Latest / Speaking of Meaning / Everyday Bias at Work: Gut Feeling, Hiring & Fairer Decisions with Howard J. Ross

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Everyday Bias at Work: Gut Feeling, Hiring & Fairer Decisions with Howard J. Ross · Speaking of Meaning

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
0:02
SPEAKER_00: Welcome to Speaking of Meaning,
0:04
SPEAKER_00: the podcast that helps you become a stronger communicator,
0:08
SPEAKER_00: build deeper relationships, and create impact that matters.
0:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Ibrahim, and I am a professional speaker, soccer referee, and leader.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: I love helping other people, and I also love to learn new things.
0:24
SPEAKER_00: This podcast is about better communication,
0:26
SPEAKER_00: greater impact, at work, in your home, and in the world out there.
0:32
SPEAKER_00: Let's dive in.
0:33
SPEAKER_00: Enjoy the show.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Speaking of Meaning.
0:46
SPEAKER_00: Today I am joined again by my friend and brother, Howard J. Ross.
0:52
SPEAKER_00: Howard, welcome back to the show.
0:54
SPEAKER_01: Ibrahim, it's always good to see you.
0:56
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for having me again.
0:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh, you're so welcome, Howard.
1:00
SPEAKER_00: I...
1:01
SPEAKER_00: I remember our last conversation,
1:03
SPEAKER_00: I think it was December last year, we talked broadly about bias.
1:10
SPEAKER_00: And I know that you've spent decades teaching about everyday bias,
1:17
SPEAKER_00: helping organizations deal with bias, create better cultures, more inclusion.
1:23
SPEAKER_00: What do you think you have learned during these 30, 40 years you've been working in this field?
1:32
SPEAKER_01: It's interesting,
1:33
SPEAKER_01: Ibrahim,
1:34
SPEAKER_01: because it's always evolving,
1:36
SPEAKER_01: of course,
1:38
SPEAKER_01: but I think the most fundamental thing and the thing that was the most impactful
1:42
SPEAKER_01: for me, and I think it's the most impactful often when I'm teaching it with people.
1:46
SPEAKER_01: Is how normal bias is.
1:48
SPEAKER_01: I think that most of us have been taught either through our experience,
1:54
SPEAKER_01: but more by sort of the way it's been handled in society and in businesses,
1:59
SPEAKER_01: organizations, that bias is a bad thing.
2:02
SPEAKER_01: And therefore, people who have bias are bad people.
2:06
SPEAKER_01: And so we've created,
2:07
SPEAKER_01: in a lot of cases, these sort of find them and fix them strategies, if you will.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: Who's the racist?
2:12
SPEAKER_01: Who's the sexist?
2:13
SPEAKER_01: Who's the homophobe?
2:13
SPEAKER_01: Who's the person who hates white people?
2:17
SPEAKER_01: It's like, so we can fix them.
2:19
SPEAKER_01: And among many other things,
2:23
SPEAKER_01: one major problem with that is that it's wholly inaccurate in terms of understanding
2:27
SPEAKER_01: the way the brain works.
2:29
SPEAKER_01: Because what we know now from years and years of research is that bias is as normal
2:34
SPEAKER_01: to human beings as breathing.
2:36
SPEAKER_01: That in fact, we could not function without it.
2:38
SPEAKER_01: Because the fundamental tool,
2:40
SPEAKER_01: the way bias works as a fundamental tool for us, is it's a learning tool.
2:45
SPEAKER_01: We see something,
2:46
SPEAKER_01: let's say you meet me,
2:49
SPEAKER_01: I'm this tall white,
2:51
SPEAKER_01: obviously people don't know I'm almost six foot five,
2:53
SPEAKER_01: tall white guy, gray balding, gray hair, I'm wearing a blue shirt, right?
2:58
SPEAKER_01: And let's say that we meet for the first time and you say hello to me
3:02
SPEAKER_01: and I smack you across the face, knock you down and leave.
3:06
SPEAKER_01: And I'm the only person who looked that way or one of the few people who's looked
3:09
SPEAKER_01: that way in your life.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: And then a month later,
3:12
SPEAKER_01: you see somebody walking your way who's six foot five,
3:15
SPEAKER_01: tall, balding, white haired guy with hair and blue shirt.
3:19
SPEAKER_01: And inside of your internal system, danger, danger.
3:25
SPEAKER_01: Because the system has learned that that can hurt us.
3:27
SPEAKER_01: Just like if you go up to a hot stove and you get burned,
3:29
SPEAKER_01: the next time you're very tentative touchy to make sure that it's not hot again.
3:35
SPEAKER_01: We know that this happens with people,
3:37
SPEAKER_01: obviously, but of course it happens with everything else, too.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: It happens with, you know, what color do we like?
3:43
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know, where do we want to live?
3:45
SPEAKER_01: What kind of house do we want?
3:46
SPEAKER_01: What kind of car do we want to drive in?
3:47
SPEAKER_01: All of this is managed by various different things that we've learned over the years.
3:52
SPEAKER_01: At a very simple level, we step out into the street.
3:54
SPEAKER_01: That big heavy metal object with wheels that's coming our way,
3:57
SPEAKER_01: we don't have to relearn every time not to stand in front of it, right?
4:00
SPEAKER_01: We learn to get out of the way when cars are coming.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: So the system uses this to learn.
4:06
SPEAKER_01: That's an incredibly important and effective tool for us to survive in the world.
