Dangers of the Subconscious: Unlearning Biases - Interview By Kelly Reo

Hello, my friends, and welcome to another exciting episode of Negotiate Anything. This show is produced by the American Negotiation Institute, and with over 5 million downloads and listeners in over 180 countries, listeners just like you have made this the number one negotiation podcast in the world. Hi, my name is Kwame Christian, and I am the founder and CEO of the American Negotiation Institute. Here at AI, we believe that the best things in life are on the other side of difficult conversations. And we are passionate about providing you with the best content that will help you to make your difficult conversations easier, both at work and at home. Lastly, I want to remind you that we offer consulting and conduct trainings both virtually and in person all around the world. Our focus is in three main areas. First, negotiation and conflict resolution. Second, leadership. And lastly, diversity, equity, and inclusion. Check the link in the description below to learn more about how we could work with you and your team. And now, without further ado, let's jump into the interview. Kelly, thanks for joining us today.

Thanks so much for having me.

It is my pleasure. So how would you get us started? By telling us a little bit about yourself and what you do.

So I run the center for operational excellence at OSU's Fisher College of Business. We're an outreach organization at OSU. So while most of my colleagues are busy educating students, doing research, we are. We're looking outwards at industry. And so we engage with about 30 member companies in central Ohio, actually across Ohio, and we get them together for benchmarking and programming. We do lots of events, and it's all on the mission of problem solving and continuous improvement. So we learn from one another and compare notes. And the last 16 months has been an especially good time to compare notes and to learn from each other. And we've been able to have lots of. Of great events with speakers that have been really educational, and you were one of them. So that was fantastic. It was a highly rated event. And we ran over on questions. So that's. I think why we're here today is to continue the conversation.

Fantastic. Well, thank you. I appreciate you coming. And yes, we had a lot of engagement and there were a lot of leftover questions. And so I appreciate you being a good sport because I kind of put you on the spot in front of a few hundred people. I said, well, Kelly, you could come on the podcast and ask the remainder of the questions. How many people would like that? So that was, if you're wondering, the negotiation technique there, it's called peer pressure.

That was definitely, yes, you influenced me. Yes, I had no other Choice. But that note, good. I'm so glad you you said it. And in fact, I think you were being very generous and allowing us to continue the conversation because I think this will be really valuable for our audience too. So. Yeah, very highly rated event. I have to say. I think you broke the satisfaction record. We do a lot of events. We typically do about 15 events in person a but we switched to doing double or more than that in virtual events. You were one of them and were frankly the highest rated event and with tons of response rate. So it wasn't just like 10 people that responded, hey, this is awesome. It was just really widely well received. So thanks again.

No, I appreciate that. That made my day. I'm going to take this clip and share it with my family. Hey everybody. See, somebody listens to me. That's great. So how about we start off with just a little background of what that presentation was about and then some of the leftover questions. We could just flow straight into that.

Sure, sure, sure. Yeah. So you know, as I said, we do a lot of programming around problem solving and continuous improvement. And one of the things that our member companies have talked a lot about was implicit bias and how to kind of keep the conversation going over the, you know, with the social unrest that it occur last year and just all these things. They were making some great improvements in the DI space but wanted to make sure to keep that momentum going. And so we continue to put in programming with folks like yourself to provide leadership in that space. And so you came in and had, you know, did a great session on how to develop an understanding of how like our brain works and as it relates to connecting with people that have totally different backgrounds from us and really helped to demonstrate how this could influence decisions and interactions that we have and applying tools to prevent the negative impacts of our bias and then understanding how to create trust and deep connections with others. So it was a really great session and one of the biggest questions I think I'll just start off with is actually this wasn't a leftover question from the session, but it's one that I wanted to kind of kick off today because again, I said that the topic was very well received and it was a requested topic, but I see it more and more needed in organizations. But I guess for you and the work that you do, I want to start by asking why learning and talking about unconscious bias or our biases in general is important, especially in the workplace.

