#50 Seeing and Addressing Your Unconscious Biases

You're listening to the Proteus Leader Show with Erika Andersen, where you'll get practical tools and insights for leading, managing, and staying ready for the future. Erika is the founding partner of Proteus, a firm that focuses uniquely on leader readiness. A nationally known executive coach and bestselling author, you may already know her as one of the most popular leadership bloggers on Forbes.com. Ready for something you can use today? Here's Erika.

Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Proteus Leader Show. My guest today is Yasmin Abdel-Magied, a Sudanese-Australian writer, engineer, and award-winning social advocate. Yasmin founded her first organization at 16 and published her first book at 24. Since then, she has co-founded 2 other organizations and now shares her learnings through keynotes and workshops. Yasmeen has spoken in over 20 countries on unconscious bias and inclusive leadership. Her TED Talk, What Does My Headscarf Mean to You, has been viewed over 2 million times. Welcome to the show, Yasmeen.

Thank you, Erika. Thanks for having me.

Oh, I'm so glad to have you here. We, we first met last fall when my partners and I invited you to speak our team at our annual meeting about unconscious bias, and I thought your insights and your experience, your personal experience on this important subject, would be really valuable for all our listeners. So let's explore. So my first question is, how can people become more aware of their unconscious biases and the negative impacts of those biases?

One of the things that I think is really interesting about unconscious bias, or bias kind of generally, is that we all believe it exists in the world, but we believe that other people haven't, right? We're all like, well, like, everybody else has biases, but we're the real— like, I personally am very, very objective, you know? And I mean, like, I think we all— like, it's actually— there's studies that show the more objective that you think you are, the more likely you are to have blind spots and biases that impact. Yeah, yeah. It's because you think you make quote unquote good and unbiased decisions, it means that you're less likely to interrogate the decision-making process and the way that you think about the world.

Oh yeah, you're just, you're more likely to just assume and then you don't really look at yourself to see if that's true.

You're not reflecting at all.

Yeah, yeah.

So I often say that the first step is to have that conversation with yourself and allow yourself the space to think, okay, but what if, maybe, let me just hypothesize. If I was biased in a particular way, or if I potentially did have gender bias or bias against people from different ethnic backgrounds or bias around disabilities, if I did potentially have that bias, what impact could that be having, right?

Oh, that's fantastic.

Yeah. Yeah. Once we start with that kind of compassionate and curious attitude, kind of a gentle probing almost, then we allow ourselves the opportunity to question and to interrogate the way that we go through the world and the way in which we make decisions and so on.

Yeah.

Because there are so many different types of biases, right? You know, you can look them up. There are over 150 types of official cognitive bias. But ultimately, I think, It's about starting with the understanding that our brains naturally create cognitive biases because there's too much information. We get 11 million pieces of information at any one point, and we can only process about 40 at a time. So we get too much information. The question is, are the shortcuts serving us and serving our communities and serving the values that we believe that we have, or are they actually working against us and perhaps not actually in line with the values?

Wow, I love that. And I particularly loved your use of the word hypotheses because that's how in, you know, to move from conclusion to hypothesis. So I'm not biased, am I biased?

Right, right.

And just that mindset.

Just opening the space, yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think it can be jarring. Like I remember a conversation that I had with a friend. I mean, I've been doing this kind of work for 5+ years now. And I had a conversation, I was having a conversation with somebody that I was writing a script with. And I made a comment and my friend, she's lesbian and she's a sort of queer activist and so on. And I made a comment which she kind of, she was a bit iffy about. And then later on she came to me and she said, hey, I just wanted to like let you know that that was like, quite a homophobic comment. And I was like, oh, like immediately my defenses go up because I'm like, she was like, you were homophobic. And there is nothing that makes somebody arc up like being told that they are something that they don't think that they are, right?

Yes.

And all of my defenses went up. But then I had to, I remember I had to like go through this. I was like, okay, like, thank you. Just like, Let me just have some space so that I can process. And going away and thinking, I'm like, I'm not homophobic. How could I possibly have, you know, just my mind went down this rabbit hole. And then I was like, okay, wait, let me just try to flip that. What if it was? What if actually what I said fit within a trope that I didn't even know existed?

Yeah.

Because I'm not part of that community. Well, if that were true, then this would have had a terrible impact on my friend. And then just by giving myself that space and trying to do it without self-judgment, like in any kind of self-improvement exercise, then you're less likely to be defensive and you're more likely to allow yourself to grow.

