Five ways to bust your bias

Busting our biases is the biggest step we can take to be more inclusive.

Biases are essentially mental shortcuts that our brains take in order to process information quickly and that result in a preference for certain people or things. They lie at the heart of much of the unfair treatment, prejudice and discrimination that people experience both in the workplace and beyond, and psychologists have identified over 150 different types of bias that can play an important role in determining our behaviour, the decisions we make about people and how we assess situations.

While biases are deeply ingrained and we may not be aware of them, the good news is that there’s plenty we can do to reduce their potential to affect us. In the workplace, the benefits in the form of happier teams, better decisions, fairer treatment and enhanced performance are well worth the effort.

You can find more unconscious bias resources in our hub.

Let’s take a look at five things that can really get bias on the back foot.

Recognising our unconscious biases is the first step to tackling them, so getting insight is crucial. Implicit Association Tests that identify negative associations that we might have around race and gender, for example, can help to pinpoint where implicit bias might be impacting our decisions about people. Digital diagnostic tools such as K+DIORAMA can give us feedback on situations where we might be allowing bias to creep in and help us to be more objective.

Another great way of getting insight into our biases is by encouraging feedback from others on our own decisions and behaviour. Our research examining 360 feedback data for over 1000 leaders found that many of their direct reports feel their leader lacked awareness of their personal biases and consequently made impulsive decisions that were riddled with bias.

So it’s important to think about opportunities to get input from those around you so that you don’t fall into the same trap.

Stereotypes are essentially over-simplified, generalised assumptions about groups of people, and we all absorb them from when we’re very young through the influences of our families and peers, the news, the internet and social media as well as our own personal experiences. They’re deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness, and we can be oblivious to their hold over us.

For example, while the research shows very little difference between the traits of men and women, persistent stereotypical beliefs such as women being ‘kind’ and ‘caring’ and men being ‘strong’ and ‘forthright’ can lead to unintentional discrimination where men are favoured for leadership positions over women. Being mindful of where we might be falling prey to stereotypical assumptions around things like a person’s gender, race, age, accent or appearance can help us to think far more objectively and make better assessments of people and situations.

We all tend to associate more with people who are similar to us in some way, be that in age, social background, job type, gender or lifestyle choice – and this can help to entrench our biases and reinforce any existing prejudices that we might have.

Research shows that prejudice and conflict between groups can be reduced if members of the groups interact with each other. Getting out of our comfort zone and mixing with new people from different backgrounds helps us to learn about other people’s lived experiences and forces us to challenge our thinking, as well as exposing us to a wider range of skills and perspectives.

It’s also worth widening the range of media we consume so that we don’t end up in an echo-chamber that reflects our own biased beliefs back at us. Once in a while try buying a new publication, visiting a new website or getting your news from a different media source.

Bias is much more likely to surface when we are hungry, mentally or physically exhausted, under time pressure or highly stressed. This is because our brains are far less effective at processing new information and consequently more likely to rely on mental shortcuts.

Making sure that you’re properly rested, ensuring you’ve had enough to eat and drink and taking sufficient breaks during the day will all help to reduce the chance of bias creeping in and ensure that you’ve got sufficient mental bandwidth to deal with whatever the day throws at you.

Try and anticipate situations where your behaviour or decision-making – or that of others – might fall victim to bias. This could be going into a meeting with a team that you know is susceptible to groupthink, where members are reluctant to rock the boat and feel the need to reach a consensus. Or you could need to make some tough decisions around who to let go from the company or be required to solve an urgent problem, which will put you under pressure.

Thinking ahead to the event and making a conscious effort to check your bias at the door will make for much fairer and more objective reasoning and help you to achieve far better outcomes.

Reducing bias is an ongoing process, and it’s essential to remain committed and vigilant to the potential of bias to affect us.

Unconscious Bias training from Kandola+ can help support the process of bias-busting through simple actions that we can build into our everyday interactions – giving you the chance to measure both impact and progress. At Kandola+ we’ve got 40 years’ experience of helping people to identify and tackle their biases and build inclusive working cultures. Contact us today to find out how our DEI training programmes can help address bias in your organisation.