Moving Beyond "Aha!"

Behavior not Bias

Being the guest on a lot of podcasts and virtual programs, now a standard

part of any author tour, provides a rich resource for the kind of stories you end up

wishing you’d included in your book.

For example, when I did guest duty on Lisa Earle McLeod’s engaging LinkedIn

Live program at the end of February, Lisa asked if I intended my behavior-not-bias

approach for building inclusive cultures to imply that unconscious bias training is

ineffective.

Not necessarily. The chief problem, in my experience, is that while

unconscious bias training can offer important insights, it rarely shows us how to

act on these insights. As former CEO of Cardinal Health Care Mike Kaufmann

memorably observed, “It’s all aha moment, without the now what?”

Another persistent problem is how unconscious bias training is delivered.

The material it aims to surface not only lies within our heads, it’s also negative.

After all, we’re talking about bias. When not handled with extreme sensitivity, the

process can raise hackles and stir backlash.

I’ve watched this happened for years. But until I was on Lisa’s show, I

hadn’t considered the degree to which it can reinforce the experience of being an

outsider for some who participate.

Lisa began her career as a sales superstar working for a global company

widely known for the excellent training it provides. An early proponent of

fairness and inclusion, the company became one of the first to roll out

unconscious bias training to its leadership teams; this was in the mid-90s. The

purpose was to raise awareness among male leaders (the leadership at the time

was virtually all men) about the kinds of barriers women and people of color

faced. And to provide insights for those outside the leadership mainstream about

what their colleagues’ perceptions might be.

The firm hired to deliver the training sessions urged participants to get real

about how working with people they perceived as different from themselves made

them feel. The presumption was that giving people the opportunity to be

completely honest and essentially tell on themselves–– a common therapeutic

technique–– would create the conditions for more authentic and fruitful exchange.

Lisa says, “I was accustomed to being the only woman in the room, and had

gotten pretty comfortable with that. I assumed the men I worked with had also

adjusted or were adjusting. I thought we had good relationships and believed I

was pretty well accepted in what until had recently been an almost completely

male world.”

Not really, as it turned out.

Lisa was stunned when male colleagues in the sessions began opening up

about how uncomfortable working with women made them feel, and how they

resented having to deal with women on their teams. The other outsider in these

sessions, Todd, an African American male, was also alarmed at hearing his

white co-workers discuss how their families’ long-established biases against

people of color influenced their perceptions and comfort level. “He and I were

both like, so this is what they think of us?” Lisa recalls. “We felt completely

blindsided.”

As the sessions ended, the trainers congratulated the participants on being

open and honest and encouraged them to continue being so. But for Lisa and

Todd, the experience was devastating. “After you hear the kinds of comments

we heard,” she notes, “you cannot unhear them. They continue to echo in your

head. It’s no surprise that Todd and I both ended up leaving the company not

long after that. We’d thought we were pretty comfortable before we came in, but

those sessions showed us that we’d misjudged the situation.”

The story Lisa told is not of recent vintage, but it reflects some ongoing

issues with unconscious bias training. First, it remains highly reliant on being

delivered with empathy and skill–– variables that are hard to control for. Second,

the clear-the-air, let-it-all-hang-out group therapy model from which it often

draws is poorly suited for people who need to work together.

Knowing the random thoughts that run through our colleagues’ minds does

not necessarily serve us, or serve them. It is in fact more likely to divide us than to

bring us closer. So being clear about the “now what?”– the actions that need to

follow insights, the “aha moments”– is really key to building inclusive cultures. I

hope that more workplaces will include concrete practices and behaviors we can

take as a way forward and beyond bias.

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