without even knowing it and as it occurs it impacts workplaces a lot worse in long run like a plaque. i.e. “Unconscious bias”. Yes, we do have conscious bias, bad managers etc. as well which is a separate topic to talk about.
Unconscious bias
every one of us are biased it is our attitude or stereotypes that effects our views, action and decision-making ability. This is something which automatically kicks off in our brain easily if not taken care, without knowing we would have responded inappropriately or taken incorrect action. Example would be in hiring process where you connect with like-minded person overlooking their skills, you may prefer them for being same locales , speaking same language , favoritism’s , gender, appearance ( fat man vs slim man, Asian women vs Blonde women , short man vs tall man ). Its impacts hiring, project positions, promotions, employee quitting.
Another example says Employee A who have been rated high in last year and Employee B who have been rated average last year. Given the last year performances, many times a Start performer is just seen always as achiever. If boss ends with the bias , they can neglect the current year hard work done by Employee B as in their eyes they already labeled them as average performer and Employee A even when performed average in current year would end up with rated high. This causes a lot of work trauma in employee B who have spent all year working hard and if ends up not been recognized for his efforts. Not sure how many times we have seen this at workplace, where instead of deserved people being promoted, someone who is at favor of boss ends up being promoted. Read my old article on this written 5 years ago about promotion broken pathway.
One should always have standard process always in hand while making any such decisions, so we will not get blind sided with our unconscious bias. If you are Lead or Manager knowing your bias areas will help you in your decision process. I see it applies in our life as well; example parent has a favorite child unknowingly. Such bias impacts a lot than we think on one’s life or career.
See this IAT test for reference done by Harvard. I recommend taking this every quarter once and identify if any shortcoming so can work on them. The Implicit Association Test (IAT)
Look at your life and career, identify your bias, acknowledge it, then change your behavior so next time will not make mistake. Overall, I meant to say that one day of learning these or Protesting for the cause a day are just a start, this takes a journey to work upon one to make the change in behavior.
Diversity
Combination of different varieties, a simpler word to teach a toddler but way harder to explain to adult and implement in our social lives and workplaces. before we talk about diversity in our workplace, for me gender equality matters the most. This alone can make a big shift in thinking, creativeness at workplace. Until I came to USA for work, only than I have seen vast majority of different cultures, race as its country of immigrants compared to my home country India. Although India work force is predominantly Indians, itself has vast majority of diverse culture within country due to different language spoken in each state and their culture. (unconscious and conscious bias flows in corporate culture here as well)
Creative ideas flow when we are with diverse groups, as each one brings entirely different perspective. For organizations, its tough task to implement a diverse workforce. Companies have acknowledged Juneteenth recently, but very few have Leadership vision, Employee being trained well to be comfortable with diverse cultures. To implement this, it must begin at leadership level so it can share a guideline to its workforce.
Although U.S allowed me to see diverse group of people in workplace compared to my home country. There is still so much work needs to be done here to enable diversity. Even with current diverse people at workplace, one observation I made is companies may conclude their diversity journey by just looking at number of people from different groups are in their workplace. They need to deep dive and see at each team level; leadership levels do every person has a place or not. One thing is having diverse group is not enough, as unless people feel belonged to a group only than diverse group will stay together and thrive. If one is not respecting or diverse voices are not heard into those meetings, what is the use of having people from different culture. We have seen this already failed at gender level, where more importance is given to Men point of view compared to women. The same occurs in Diversity as well, unless voice is being heard and we make the group safe so they share ideas/concerns equally, only than true diversity can cherish.
Also Diversity will help Organizations brand themselves. We have seen more than 2 decades of personal branding and its impact. Look at Apple, Tesla etc. who have grown so much with individual brand with just one showman in front. Just think about it, when we bring so many diverse people into leadership roles and build teams, how much impact it can be. Just take an example, a man can’t not show an empathy of women, they can only learn it when they work in equals with each other and learn from each other. Another example, a black man lived in all these decades of inequality would bring so much of resilience to the team as his soft skill. people from different culture will bring their unique strong persona to the table, rather than one person having all qualities to be great, each member of team showing their true potential bringing their unique perspective to team. With so many perspectives in team, organizations will never bound to fail. They will not just be a quarterly number in economy, they can be game changer in bringing change to society.
Winning at diversity is not one-time task, its recurring task to win every day, week, month, year. It is not easy for Organizations to disrupt entire workforce and form diverse teams right away. covid-19 has disrupted the workplace already. Many organizations have already reduced pay, furlough to letting employees to leave. Once things are going to get settled, this is great opportunity for organizations to re-look at their recruitment process to avoid any Bias and hire the diverse work group. Building team after team will help us get there. Organizations can see the results in employee retention, good recruiting & healthy teams being diverse.
I thought of few changes for my Millennial generation ( Read this ) few years ago, now in 2020 we are at peak of not just asking for diversity , but have a path to implement diversity at large. Next generation coming or already into workforce are Gen Z, who more racially and ethnically diverse than previous generations. It is must for organizations and current individuals of prior generations to shift their attitude by overcoming their Bias and have diverse culture in place soon. Companies with greater diversity culture are going to hold greater talent with them compared to rest, Gen Z is going to prove this in future.
Few courses I would like to share, which you can learn for free on these
Tell me what you think of unconscious bias and diversity. what are your experiences and ideas around this so we can connect on this? I really feel these two are most important topics to teach to greater audience, so are ready for next workforce generation.
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