I think it comes down to one word and it's impact. These biases are going to have an impact on everything that we do. And one of my chief complaints with bias training is that, well, first of all, let's just say there's a bias against bias training. That's why we call the training dangers of the subconscious understanding your mind for maximum connection. Because nobody wants to go to a bias training. I do them and I don't want to go to them usually. Right. Because they're usually downers. They're usually downers. And one of my biggest complaints is that the trainings are so limited. So they focus on protected classes, so race, gender discrimination, those type of things. And those are important. But bias impacts everything, everything that we do. And so I, the more that I do research on it because my, yes, I'm a practicing lawyer, but my, my undergrad degree was in psychology. I cannot stop reading more and more psychology books.

And I'm the more that I combo for you. That's great.

Thank you. Yeah, and it's fun because you see it everywhere. And what I'm recognizing more and more often is that bias is almost the natural state of the brain. Because life would be incredibly overwhelming if we didn't have these biases to help us to think at a faster level. The problem is that these biases get in the way when we think that we're making deep, well reasoned decisions, when in fact it's more of an emotional decision. So thinking about, okay, which shoe do you put on first? You probably couldn't even articulate it with your verbally. But there is a bias that we all have in that regard because it makes our life easier. So I think when it comes to the interactions that we're having is that the bias is going to have an impact both the biases that we have and the biases that other people have. And if you can start to anticipate the impact that bias will have on the conversation, then you can create more effective strategies for circumventing some of those challenges that could possibly arise. That's the first thing. And then the second thing is we have to remember bias isn't all bad. There is not just all prejudices, but they're also preferences. And if you understand the psychology of bias, then you can try to trigger some positive biases to work in your favor to create connection with people, even if you might be demographically different from that person in front of you.

Gotcha. Yeah. So many benefits of reducing it or at least being aware of it. Right. And like you said, there's so much impact, whether it be kind of the little stuff or the Big stuff. So yeah, that's really important. And again, it was an important topic for us and a great session. I hope that companies continue to talk about it. Another then I guess follow up is what do or where do people get most hung up when it comes to unlearning their implicit bias? So they've learned this, you know what the impact is. They see the, you know what the impact can be, right where we just said there's benefits in reducing that and we get over the bias of bias training and we think through that and really look in the mirror. But how do we, I guess what are the most common pitfalls in unlearning those implicit biases?

I would say it's twofold. And let's start off with the one that most people would be familiar with. It's that recognizing your biases and doing something about it, it requires a lot of effort. It's effortful thinking. And so brilliant book by Daniel Kahneman, Nobel prize winning behavioral economist, wrote the book called Thinking Fast and Slow and he talks about system one versus system two processing. So system one processing is quick, automatic processing. That's what we would refer to as bias. We don't need to think about it, it just kind of happens automatically. System two processing, that's deeper level processing. So this is the rational, logical thinking that we appreciate as deep thought. And so we have to become aware that number one, we have biases and then number two, engage in effortful thinking to address those biases so they don't impact our decision making in a negative way. And so I tell my team, I was just talking to one of my team members today and she asked, so when should we try to get this project done? I was like, you know my answer to that. I said, I am biased towards immediacy and I will preference immediacy above all other things, everything else. And so I know that's my, my, my bias. And so it impacts my ability to create high level strategy because I'm so focused on saving a few days, a few weeks, something like that, but I might sacrifice quality in the process. Does your company invest in professional development training? If you believe that your team would benefit from a negotiation process workshop, all you need to do is go to our website, fill out the workshop request form and then we'll set up a time to chat. These workshops are completely customizable and we've done them all around the country. Negotiation and conflict resolution skills are beneficial across all professions, but they're especially useful in procurement, purchasing, sales, sourcing and contract management. Our Calendar is filling up quickly and we even have some workshops scheduled for next year if you think you might want one. I'd suggest reaching out soon so you don't miss out. Check out the link in the description to learn more. And we will be right back after this. So I know that about myself. So what I do is I say immediacy bias, slow it down. Okay. You know that, that helps me. So that's the first thing. It's tough. And so you have to generate new cognitive habits. I do not think I will ever be in a place where I can say I've gotten over my immediacy bias. That's just gone. I don't think you can debias somebody, but I think what you could do is recognize the bias and do something about it. And then the second thing that comes to mind as a challenge is the fact that once people go through bias trainings, there are studies. Well, first of all, the majority of studies out there say it doesn't help to reduce biases. Right. People don't like to talk about the reality of the meta. The. The meta analysis of all of the, the implicit bias studies. It's. It's not great, right?

