As mentioned in a post earlier this week. We all have implicit biases. These are unconscious preferences we hold that affect our judgment or behaviors as we go through life. They’re not intentional and if explicitly discussed, we would often deny and fully believe we don’t have those biases.

Some examples include:

• Feeling more favorably about individuals who have a similar past or lived experiences to those we’ve had;
• Feeling more favorably about individuals who are in a certain age group;
• Feeling more favorably to a situation because it aligns with what we expected to occur;
• Feeling more favorably about an individual because of a feature of their physical appearance;
• Feeling more favorably about a situation because we’ve heard details repeated so frequently or very recently;
• Feeling more favorably about a person or situation because of the involvement of an authority figure.

Again, this is a small list of possible examples and for each of these listed as “favorable” feelings, the opposite is also true. We can have unfavorable feelings about situations or individuals that impact our decision-making and actions.

How can we mitigate the impact of these unconscious or implicit biases? It’s important to note that this is not a one-and-done activity to be completed. This work requires an ongoing commitment and both Individuals and leaders must first have the awareness that we do all have implicit biases and that’s completely normal. There’s no shame in it.

Once we have that awareness, there are a number of ways we can intentionally reduce the impact of those biases on our decisions, actions, and those around us:

• Educating ourselves and if we’re leaders, our staff, about the existence and consequences of our individual implicit biases, including fostering a culture of understanding and sensitivity;
• Ongoing learning or training programs for individuals and leaders to help ourselves recognize and confront those implicit biases, including specific strategies for mitigating their influence;
• Setting clear criteria for decision-making, including using data and ensuring multiple perspectives are considered;
• Ensuring clear criteria to evaluate actions and decisions, including identifying where implicit bias may have played a role in the outcome, encouraging a commitment to objectivity and fairness, and where appropriate holding ourselves and others accountable for actions or decisions that didn’t meet the criteria specified, as appropriate updating the criteria;
• Ensuring diversity of those involved in decision-making, in the business world, this is especially crucial in the hiring or promotion of staff. This requires having fair hiring practices, conducting blind resume review, ensuring diverse interview panels, and implementing policies that support opportunities for underrepresented groups;
• Encouraging collaboration and empathy, for example creating an environment where individuals can safely challenge a statement or action, offer alternative perspectives, promote an open dialog, and create opportunities for individuals from different backgrounds to share their experiences;
• Regularly engaging in self-reflection and asking for feedback from colleagues, team members, and others with whom we interact. This ongoing learning allows us to continue understanding our implicit biases and reduce their impact on our actions and decision-making.

As mentioned in the earlier post, one great resource for this work is the Harvard Implicit Association Test (IAT)  https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html. Have you completed one or more of these tests? Were you surprised by the results?  Please comment with what you’ve experienced in relation to uncovering your own implicit biases and I’ll do the same.

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Artwork by Tobias Tullius