4:10
SPEAKER_01: The shadow side of that is that,
4:12
SPEAKER_01: as my dear friend Supinder Obi,
4:14
SPEAKER_01: who's a brain scientist at McMaster University in Canada,
4:18
SPEAKER_01: says, our brains have been created to be almost right Most of the time.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: Almost, almost.
4:28
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's guessing.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: The brains are guessing.
4:30
SPEAKER_01: They're saying,
4:31
SPEAKER_01: this looks like that,
4:33
SPEAKER_01: therefore, I'm going to assume that it's going to act like that.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is where it becomes problematic,
4:39
SPEAKER_01: because if,
4:39
SPEAKER_01: for example,
4:41
SPEAKER_01: I see Muslim people depicted as terrorists,
4:46
SPEAKER_01: even though you and I both know that's an infinitesimally small percentage of
4:49
SPEAKER_01: the Muslims in the world,
4:51
SPEAKER_01: infinitesimally small, You know, .0000001% kind of a thing.
4:58
SPEAKER_01: If I am rooted enough in hearing that message,
5:03
SPEAKER_01: Muslims are bad,
5:03
SPEAKER_01: Muslims are dangerous,
5:04
SPEAKER_01: Muslims are terrorists,
5:06
SPEAKER_01: when I see a Muslim coming to me,
5:08
SPEAKER_01: It's not surprising that I would say I'm not so sure.
5:11
SPEAKER_01: You know, I can tell you a very funny story about this.
5:15
SPEAKER_01: Actually, it's a story that Sukhvinder told me.
5:17
SPEAKER_01: He's a Sikh and his brother, who's also a Sikh and turbaned, you know, so he's wearing a turban.
5:24
SPEAKER_01: And shortly after 9-11,
5:25
SPEAKER_01: he told me that his brother or his uncle,
5:28
SPEAKER_01: I forget, but anyway, he was an older Sikh man with a turban.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: And he says he was at an airport sitting at a gate station,
5:35
SPEAKER_01: at a gate waiting to board the plane.
5:37
SPEAKER_01: And this man comes in to the area wearing Muslim garb, you know, kippah and a robe.
5:50
SPEAKER_01: And he said he really noticed all of a sudden he couldn't keep his eyes off this guy.
5:55
SPEAKER_01: He was following him everywhere.
5:56
SPEAKER_01: And then he said, but then he looked up and saw that everybody else was following me.
6:01
SPEAKER_01: Everybody else was looking at me.
6:02
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's a helpful tool.
6:05
SPEAKER_01: It's an essential tool.
6:07
SPEAKER_01: We can't live without it.
6:08
SPEAKER_01: And it also is rife with the possibility for mistakes
6:11
SPEAKER_01: that can sometimes be very tragic as when we see a police officer shoot
6:16
SPEAKER_01: an unarmed African-American man because he thinks he might have a gun.
6:21
SPEAKER_00: That split second decision can turn deadly as well.
6:27
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: And just to riff off that a little bit, you wanted to talk about workplace.
6:32
SPEAKER_01: So let's talk for a moment about how that works in a workplace.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: We used to have a lot of interns at my company, but I used to have a big company.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: And let's say the first intern who comes in is mediocre.
6:49
SPEAKER_01: Somebody says to me, you want to get another intern next summer?
6:51
SPEAKER_01: It's like, I'm not sure.
6:52
SPEAKER_01: It's probably not worth the trouble.
6:54
SPEAKER_01: On the other hand,
6:55
SPEAKER_01: what happened with us, Is that the first interns we came in were extraordinary.
7:00
SPEAKER_01: And we were really blessed because we had a friend who was a professor at University
7:04
SPEAKER_01: of Vermont and, not University, Middlebury College in Vermont, excuse me.
7:09
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, had all these top students and she was just funneled them to it.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: So we would get these brilliant, brilliant young students.
7:15
SPEAKER_01: You know,
7:15
SPEAKER_01: I remember Dan Eagle and Anna Mack and Muquamud Katari and all these people
7:21
SPEAKER_01: who were just amazing.
7:22
SPEAKER_01: In fact, most of them ended up staying at the full-time job.
7:24
SPEAKER_01: So for me,
7:25
SPEAKER_01: The other side of that is when somebody says intern,
7:28
SPEAKER_01: I say, tell me about them because they've made such a contribution.
7:31
SPEAKER_01: So we can see how in business this plays out, you know, just like it does in other ways.
7:39
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
7:40
SPEAKER_00: And you talk about this in your book.
7:42
SPEAKER_00: It's called, I know a new version is coming out.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: You're writing a book with your son.
7:48
SPEAKER_01: Shameless plug.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
7:50
SPEAKER_00: That's the second edition, Everyday Bias.
7:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, this is the new one, yeah.
7:54
SPEAKER_01: This will be out September 3rd, 2026, yeah.
7:57
SPEAKER_01: I'm
7:58
SPEAKER_00: looking forward to it.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: I know in your book you talk about bias at work.
8:05
SPEAKER_00: Yes, very much so.
8:09
SPEAKER_00: What does everyday bias actually look like at work?
8:15
SPEAKER_01: Well, first of all,
8:15
SPEAKER_01: let me talk about the title,
8:16
SPEAKER_01: because I think it's important to understand it wasn't random
8:18
SPEAKER_01: that we chose Everyday Bias as a title.
8:22
SPEAKER_01: It gets back to what I was talking about earlier.
8:24
SPEAKER_01: I really wanted to communicate from the very beginning,
8:28
SPEAKER_01: and Jake and I at this point too,
8:29
SPEAKER_01: my son Jake,
8:30
SPEAKER_01: who's co-written this with me,
8:31
SPEAKER_01: this now edition with me,
8:34
SPEAKER_01: That normalcy that I talked about,
8:35
SPEAKER_01: to get away from this notion that bias was an aberrant behavior.
