JANUARY 2020 MANAGEMENT
initial reaction might be the
same as mine: ‘I’m more selfaware
than that. I’m open to,
and accepting of, everyone in
our society’. But now really
stop and think about it. You
might be surprised.
By its very definition, our
unconscious bias and prejudice
is hidden to us – our opinion
on, and reaction to, whatever
these biases are is automatic.
According to the Institute of
and add a great deal of context and meaning based
on our personal mindset and frame of reference.
We make assumptions and draw conclusions – and
we do so instantly and without thinking about it.
Recognising the implications
As novelist Anais Nin once said, ‘we don’t see
things as they are, we see them as we are’. Once we
acknowledge this fact, we can then appreciate the
full extent to which unconscious bias can impact
both our own career progression and the way we
respond to others.
Our own unacknowledged prejudices have the
potential to profoundly influence who we hire, who
we coach and develop, who we listen to, who we
overlook, and who we praise and diminish. They
also exasperate a self-fulfilling cycle of behaviour
and reinforce exclusion. If someone feels different
to their co-workers, they are likely to downsize
their aspirations and seek less high-level mentors.
Essentially, our unfounded prejudices could be
resulting in bias becoming reality.
Leadership & Management,
these prejudices come about for
several reasons. They may relate
to the way we were brought
up, the culture we grew up in,
or they could be as a result of
a past event, one that we don’t
remember but that continues to
impact the here and now.
We shouldn’t be too hard on
ourselves about this. The science
suggests that our brain thinks
this bias is helping to keep us
safe from something we perceive
as threatening. But while we may
not be able to stop unconscious
bias from existing, we can
change the way we respond to,
and manage it.
At Air Products, this is an
issue that we are committed to
tackling and, as part of our wider
diversity and inclusion strategy,
we have begun to implement a
focused awareness and training
programme for managers across
the business. The programme
seeks to break through the bias
and educate our team about
how they can actively encourage
inclusion. Specifically, this
means recognising that, yes,
having the right mix of talent is
important, but it is not enough
in its own right. We also need to
foster an environment where we
can leverage that diversity – an
environment where everyone has
a voice and can contribute fully.
Acknowledging the bias
The starting point for this
training is a simple experiment
that practically demonstrates
to our teams that unconscious
bias really does exist in all of us.
Employees are shown images of
two individuals and are asked
to rate how tech savvy these
individuals are, based on the
images shown. This simple
activity illustrates how easy
it is for our assumptions and
unconscious biases to surface
and ultimately impact our
behaviours and interactions.
Put simply, it is human nature
to fill in the gaps.
This process is formally
known as the ‘Ladder of
Inference’ (above, right) and
demonstrates how our brains
start with just a little bit of
information (i.e. what we saw)
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