Really?

Yeah. Oh, yes. It's not great.

The thing that you do doesn't work. I mean, that's, that's what the research says.

I will, I will put an asterisk, the traditional way in which it is done. Okay.

That's what I, That I understand.

Okay.

Yes. And so again, the reason why people don't like bias trainings is because you leave the training saying, okay, you're racist, I'm racist, the world is racist, and I'll talk to you later. Bye. What do I do? Right. And so, okay, so we can engage in effortful thinking and then also talk about building new cognitive habits. Majority of people won't go through the process of doing that because we think about good habits that we need to create in general across our lives, and we're not even good about instituting those habits, like eating better. Right. Creating habits, it's hard. And then the second thing is, and this is why it could be problematic, the way that it's typically done is that it makes people so focused on how we are different that it makes it more difficult for people to engage with other people. So it actually creates more hesitation when it comes to actually interacting with people who are different from you because you're thinking about all the ways that you can mess up, and it makes it more difficult to connect. And so when it comes to Cultural agility, cultural intelligence, those type of things. Things you need reps. You need reps actually interacting with people who are different. And so since this is creating a lot of fear and holding people back from engaging, that's what actually is more damaging. And so that's why you could tell with the way that I did it. I'm so focused on, okay, these are the ways in the way understand that work to overcome it. But these are also some positive biases that you can use and ways that you can use. You can use this knowledge in order to connect at a higher level. That's the distinction.

Yeah.

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That's interesting. So what I'm hearing is that, you know, kind of putting too much focus on it makes people nervous and everything like that. So that's the, you know, kind of, Well, I don't know, that's like a negative side of it that I had not considered. I mean, I guess that's why that whole bias towards, or you know, bias towards bias training. But what occurred to me when you, you know, answered the first part of your answer was where you, you know, you said this immediacy bias in your team and you know about it, right? You, you did the work and identified it, right? You, you've, you've really known that to be the case for yourself. And then you're, you're team sees it. And so that I feel like, I don't know, that scenario you painted, I think is a good one where, you know, because the question, getting back to the, to the question is unlearning those things and having people around you to say like, you know, hey, this member, you said you have this immediacy bias, you know what I mean? So I think we can kind of help one another, especially for those things that we've identified and said out loud to each other on a close knit team.

Absolutely. And I'll tell you one story too, about one of my mentors. He said it was a Supreme Court mentoring program. And he is, and I was new to the profession, and he's an older attorney in his 60s or so. So we were, we were paired up. And so in our first lunch, he said, all right, you're a young lawyer. My job is to teach you how to be a good lawyer. But there's something that you can teach me as well. And he said, and this was wild, but I appreciated it. He said, in my career, there have been times where people have accused me of being racist. And to this day, I don't know what I did to earn that. And so if, as I'm teaching you how to be a good lawyer, if you could teach me these nuances that I'm missing, that will be helpful. And so he essentially came out and said, I have this bias. I don't fully understand it, but if you can call me on it, that would be helpful. And I think if we can create these systems and organizations where we have a higher level of psychological safety, where we could just say, listen, I do have this bias. I miss these things. Help me out. Then we can help each other to make higher level decisions.

Yeah. Or here's the perception whether or not that's true. Yeah. And help me see maybe what I'm not seeing or what others are seeing that I didn't, that he might be doing completely unintentionally. Well, that's a good. Actually look kind of segue into. The next question is that, you know, in what ways can a person genuinely believe that racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, ableism is wrong? So, so people that are on the right side of that equation but still hold unconscious bias, I guess someone that is putting in the work and really has removed those biases or done what they can, what remains, how can they still kind of hold some bias there that would really impact them and others.

