How to overcome unconscious bias?
It’s easy to stay within your safe community of like-minded people when you find them and forget to open up yourself to “the others”.
Now, who do I mean by “the others”? They are those that think, feel and behave differently from you.
So after 3 weeks of internally reflecting on our authentic leadership potential, the Wavemakers team directed the remaining 3 to our external environment. It could be within our work, family, friends, or whatever it is you can think of.
To kick off this second-half of the journey, we focused on understanding the unconscious biases surrounding us and within us too.
Here’s my take on the experience.
Now, the concept of unconscious bias is not new to me. If you fancy a read of a comparison I made between our slow thinking VS fast thinking brain mechanisms, have a look at Consciousness is so overrated. There I share some perspective based on a chapter review of a book by Jonathan Haidt, a Professor of Ethical Leadership at New York University Stern School of Business.
So in this fourth Wavemaker’s week, I was thrilled as always because I love delving into the human psychic. I think if I learned about #ikigai when I was 10 and my parents were like, ”Let’s enroll her in a Wavemaking course”- they’d have probably discovered that I should’ve been schooled to become a psychologist. Nevertheless — I studied communications and this discipline gave me the opportunity to basically devour various psychological theories.
Anyway, back to unconscious bias week.
We went through what I dubbed a “therapy session” because we were literally unpacking things people said to us that made us feel insulted or invalidated. It was quite heavy that I shed a few tears after our Monday coaching session and sparked a discussion with my partner. The topic in question wasn’t about him, but it was his receptive attitude that encouraged me to discuss what I was upset about.
Receptive — I just googled it — is synonymous to open-minded.
Being Open-minded
Being open-minded is difficult, tiring, and courageous. Difficult because it requires you to be #aware that your perspective isn’t the ONLY way forward. Tiring because listening to someone — like actual active listening, not that kind of listening we do when someone is speaking and you ARE quiet but actually busy thinking about how to convince this person about the idea brewing from three sentences ago — takes a lot of energy. And courageous because when you open your mind to alternative ideas to your own, you are questioning the beliefs that ground you and support you in making sense of your environment.
Now imagine a person, anyone you can think of that you have some sort of judgment about. Maybe they’re called Maria, or Robert. Perhaps you label them as the sustainability guy, a racist, “just” a teacher or “just” a janitor.
A judgment need not be negative, it can be positive or neutral, from your perspective.
If you already have in mind someone, can you imagine asking them about the label you just silently linked to their identity? Imagine having that conversation with them. It doesn’t have to be confrontational or anything like that, just how you would usually talk with them.
How does that make you feel? What kind of emotions do you feel right now? Again there’s no right or wrong here, simply notice.
My point here, is to practice noticing your own biases and allow yourself to be open-minded, even if you don’t really know how to. If it feels awkward, you’re probably on the right path.
Experimenting with a new behavior feels awkward — especially when it challenges our deep-seated beliefs.
It’s too easy to fall into the trap of blocking any potential conversation that goes against your own biases and beliefs.
We are living in an age of information where every single one of us has the agency to speak our mind, especially with the advent of social media. But computer algorithms understand our biases faster than we can consciously comprehend them. It is built to help us find things that hold our attention, not ones that repel us.
It is a great tool to build a like-minded community but doesn’t seem so great for facilitating a compassionate exchange of thoughts. Which takes time and patience.
I think if I learned anything from this particular week, is that if you want to outgrow your biases, you need to create a safe environment and have meaningful conversations that also challenge your perceptions of the other.