Yeah. And I— so you're— I love all that. And the last thing you said about that could have a huge negative impact on my friend. Let's talk about that a little bit, how it's— you know, becoming aware of your unconscious biases, I think, is one thing, but then maybe it's easy for people to say, well, so what? That's not a big deal. How do you become more aware of the negative impacts?

Oh yes, great question. And I think, again, this is something that at the core of it, it's about us realizing that our personal experience is just that, just our personal anecdotal experience. that just because we might not be hurt by something, or just because we haven't had a particular type of experience, that doesn't mean we now understand everybody else's.

Right. Right?

And so if we stop— because often what people will say was, well, I wasn't offended by that, so how could you possibly be offended? Or, I wouldn't feel discriminated against working in an environment that only had white men, so why do you feel like there's discrimination? Like, that's impossible. And it's very important not to take our individual perspective and then create an imaginary system and structure out of it, right? Yeah. Understand that it is your individual perspective alone. And then I think linking these small biases to broader structural, systemic, and institutional discrimination or inequality, I think is helpful because it allows us to see—

Yes.

Right. Like, if we think about a system or a structure, let's start with an institution. An institution or institutional inequalities looks at all the rules and the policies and so on that prefer one group over another, whether explicitly or implicitly, right, within an institution. And then if you have lots of different institutions that have similar policies and rules and so on that discriminate implicitly or explicitly. Then you've got a structure and then that creates a system, right? And that system then has a history and so on and so on. It's got momentum.

Yeah.

If you take, if you're thinking, well, institutions and systems and structures, what do I as an individual have anything to do with this? All of this sits at the top and then, you know, and I'm never a big fan of trickle-down economics, but these things trickle down to then create all the small moments of bias and what some people call the microaggressions, some people call— like, there are lots of different names for the small ways in which all of us collectively reinforce these norms and these policies and these rules.

They arise out of the systemic level.

Right. And so if we are existing in a society that we all kind of agree has a system and a structure that, say for example, is patriarchal, so benefits men over women, or men over other genders, and a particular type of man over other genders, then in order for that to continue and to be sustainable, all of us need to be participating in that. And all of us need to be reinforcing that. Like, our actions are either reinforcing the system or it's challenging the system.

Yeah.

Right? So I've kind of gone a little bit theoretical. So if it's—

No, no, no, it's really good because I think it leads right into my next question, which was, okay, so let's say that individuals are beginning to start to surface and see and see the impacts of their biases. What can organizations and individual leaders do to support people in these efforts? Because a lot of our listeners are leaders, and I think they want to support support this momentum. So what can leaders do?

The first thing I would say is ask yourself, am I, through my actions, reinforcing the status quo? And is the status quo one that I'm happy with? Or am I challenging it? Right? Like, our actions are not neutral. Our actions are not neutral. They are either reinforcing the status quo or somehow challenging it. And if you might be saying, well, I really want to You know, I really want to promote this one particular person, and if I promote him, he is going to reinforce all the status quo, but I really want him for the job. Okay, let me ask you this. Is there something that you can add to that? Or, you know, is it a case of you're going to give this one particular person a job, who is going to— a promotion, who's going to be filling their spot? Can you use that opportunity as a way to challenge the status quo perhaps? And so on.

Mm-hmm.

Be creative in the ways that you consider your actions. So often have that in the back of your mind. Am I reinforcing the status quo or am I challenging it? The other thing is think about power because all of this stuff is about power. It's about where power lies, who it lies with, how institutions hold onto power. And so when you're thinking about, well, how do I change or say I want to have more diversity in my company? I would say, don't start with the branding. Start with who are the actual, you know, people of color and women of color and so on, or people with disabilities and so on in the company, and how do I actually help them succeed within the company?

Mm-hmm.

Because often we're focused on bringing people in, and the reality is, say, for example, my experience in engineering, most women, and especially women of color, leave engineering after 5 years. Right?

Yeah.

Because they're not supported enough. Everyone's obsessed with getting us into the industry, but they're not obsessed with keeping us there, or they're not obsessed with giving us promotions and so on. So, how are you actually serving the people who have been historically excluded already within your organization? And ask them and listen to them when they say, this is the problem. We're not able to get our first managerial position because we keep getting stymied at the promotions level. Or, you know, The bonuses seem to be based on who the managers like as opposed to what our actual— start to actually look at who's in your company already and support them rather than trying to roll out a shiny diversity initiative. Because interestingly, sometimes if you brand as diverse and as inclusive, but you not actually are, that has a more harmful impact.