8:38
SPEAKER_01: Now, certainly there are tons of bias that are aberrant,
8:41
SPEAKER_01: extreme, extreme cases of bias are aberrant, thank gosh.
8:46
SPEAKER_01: But what I mean is that it's on an everyday basis.
8:51
SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it's normal for people to say, well, I like this person better than that person.
8:57
SPEAKER_01: I like their personality better, even though that has nothing to do with their work quality.
9:01
SPEAKER_01: But because I like their personality better, I tend to associate more work qualities with them.
9:10
SPEAKER_01: Or if I don't like them, I dismiss their work qualities.
9:13
SPEAKER_01: In fact,
9:13
SPEAKER_01: I could tell you another,
9:14
SPEAKER_01: you know me,
9:15
SPEAKER_01: Ibrahim, you know I'm a storyteller, I'm a researcher and a storyteller.
9:19
SPEAKER_01: But another great example of this,
9:20
SPEAKER_01: I was working with a large law firm,
9:22
SPEAKER_01: this is many years ago now,
9:23
SPEAKER_01: New York City law firm, and they had a young first year associate.
9:30
SPEAKER_01: Who had joined the firm just out of college.
9:33
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe it was, I guess, third year because he did his two colleges.
9:36
SPEAKER_01: But he came in full time in that August or September at the beginning of the year
9:42
SPEAKER_01: and was just like nothing they'd ever seen before.
9:45
SPEAKER_01: The smartest young talent they'd ever had.
9:47
SPEAKER_01: He was producing at a level way beyond the fact that he was just so new out of college.
9:52
SPEAKER_01: He was out of a good school.
9:53
SPEAKER_01: They knew he was smart.
9:54
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, we wouldn't have hired him.
9:55
SPEAKER_01: And then so for about the first six months, he's like knocking it out of the park.
9:59
SPEAKER_01: He's like he's just everything is just like like this.
10:02
SPEAKER_01: Right.
10:03
SPEAKER_01: And then in the spring of that year,
10:05
SPEAKER_01: they had a golf outing out in Westchester County,
10:09
SPEAKER_01: outside of New York City, where all the partners came and they played golf.
10:14
SPEAKER_01: And this young man goes out, he plays golf, and he's a horrible golfer, just terrible.
10:19
SPEAKER_01: He barely had played before, but he wanted to get out and do it.
10:22
SPEAKER_01: So much so that when he came back,
10:27
SPEAKER_01: all of a sudden, people are asking him to get on fewer and fewer assignments.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:33
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:34
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:56
SPEAKER_01: Having the experience of him being a bad golfer then has shifted into bias
11:01
SPEAKER_01: about him being a bad lawyer, even though the two things are not at all associated.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: And this speaks to the fundamental irrationality of the human mind.
11:09
SPEAKER_01: What we've learned in the research is that human beings are not rational, we're rationalizing.
11:16
SPEAKER_01: You know,
11:17
SPEAKER_01: we gather whatever evidence we need and we make up whatever interpretation we need
11:22
SPEAKER_01: in order to justify that which we already believe.
11:25
SPEAKER_01: We think that we're scientists out there gathering information
11:28
SPEAKER_01: to determine our points of view,
11:30
SPEAKER_01: but we're much more like lawyers building our case,
11:33
SPEAKER_01: cherry picking the information that confirms what we already want to say.
11:37
SPEAKER_01: And obviously that could occur at any time in an organization when human beings are interacting.
11:43
SPEAKER_00: This is the quote that I use.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: We're not rational, we're rationalizing.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: And for me,
11:49
SPEAKER_00: it basically means we make decisions on emotions and then we justify that
11:53
SPEAKER_00: with logic.
11:54
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
11:55
SPEAKER_01: Somebody said to me that when you leave this earth,
11:59
SPEAKER_01: that one quote is going to be what you remember you for.
12:05
SPEAKER_00: That's the quote I use when I give my talks on
12:09
SPEAKER_01: diversity and inclusion as well.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: Howard, let's start with hiring now, the hiring process.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: How much do you think, or number one, what is gut feeling?
12:23
SPEAKER_00: And number two, how much do you think gut feeling influences decision making in hiring?
12:32
SPEAKER_01: Um, I think it, um, well, what is gut feeling?
12:35
SPEAKER_01: Gut feeling is just basically an intuitive,
12:38
SPEAKER_01: an intuitive reaction that we have to something or someone.
12:41
SPEAKER_01: It's just, uh,
12:42
SPEAKER_01: you know,
12:43
SPEAKER_01: it's, it's a little bit like a, um, um, like a jukebox, you know, music jukebox.
12:49
SPEAKER_01: You, you press B4 and then that song begins to play.
12:52
SPEAKER_01: You know,
12:52
SPEAKER_01: I see something and that feeling emerges now for some of us,
12:57
SPEAKER_01: um, You know, our gut feeling about things are pretty refined.
13:02
SPEAKER_01: You know,
13:03
SPEAKER_01: if we're,
13:04
SPEAKER_01: let's say, really, really,
13:06
SPEAKER_01: really expert in a certain field,
13:09
SPEAKER_01: and we have a deep understanding about the way different people relate to that field
13:13
SPEAKER_01: and what they do,
13:14
SPEAKER_01: then we will probably develop a pretty sophisticated ability,
13:17
SPEAKER_01: because we have different distinctions that we're looking for,
13:19
SPEAKER_01: sophisticated ability to look at This thing and see more than another person.