Yeah. And so it goes back to what I said at the beginning, Kelly, when I said, I think bias is the natural state of the mind, the brain. Think about it in terms of mental habits. You're, you're, you've been thinking in this way for a long period of time inadvertently. And also I think about, think about the brain almost like a, like an operating system that's constantly downloading information. But the difference is typically, unless you're getting a virus. Oh, maybe this is a mind virus. No, knock on viruses, you don't have a choice. Right. It's so it's like our brain is constantly bringing in this information, whether or not we want to bring it in. So here's an example. So for the listeners who might not know, you might not see me. You can't. You might not have seen my face, you might not hear it in my voice, but I am, in fact, black. Shocker, right? Unless you know many white Kwamis. So, and so I remember when I was at osu, my friend and I were walking. It was at night. We were going to the gym, and there was this. We were walking on the sidewalk, and there was a white couple walking towards us. And so they were so infatuated with each other that they did not see us for a long period of time. And so the. The. The male was standing closer to the street and they were holding hands. And so then when he was about 15ft away, he looked up and he saw us. And then he pulled his girlfriend's arm so hard across the street to get to the other side of that. My first thought wasn't even to be offended. My first thought was concern over her shoulder, health. That's how violently he pulled her over. And so that showed me, okay, there is a fear of black men here in the society. Now let's fast forward. This is where it gets really interesting because again, Ohio State's campus. Fast forward. Now. I'm in law school, and so I am walking home from the library late at night, super late at night. And so I'm walking to my car, and I see a group of young men who are black and Latino walking toward me. And my heart rate starts to elevate, and I start to feel adrenaline pumping through my body. And I say, wow, that bias is in me too. Why I'm consuming the exact same media everybody else is. I'm not immune to it. Even if I don't, on a conscious level believe this, it doesn't stop my brain from constantly downloading this data that's reinforcing this bias. So the people who, on a conscious level, recognize, no, this is wrong. I think better. I do. I need to do better. They're still susceptible to the same biases, right?

Jamie Foxx told a story one time that's really interesting. I won't tell the whole thing, but. But he. He said he got on a plane one time and looked in the cockpit and there was, I think it was a African American gentleman and then a woman, I think, and. Or in whatever case, it was not a white, you know, an older white male. And he said he got worried and he started and he wanted to like look in and like give, you know, are we okay? Like, did you really do the full training? Like he got, he said he was so mad at himself that he, you know, he's like, listen, I'm not, I'm the least racist. But like there's always just old white men in the cockpit. And then there wasn't. And I was like, what does that mean? Is this okay? So it is kind of interesting. Interesting that it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think again. And one of the things that helps me too, when I think about it, not just about my own biases, but other people's biases. Of course it always hurts when you are, when you recognize that bias or believe that bias played a role into, in whatever poor situation you find yourself in. But it also helps me to not take things personally in the moment because in order for me to think at a high level, I need to try as much as possible to manage my level of emotionality. Because as we know, the more the limbic system takes over, the more negative impact is going to. There's going to be on the prefrontal cortex that you need to use your executive functions, think at a high level, those type of things. So I am better able to control my emotions and I don't take things as personally when I just realize these are people doing people things. I know what's happening, but I also have the skills to circumvent that. So again, it helps you not just in terms of your own decision making processes, but it also helps you when it comes to trying to break through that bias in somebody else.

For sure. Yeah. A little benefit of the doubt goes a long way. And just kind of reflecting and thinking, like, have I ever had like a weird jerk reaction? It wasn't appropriate. Like I get. Yeah, that's great. So speaking of media, you said earlier there are a couple of questions here that we, that we had remaining from our session, again, that were about social media. You know, the impact on that, you know, will we look back? This person said 10 to 20 years or maybe in one year, maybe we don't even need to look back, but just see in some news outlets and their impact on implicit bias. And then also the virtual world that we're living in now, I guess. What's your view on how those really change biases?

So let me tell you this. I have this joke where I say if I were an alien coming to Earth and I wanted to destroy humanity, I just create another social media platform and just wait.

Yeah, it's a ticking time Bomb.