Yes. Yes. Yeah.

Right?

Reducing your credibility and making people— people hate that. We always talk about brand is the promise of an experience. But if you're promising an experience that you can't deliver on, that just completely destroys your credibility.

With everybody. It doesn't work for anybody. So rather than focusing on the aesthetic, really try to kind of do— think of it as like any other kind of business focus. You have to go through the strategic thinking and what you're already strong in and what you're weak in and how you actually want to get to the outcome that you want.

You know, it's interesting, I was— my last question was going to be, once you start to become unaware— start to become aware of your biases, what's the next step? But I feel like the things you're saying about leaders are true for anyone. That is that same thing. Just model it, see how your words line up with your actions, and look for ways to, to actually shift what happens around you. And I think anyone in an organization can do that, right?

Oh, 100%. And I think it's important, actually, that we don't just abdicate all the responsibilities to leaders. Leaders have extra responsibility because they have power. But there's just as much value in, you know, folks who come in at the basic graduate level to model this kind of behavior and say, this is the way we want to do things, and this is the kind of culture that we want to be a part of, and so on.

Yeah.

And I often think of it as like, It's a muscle that you have to exercise, right? Just because you did it for 3 years, it doesn't mean that that 3 years of fitness is going to keep you going for your whole life.

Yes, well then let me ask a very specific question about exercising that muscle, and I think this is something people come up to all the time. So let's say just I'm a human being, I'm working in an organization, and I'm in a meeting or with other people, and I see someone do something that promotes some kind of a bias and I'm pretty sure they're not aware of it. What would you suggest? What's the best way, the most effective way, the most loving and effective way to kind of bring that to that person's attention?

The most important thing to remember is to not humiliate the person in that context, right? Like stopping the meeting and saying, hey, hey, hey, you've just Terrible idea. What I would suggest is after the meeting's over, taking that person aside and, you know, in the way that we all learn to give good feedback, you know, we start with, I know you have really good intentions and I know you really care about, you know, women in managerial roles, for example. I actually noticed, and be very specific about the behavior that you noticed.

Yes, yes, yes.

Be specific. I noticed that you kept jumping in when Khadijah was talking and I think, you know, I know you have really good intentions, but I think actually that's a way that maybe, like, do you know why you maybe did that? Or did you notice that you do that? Or I just wanted to raise it because it might, you know, stuff like that tends to be a way that we reduce women's participation in meetings and so on. And I know that's not what you want to do. So I just wanted to bring that to your attention so that you don't do that in the future.

Oh, I love that. So be very, and this is what we say about giving feedback too, be very specific and then get them curious. I loved how you said, did you notice when that happened? Or how do you think that might have made her feel? And then talk in a hopeful kind of supportive way about the possible consequences. I think it might have had this impact, or it might have made her feel this. Oh, that's great. I love that. That's so helpful.

And the thing is, right, if we start with the assumption that people want to be better and we approach it with compassion and kindness, I think people do. Generally, the folks I'm speaking to want to improve. It's not like I'm convincing folks who are not interested at all in any sort of, you know—

Right.

So I think when you're in that position, it's okay to spend a little bit of time doing that education because sometimes we do need to know. Sometimes we really are unaware. Once you've had that conversation 10 times and the person still doesn't change their behavior, Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But generally assuming positive intent, I love that. Oh, Yasmeen, I— we could clearly talk about this for another 10 hours, but I always promise my listeners it's going to be short and sweet. So, and I think this is going to be so helpful to our listeners who I know want to create a more equitable, forward-looking world around them. So, so listeners, if you're interested in finding out more or having Yasmeen speak with your group, Just go to her website at yasminam.com or to her new newsletter at yasmin.substack.com. And to find out more about managing your own internal monologue, which is a key part of seeing and shifting your unconscious biases, you can go to proteusleader.com, click on topics, and choose self-talk. So thank you so much, Yasmin.

Thank you for having me, Erika.

And thank you all for listening. And until next time, here's to creating the life you truly want.

We hope you're feeling better equipped to create the career, the business, and the life you want. For more insights and tools for leadership and management, join us at proudestleader.com. Have an excellent day. And thanks for listening.