13:25
SPEAKER_01: Again, another example.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: I'm a musician and my wife, Leslie, who you know and have had on your podcast, is an artist.
13:34
SPEAKER_01: When we listen to music together, I hear different things than she hears.
13:38
SPEAKER_01: I'll hear the way the bass line supports the drum,
13:41
SPEAKER_01: the way the voices come together, a particular lead that the guitar player plays.
13:45
SPEAKER_01: Those will jump out of the music to me.
13:47
SPEAKER_01: Whereas for her, it's just a good song to dance to.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Right.
13:51
SPEAKER_01: We'll go to a museum,
13:52
SPEAKER_01: on the other hand,
13:53
SPEAKER_01: an art museum,
13:54
SPEAKER_01: and we'll look at this painting and she'll say, wow,
13:57
SPEAKER_01: look at the coloration effect here and the drip effect they use
14:00
SPEAKER_01: and look how they use this image in sort of a way that's kind of reminiscent
14:04
SPEAKER_01: of Monet.
14:05
SPEAKER_01: Show all these distinction on my pretty picture.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: So
14:11
SPEAKER_01: the same thing happens, of course, when we're at work.
14:14
SPEAKER_01: Some people have a more refined sense of what's needed for a job
14:17
SPEAKER_01: because they've done it long enough.
14:18
SPEAKER_01: They've gathered those distinctions.
14:20
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's where it gets dangerous,
14:21
SPEAKER_01: of course, because gut instinct can also be the things we talked about before.
14:27
SPEAKER_01: Something about this guy makes me uncomfortable.
14:30
SPEAKER_01: And I'm not aware of the fact that what that thing is,
14:33
SPEAKER_01: is that let's say you're the person I'm interviewing,
14:35
SPEAKER_01: that something about your smile,
14:37
SPEAKER_01: completely unbeknownst to me,
14:39
SPEAKER_01: looks just like a smile of a guy who was a bully for me in ninth grade.
14:44
SPEAKER_01: And when I see you, there's just something about this guy I don't like.
14:49
SPEAKER_01: And that can also influence gut instinct.
14:52
SPEAKER_01: So what I say to people is you don't disregard your gut instinct.
14:56
SPEAKER_01: But you can't also just rely on it whole cloth 100% without checking it.
15:00
SPEAKER_01: And what I'll often say is, let's say you're interviewing somebody.
15:03
SPEAKER_01: You have to say, well, something about this person makes me feel uncomfortable.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: Then to stop and say, okay, was it anything they did?
15:11
SPEAKER_01: And I might say, well, geez, I've only been with them for five minutes.
15:14
SPEAKER_01: So it couldn't be anything they did.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: So it must be,
15:17
SPEAKER_01: even if I can't remember who,
15:18
SPEAKER_01: it must be that they're reminding me of something or somebody from the past.
15:21
SPEAKER_01: Now, once I've named it, it has less impact on me.
15:25
SPEAKER_01: As soon as I name it.
15:26
SPEAKER_01: It has less influence over me.
15:28
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't mean it has no influence over me, but it has less influence over me.
15:31
SPEAKER_01: Because now I've put in my mind the possibility it might not be him.
15:35
SPEAKER_01: It might be this person from the past.
15:38
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm likely to be a little bit more rigorous,
15:39
SPEAKER_01: a little bit more conscious,
15:40
SPEAKER_01: a little bit more thoughtful than moving forward because I'm aware that
15:44
SPEAKER_01: that bias could influence me.
15:48
SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like you're talking about
15:53
SPEAKER_00: I think it was Daniel Kahneman who talked about system one and system two.
15:56
SPEAKER_01: That's correct.
15:57
SPEAKER_01: That's correct, Daniel Kahneman.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: So if you're having a meeting with somebody and You're taking a step back
16:04
SPEAKER_00: and you're asking yourself, what about this gut feeling?
16:08
SPEAKER_00: Why am I having these thoughts?
16:11
SPEAKER_00: You can obviously be afraid.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: You can't be stressed out.
16:17
SPEAKER_00: You can't be hungry.
16:18
SPEAKER_00: You can't be tired because you're not gonna be able to engage system two,
16:23
SPEAKER_00: which is part of the slow brain, the reflection part.
16:29
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean,
16:30
SPEAKER_01: I would say,
16:32
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't say that you can't be, but I would say it's definitely more challenging.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: And when you are in that circumstance,
16:38
SPEAKER_01: if you are,
16:39
SPEAKER_01: this is where what we're finding,
16:41
SPEAKER_01: interestingly enough,
16:41
SPEAKER_01: is that mindfulness practices can be enormously valuable in helping us mitigate
16:47
SPEAKER_01: the bias that we feel.
16:48
SPEAKER_01: Because let's say I'm really exhausted.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: I've had one of those days,
16:52
SPEAKER_01: which a lot of our listeners I'm sure will have,
16:54
SPEAKER_01: where you go meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting, meeting.
16:56
SPEAKER_01: And then after six of those meetings, you've got an interview, right?