Yeah, but it's really significant. I mean, not just bias. We're seeing with the younger generation, they're experiencing higher levels of depression, anxiety, and other social disorders. And a lot of a big part of it, of course, you can't, you know, run an experiment to get causality, but the correlation to the growth in social media, that's what psychologists are latching onto as the example, as the reason for this higher level of, of negative psychological outcomes in the younger generations. So it's, it's certainly going to have an impact. If you think about the social dilemma, the book, the, the Netflix documentary that was very popular, it's the scariest movie out there. The only thing that is that it's real. That's the problem. And really what we're able to do with these algorithms is they're able to create an echo chamber to feed you what you want. And the more they feed you what you want, remember they said, I'm going to feed you what you want. I'm going to feed you the things that are going to keep you on the platform. I'm not going to feed you the things that are true, necessarily. And that's the problem because it's the eyeball economy. Companies are going to do whatever it takes to get as many eyeballs on their, their social media platform because they sell your attention to marketers. That's the way that it works. And so it's going to have a significant impact on the biases that we have. And then we also think about political biases. We're more political, we're more politically divided than ever before. Social media plays a big role in that. And so it's not just the, the fact that these gender stereotypes, racial stereotypes, those type of things are going to be constantly reinforced over and over through social media. It's also the fact that it's mobilizing tribalism as well. The psychology of tribalism, where it's in group out, group bias. Part of that psychology is not just birds of a feather flock together, whether it's ideologically or whatever. It's also the fact that we flock together against other people. And so then when people enter the workplace and it's like, hey, I'm seeing different birds here, it makes it really tough for us to connect with each other, too. Yeah. And so I think it's. I struggle to find many. I mean, I think that might be a bit too harsh, but there's a lot of bad that goes along with it. I don't know how to distinguish that, especially when we have in America such a. Put such a premium on free speech, and now we have a platform, these various platforms that give us more opportunities to proliferate our speech, regardless of its veracity and regardless of its impact on other people's psychology. I don't know how you pull that back. I don't know how you unring that bell. So it's going to be interesting to see, especially as the algorithms get stronger, too.

Yeah, this is a depressing conversation. Wow. Yeah, I mean, and I would agree, I think it's just getting worse. But is there a possibility, do you see maybe a way that these algorithms or these platforms in some way could make biases better, or is it really, truly, just kind of iteratively getting worse, or do you see that there is some possibility of it making biases better or impacting biases in a positive way?

Yes, if there is a way to monetize that positivity. Because when it comes down to it, there's. These are businesses, they're businesses. Businesses make money. You know, what you call a business that doesn't make money, you call that a hobby. That's a hobby. Right. And these companies are not in the hobby business. Right. And so if there's some kind of way to incentivize that type of behavior, then then for sure they'll do it because it's in their best financial interest. I'm just, I don't know how that happens. I don't know what changes. And the thing is too, with the social media platforms, they are weaponizing psychology. And so people will always say, I hate negative political advertisement. I hate the negativity in the news and all those things. You, on a conscious level, hate that your amygdala loves it. And so your amygdala is going to pull you to that, even though on a conscious level you say the opposite. You know, that's what makes it so challenging.

Interesting. Yeah. It's an addiction. Well, you said that there's, you know, you nailed it. I mean, we're just more divided than ever and it is likely, you know, in large part due to these social media platforms and others. I'll leave you then with this last question. It's a tough one. It's about the divide and it's about then biases within our friends and family. There were a couple of questions that people asked about this, about strategies. What advice do you have when you have friends and family that we've been separated from for a while now we're back together and there's some really extreme Biases and things that are really dividing people, I guess. What's your strategy there in bias and negotiation and all your life experience and research, what do you, you do with, with those friends and family?

Yeah, that's a tough one. That's a tough one. And let's, let's operate under a couple of assumptions here. So let's say we have somebody who has a belief that we deem to be problematic and our goal in the interaction is to try to unseat that belief, get them to change their hearts and minds about whatever it is on, on, on that that's at hand. Let's say that's what the goal is. So the folks who are, who are longtime listeners, they'd be familiar with the, the approach that we use, conversations here at ani, the compassionate Curiosity framework. So step one, acknowledge and validate the emotions. Step two, get curious with compassion. And step three, joint problem solving and cycle through that over and over and over again. Now here is the thing that makes it more difficult when it comes to these conversations about like race, gender politics, those type of things. Public health now is another one too. I tell you, Kelly, the more I think about the trainings that we do, like the negotiation trainings that are just about money, those are becoming more and more refreshing because they feel so easy.