17:01
SPEAKER_01: You're probably coming into the room feeling a bit harried, feeling a little bit tired.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: Like you said, you might be still, your mind might be in the last meeting.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: So if I know that I'm doing that,
17:10
SPEAKER_01: and I know that's what my day has been like,
17:12
SPEAKER_01: then what I might do,
17:13
SPEAKER_01: and it's a practice that I started to employ,
17:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:16
SPEAKER_01: towards the period when I was still working with a large company,
17:20
SPEAKER_01: is before that interview,
17:21
SPEAKER_01: I might say,
17:22
SPEAKER_01: even if I,
17:22
SPEAKER_01: even if it's time for the interview,
17:24
SPEAKER_01: I might say,
17:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
17:25
SPEAKER_01: let's say you're,
17:25
SPEAKER_01: again, you were the interviewer, I say, Ibrahim, thank you for being on time.
17:29
SPEAKER_01: I apologize, but I'm going to need five minutes.
17:31
SPEAKER_01: And I'll be right with you in five minutes.
17:33
SPEAKER_01: Take you off screen or put the camera off,
17:36
SPEAKER_01: shut down my microphone for a minute and take five minutes,
17:39
SPEAKER_01: close my eyes and just do some deep breathing and just settle myself.
17:43
SPEAKER_01: Now, once I do that,
17:44
SPEAKER_01: the reason that works so effectively is because the part of the brain
17:48
SPEAKER_01: that is required for us to consciously change our biological functions,
17:53
SPEAKER_01: if you consciously change your breathing structure,
17:56
SPEAKER_01: that comes from the prefrontal cortex, which is where system two thinking lives.
18:01
SPEAKER_01: So as soon as I do that,
18:03
SPEAKER_01: as soon as I use that part of the brain to observe myself and use it
18:07
SPEAKER_01: to slow my breathing down,
18:08
SPEAKER_01: I've pulled myself out of the amygdala,
18:11
SPEAKER_01: out of the fear center of the brain,
18:12
SPEAKER_01: which is where that reactive part lives, into the slower part of the brain.
18:16
SPEAKER_01: I then have a much greater chance of being present to this person rather
18:20
SPEAKER_01: than projecting my other stuff.
18:22
SPEAKER_01: But the irony is it's a little bit like,
18:24
SPEAKER_01: you know,
18:24
SPEAKER_01: Steve Covey years ago wrote his book Seven Happens of Highly Effective People.
18:28
SPEAKER_01: I'm sure a lot of people have heard of that book.
18:30
SPEAKER_01: And he talked about what can happen sometimes when you're busy.
18:33
SPEAKER_01: It's like the woodcutter who doesn't want to stop to sharpen their saw
18:38
SPEAKER_01: because they don't have time.
18:38
SPEAKER_01: But as a result, they saw less and less effectively.
18:41
SPEAKER_01: If they would stop and sharpen the saw, it would be sharper.
18:43
SPEAKER_01: They'd cut a lot faster, right?
18:44
SPEAKER_01: So they get more done.
18:45
SPEAKER_01: And it's very similar.
18:46
SPEAKER_01: A lot of us don't want to take that time because we're in a rush.
18:49
SPEAKER_01: Next meeting, next meeting, next meeting.
18:50
SPEAKER_01: We don't realize if we would just take two to five minutes in between meetings
18:53
SPEAKER_01: to do what I was talking about.
18:54
SPEAKER_01: Stop yourself.
18:58
SPEAKER_01: Check in with yourself.
19:01
SPEAKER_01: It makes an enormous difference just that two to five minutes.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: So slowing down.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: And as a leader,
19:09
SPEAKER_00: create that space for your people as well to slow down,
19:13
SPEAKER_00: to be able to reflect between meetings, between big events as well.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:19
SPEAKER_01: We used to do it as a practice at our staff meetings.
19:21
SPEAKER_01: We'd always start the staff meetings, giving everybody a few minutes to check in.
19:27
SPEAKER_01: How are they?
19:27
SPEAKER_01: What's going on with them?
19:29
SPEAKER_01: So somebody could say...
19:30
SPEAKER_01: God, I'm busy as hell.
19:31
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I've got a hundred things to respond to.
19:34
SPEAKER_01: I've got something tomorrow.
19:36
SPEAKER_01: I'm feeling flustered.
19:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm feeling frustrated and rushed.
19:42
SPEAKER_01: So, okay, great.
19:43
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
19:44
SPEAKER_01: Now, while everybody else is sharing, just take a minute and breathe.
19:46
SPEAKER_01: And by the time we finish that, everybody is fully present in the meeting.
19:50
SPEAKER_01: Or relatively.
19:51
SPEAKER_01: Obviously, nothing's perfect, but relatively.
19:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
19:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
19:55
SPEAKER_00: There was a research done in Sweden,
19:57
SPEAKER_00: and I think it was Lund University,
20:00
SPEAKER_00: and the conclusion was that a lot of leaders follow their gut feeling
20:07
SPEAKER_00: without realizing they have been influenced by their gut feeling.
20:14
SPEAKER_00: And so when we say that we have selected the best candidate for a position,
20:24
SPEAKER_00: what do you think we're really judging when we select the best candidate?
20:30
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think it depends how consciously we're making that decision.
20:33
SPEAKER_01: There are certainly some times when people have a very rigorous process
20:36
SPEAKER_01: and they check the person's personal skills and they do great interviewing
20:40
SPEAKER_01: and they have really effective ways of doing Sort of what somebody I know calls on
20:46
SPEAKER_01: the ground interviewing,
20:47
SPEAKER_01: where you interview by giving people some tasks or conversations to have
20:51
SPEAKER_01: that are representative of what they're going to be doing.
20:52
SPEAKER_01: And they look at their background and they check their references.
20:55
SPEAKER_01: They check their own inner biases.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: So there are some people who know how to do it brilliantly.
21:00
SPEAKER_01: I think the problem is, there are a couple of problems.
21:04
SPEAKER_01: First of all,
21:05
SPEAKER_01: one of the things that we know is that the higher power position people are,
21:10
SPEAKER_01: And I'm speaking, of course, archetypically here, not stereotypically.
21:13
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't happen all the time.
21:15
SPEAKER_01: But what the research definitively shows,
21:19
SPEAKER_01: and here we go,
21:19
SPEAKER_01: I'm mentioning Sukhvinder for the third time because he's a brain scientist
21:22
SPEAKER_01: who studied power in the brain and what power does to the brain.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: What's his name again, okay?
21:28
SPEAKER_01: Sukhvinder Obi, O-B-H-I.
21:33
SPEAKER_01: And what they found was that when people are in high power positions,
21:37
SPEAKER_01: the empathy center of the brain diminishes.
21:40
SPEAKER_01: We spend less time worrying about other people and more time forwarding our agenda.
21:44
SPEAKER_01: And so if you're somebody who's in a high power position
21:46
SPEAKER_01: and you've got some arrogance,
21:49
SPEAKER_01: some high sense of confidence or arrogance,
21:51
SPEAKER_01: you might just begin to believe that your gut instinct is truth.
21:56
SPEAKER_01: And be more blind,
21:58
SPEAKER_01: ironically,
21:59
SPEAKER_01: to your biases than somebody who's far less competent than you are,
22:04
SPEAKER_01: who's a little more uncertain and is therefore more likely
22:07
SPEAKER_01: to question their decisions.
22:09
SPEAKER_01: And so one of the things I say to people is that the people who often need
22:12
SPEAKER_01: to protect themselves or to watch out for this more than any others are
22:16
SPEAKER_01: the smartest,
22:17
SPEAKER_01: most powerful and effective people because that inner check is not there.
22:23
SPEAKER_01: And it's ironic,
22:24
SPEAKER_01: isn't it,
22:24
SPEAKER_01: that the people who are the smartest sometimes
22:26
SPEAKER_01: because we sometimes think we can outthink these biases and we really can't.
22:30
SPEAKER_01: We need to out-be these biases.
22:32
SPEAKER_01: In other words, we need to look at the ontological part.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: We were being with stuff to really see the biases.
22:37
SPEAKER_01: The thinking process,
22:38
SPEAKER_01: because of exactly the quote that you and I were talking about,
22:41
SPEAKER_01: because, you know, we will rationalize.
22:43
SPEAKER_01: The thinking process is where rationalization happens.
22:46
SPEAKER_01: When we check and say,
22:47
SPEAKER_01: we stop and look somatically, we look at our body, how we're reacting in our body.
22:51
SPEAKER_01: We look at,
22:51
SPEAKER_01: you know, what's,
22:53
SPEAKER_01: do I really,
22:54
SPEAKER_01: like I said, to check those, do we really have the information that we're basing?
22:57
SPEAKER_01: So all those kinds of things can help us make better decisions.
23:02
SPEAKER_00: It sounds like you have to consciously be aware of this and make a conscious,
23:08
SPEAKER_00: deliberate effort to check your biases.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: Sure.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: I think you and many people probably heard that there's an old saying that we move
23:17
SPEAKER_01: from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence and then
23:22
SPEAKER_01: to conscious competence and then to unconscious competence.
23:26
SPEAKER_01: So let's say we've got something going on First,
23:30
SPEAKER_01: the first breakthrough is to notice,
23:31
SPEAKER_01: wow, you know, I've got patterns here that aren't serving.
23:34
SPEAKER_01: That's when you move from unconscious incompetence to conscious incompetence.
23:37
SPEAKER_01: Now, this can happen in a relationship with your partner, you know.
23:41
SPEAKER_01: Wow, I didn't ever realize that I,
23:43
SPEAKER_01: you know, I am pretty abrupt with my child or with my partner.
23:48
SPEAKER_01: And I didn't even think about it because I'm just sort of reacting
23:52
SPEAKER_01: until it's brought to my attention.
23:53
SPEAKER_01: And then I stop and say, okay, what do I need to do to not be that way?
23:57
SPEAKER_01: So I need to Put a practice in place.
23:59
SPEAKER_01: That's where I begin to get to be consciously competent.
24:02
SPEAKER_01: So I say,
24:02
SPEAKER_01: what I'm going to do is when I come home at the end of the evening,
24:05
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to sit in my car for 10 minutes and do a little meditation
24:08
SPEAKER_01: or deep breathing so that before I go into the house,
24:11
SPEAKER_01: I'm in a more peaceful place and I don't bring my work stuff inside because
24:14
SPEAKER_01: that contributes.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: And you do that after a while, it just becomes commonplace.
24:18
SPEAKER_01: You don't even have to think about it.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: You park the car, you do your 10 minutes and you go inside.
24:21
SPEAKER_01: It's not like a conscious effort.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: And this is what happens.
24:25
SPEAKER_01: This is how we learn.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: So I think that where these issues are concerned,
24:29
SPEAKER_01: that's why it starts with,
24:30
SPEAKER_01: and this is one of the reasons why I think this notion of eliminating
24:34
SPEAKER_01: the demonization of bias,
24:35
SPEAKER_01: like getting people to stop thinking that bias makes you bad,
24:39
SPEAKER_01: because as soon as people think that bias makes them bad,
24:40
SPEAKER_01: of course they're going to defend against it,
24:42
SPEAKER_01: because if it's unconscious,
24:44
SPEAKER_01: they don't know that they're doing it,
24:45
SPEAKER_01: and they know they have no negative intention,
24:47
SPEAKER_01: and you say to them, hey,
24:48
SPEAKER_01: that was a racist,
24:49
SPEAKER_01: sexist, whatever thing you did, of course they're going to be defensive.