Exactly.

Feels so easy. The psychology becomes a lot more complex when you add emotions in there. So book reference for people the Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt why good people differ on politics and religion. When it comes to things that relate to race, politics, religion or morality in any type of way, we're playing with the same types of psychological mechanisms. It's not just a belief that they happen to have, it's a very, very strongly held belief that's not always grounded in reality. And what I mean by that is that a lot of people, whether, whether it is like our how they see the world in terms of race, social justice, politics, religion, they are regurgitating things that they've heard other people say. So let's, let's give an example. Let's say there's a young college student who is very, very gung ho about saving the environment and talks very strongly about what needs to be done to change the environment. Who happens to be like a business major, they haven't done the research themselves, just people that they know and respect and the message resonates with them. And so it's more of an emotional belief than something they cognitively understand at a high level. Right. And so a lot of times when we run into These situations, on these really sensitive issues, our number one priority is to inundate them with information. Right. So we're going to hit them with as many facts to show them that they're wrong. And most people are having, these are asking me questions like this because they're like, I'm finding that the people around me seem to be impervious to facts. I don't know what to do. So that's, that's a situation of confirmation bias. Right. I'm going to believe what I believe regardless of what you say. And even if you provide me with information, I'm still going to believe you. And the thing is, we live in the information age, not the wisdom age. We have more information than ever before, but that doesn't mean that we understand it at a higher level. And so with Google, all beliefs are possible. So I can come up with evidence and counter and points and then you have an endless repository of people who believe whatever, and you can find something else to counteract that. So these, this information game that we're playing is a losing game, a game that will just end in frustration. That's it.

Yeah. So don't inundate them with facts that they're not going to absorb.

Absolutely not. Right. Absolutely not. The next thing we have to do is we have to recognize that their belief is more emotional than data driven. And so if somebody, somebody doesn't believe that you understand where they're coming from, they're not going to be willing to even consider what you say before, rather like before we even get to the point of them considering your point, like the merits of your case, they're not even going to listen at all if they don't feel as though you're listening. Right. And so what we have to do is not, we have to treat the facts that they say as essentially emotional statements more so than facts and acknowledge them. Exactly. You have to acknowledge it. You have to acknowledge, acknowledge it. So it sounds like you feel really strongly about this. It seems as though public health is really important to you. It seems as though making sure that people are treated fairly is important to you. Yeah. Good. Tell me more about that. I want to listen, I want to hear. Right. And so I think about it almost like the, the Human Genome Project, you remember when we coded the entire genetic code. I want to figure out what is their persuasive code, what is it that got them to this point? Point, how do, like, what is the genetic makeup of this belief? Because once you get that understanding now, it puts you in a position to potentially replace parts of that code with something else in a way that changes the underlying belief. And so I think really the. What you have to recognize is that when you're changing somebody's perspective on a strongly held belief, it is going to take a lot of time. It won't just take one. One conversation, you know, and it's going to take a lot of patience. And so the question you have to ask yourself is return on investment. Is it worth your time? And if it's somebody who's really, really close to you, it might be. And you just have to be willing to be patient because if you blow up one time or belittle their beliefs one time. Now you've just added, let's say, three to five more conversations.

Right. Makes it harder to come back from that. Yeah, exactly. Well, and I think, you know, if you don't talk about it and address it, maybe those divides get bigger. So, yeah, I guess it is the evaluation of that relationship and the importance of it and what to invest.

Kelly, I really appreciate you coming on the show. This was fun. This is a nice change of pace. Thanks.

I'm glad. Yes. I'm glad we got to turn the tables and I got to interview you more so than you interviewing your guest. And I appreciate you putting me on the spot and offering this. It was a great, I think, value add for my audience and hopefully yours. And I know we can continue the conversation.

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