24:52
SPEAKER_01: Because they have no, there are no awareness they do it.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: If on the other hand,
24:55
SPEAKER_01: you say,
24:56
SPEAKER_01: you know,
24:56
SPEAKER_01: something happened in their interaction,
24:57
SPEAKER_01: and I know you, I know you had no intention to hurt me.
25:01
SPEAKER_01: And can I share with you that when you said that, I felt X.
25:06
SPEAKER_01: Now, a person's much more likely to be able to hear that than they are to hear,
25:11
SPEAKER_01: that was a racist thing you said.
25:13
SPEAKER_01: Right?
25:14
SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's where we can...
25:17
SPEAKER_01: And I want to really emphasize,
25:19
SPEAKER_01: because sometimes people hear me say something like that,
25:21
SPEAKER_01: they'll say, well,
25:22
SPEAKER_01: you're saying we should take care of the guy who's got...
25:24
SPEAKER_01: No, it's not a matter of taking care of anybody.
25:26
SPEAKER_01: It's a matter of using effective communication to get to the heart of something
25:29
SPEAKER_01: that can then transform it, as opposed to throwing gasoline on the fire.
25:36
SPEAKER_01: Because when you say, oh, you must be... All you do is put the person on the defensive.
25:42
SPEAKER_01: Anything else you say now is noise coming into that listening.
25:45
SPEAKER_01: And...
25:46
SPEAKER_01: The situation doesn't get resolved.
25:48
SPEAKER_01: And in fact,
25:49
SPEAKER_01: when they leave that conversation,
25:50
SPEAKER_01: they're now even more likely to feel that a person like you is dangerous to them.
25:58
SPEAKER_01: So I think that sometimes we,
26:02
SPEAKER_01: that is we who are trying to address this issue,
26:06
SPEAKER_01: can get too stuck in being right and not paying enough attention to being effective.
26:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think we have to get rid of the whole thing of guilt and shame from the equation.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: And I think also,
26:20
SPEAKER_00: this is not just bias,
26:21
SPEAKER_00: but also diversity trainings where they bring in somebody to train the organization
26:29
SPEAKER_00: and just like you said before, to fix them.
26:32
SPEAKER_01: Yeah,
26:32
SPEAKER_01: although I have to say that one of the things we have to be careful about is to buy
26:36
SPEAKER_01: into this equation.
26:38
SPEAKER_01: You know,
26:39
SPEAKER_01: what has been a clear attempt on the part of some people to demonize diversity work
26:43
SPEAKER_01: and diversity training by taking the very,
26:46
SPEAKER_01: the most least effective and or damaging kinds of things that happen
26:51
SPEAKER_01: in diversity training and make it sound like that happens
26:53
SPEAKER_01: in all diversity trainings.
26:54
SPEAKER_00: Because,
26:55
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:55
SPEAKER_01: I know and you know dozens and maybe hundreds and hundreds and hundreds
26:59
SPEAKER_01: of diversity practitioners who don't go in the room and blame people,
27:03
SPEAKER_01: who actually use very effective techniques and have been very effective
27:06
SPEAKER_01: in helping people.
27:07
SPEAKER_01: And like any other field, there are some who are not good at it.
27:10
SPEAKER_01: You know,
27:11
SPEAKER_01: choose a field to me that doesn't have some people who are good at
27:13
SPEAKER_01: and some people who aren't.
27:14
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's ridiculous to suggest that that's not the case.
27:19
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know,
27:20
SPEAKER_01: so of course there's some diversity of practitioners who have done things
27:23
SPEAKER_01: that have been, you know, either ineffective or clumsy or hurtful.
27:27
SPEAKER_01: But my experience of the field,
27:29
SPEAKER_01: having spent 40 years in it,
27:30
SPEAKER_01: and based on feedback I've gotten from clients,
27:33
SPEAKER_01: hundreds and hundreds of other clients we work with is,
27:34
SPEAKER_01: wow, this stuff is really effective, really helps us.
27:37
SPEAKER_01: And it helps us, and it's made our business better.
27:40
SPEAKER_01: So I do think we have to be careful not to buy into the notion that these things are bad.
27:46
SPEAKER_01: Yes, if all you're going to do is throw training at an issue,
27:49
SPEAKER_01: it's probably not going to be effective.
27:50
SPEAKER_01: But if training is a part of a larger conversation,
27:53
SPEAKER_01: part of a larger systemic intervention, it could be incredibly helpful.
27:57
SPEAKER_01: Exactly.
27:58
SPEAKER_00: It has to be ongoing.
27:59
SPEAKER_00: It can't be just one thing.
28:01
SPEAKER_00: But it could also be a starting point.
28:03
SPEAKER_01: There are times when I've been brought in to do a keynote,
28:06
SPEAKER_01: And I know very well that talking to people for an hour and 15 minutes is not going
28:10
SPEAKER_01: to transform the world.
28:11
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, this is not my first rodeo.
28:14
SPEAKER_01: But what it might do is have people even say, you know what, this is interesting.
28:18
SPEAKER_01: We need to do more around this.
28:19
SPEAKER_01: We need to get more involved in this.
28:21
SPEAKER_01: And I've seen that happen.
28:23
SPEAKER_01: Countless numbers of times where that first opening did that.
28:27
SPEAKER_00: So do we have to
28:27
SPEAKER_01: be careful about making these rules that things are good or are bad
28:31
SPEAKER_01: and really look at each situation and ask what's needed to move
28:35
SPEAKER_01: the conversation forward in this situation and circumstance?
28:38
SPEAKER_00: Exactly, exactly.
28:40
SPEAKER_00: I think they have good intentions.
28:42
SPEAKER_00: We have good intentions.
28:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm also part of the field.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: I think we just have to be careful about the strategies we employ to get this going,
28:50
SPEAKER_00: to help people realize, just like you say, that, you know, Biases is part of life.
28:56
SPEAKER_00: If you're human, just like you say, we're biased.
29:00
SPEAKER_00: That diversity is necessary, but we should also be or have the courage to talk about ways.
29:08
SPEAKER_00: When is diversity a challenge?
29:11
SPEAKER_00: Let's say for instance, we have diversity, but we don't have a healthy feedback culture.
29:17
SPEAKER_00: We don't have a strong leader,
29:19
SPEAKER_00: or we don't have effective leadership,
29:22
SPEAKER_00: or we're going through some economic turbulent times.
29:29
SPEAKER_00: Then diversity can be a challenge,
29:32
SPEAKER_00: but if we have a healthy culture,
29:35
SPEAKER_00: Dedication from leadership and so forth,
29:39
SPEAKER_00: then diversity is a strength and an advantage as well.
29:43
SPEAKER_00: I think we have to be able to talk about both as well.
29:46
SPEAKER_01: No question.
29:47
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
29:48
SPEAKER_01: I think it's really important.
29:49
SPEAKER_01: And I think the opportunity we have is to look at all of those things you're talking
29:54
SPEAKER_01: about, feedback, Effective leadership, communication.
29:59
SPEAKER_01: At the core level, managing diversity effective is just good management.
30:03
SPEAKER_01: Now, the reason we talk about it distinctly is because,
30:06
SPEAKER_01: as you know,
30:08
SPEAKER_01: the historic patterns that have marginalized certain people,
30:15
SPEAKER_01: and particularly sometimes relative to certain industries,
30:18
SPEAKER_01: like there's certain industries where,
30:19
SPEAKER_01: let's take gender,
30:21
SPEAKER_01: for example,
30:21
SPEAKER_01: we know there's certain industries where over
30:23
SPEAKER_01: the last 20 years have been huge breakthroughs.
30:25
SPEAKER_01: The majority of people graduating from medical schools right now are women.
30:29
SPEAKER_01: A large percentage, it's right on the edge of lawyers, accountants.
30:34
SPEAKER_01: All these are fields that 25,
30:36
SPEAKER_01: 30 years ago,
30:38
SPEAKER_01: you would have seen a tiny percentage of women,
30:40
SPEAKER_01: and yet now, They're close to a majority if they're not a majority.
30:44
SPEAKER_01: So I think we see these things are changing,
30:46
SPEAKER_01: and in some industries we're seeing this,
30:48
SPEAKER_01: but there are other industries where we still have a long way to go in terms
30:52
SPEAKER_01: of certain people being marginalized.
30:54
SPEAKER_01: But one way or the other,
30:56
SPEAKER_01: I think the thing that we most have to,
30:59
SPEAKER_01: I think,
31:00
SPEAKER_01: guard against as practitioners of this field is that we're not adding to
31:05
SPEAKER_01: the them versus us culture by demonizing people.
31:08
SPEAKER_01: So, you know,
31:09
SPEAKER_01: when people say, well,
31:10
SPEAKER_01: all white men such and such,
31:12
SPEAKER_01: or all white people such and such,
31:13
SPEAKER_01: or all men such and such,
31:15
SPEAKER_01: or it's just as damaging and just as contributory to the tension,
31:22
SPEAKER_01: the us versus them,
31:23
SPEAKER_01: as when people say that about people of color or women or whatever else.
31:27
SPEAKER_01: Not to mention the fact that when we're dealing with the mental aspect of it,
31:30
SPEAKER_01: as we've been talking about the bias aspect,
31:33
SPEAKER_01: You know, white people are no more susceptible to bias than people of color.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: Men are no more susceptible to bias than women are.
31:38
SPEAKER_01: We all do this as a function.
31:40
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not suggesting at the same time that that doesn't mean
31:43
SPEAKER_01: that there are historic patterns that have more negatively infected certain people
31:48
SPEAKER_01: than other people.
31:49
SPEAKER_01: And we have to pay attention to those patterns.
31:51
SPEAKER_01: But my experience has been when we...
31:55
SPEAKER_01: When we try to demonize and blame people for those patterns,
31:58
SPEAKER_01: well, you're a white man, therefore, you're responsible for what happened.
32:01
SPEAKER_01: All it does is shut people down.
32:03
SPEAKER_01: And I've moved,
32:05
SPEAKER_01: especially at this time in my life, 75,
32:07
SPEAKER_01: after having done this for,
32:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
32:09
SPEAKER_01: moving on plus 40 years now,
32:11
SPEAKER_01: more than 40 years now,
32:14
SPEAKER_01: that what's important to me now is not being right, it's being effective.
32:18
SPEAKER_01: I want to develop strategy that will work.
32:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm not interested in the political making statements.
32:25
SPEAKER_01: Who cares about that?
32:27
SPEAKER_01: What matters to me is what's effective,
32:30
SPEAKER_01: what's going to actually move the needle forward,
32:33
SPEAKER_01: what's going to have people be treated with more inclusion,
32:37
SPEAKER_01: with more belonging, with more equity.
32:39
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't come by blaming people.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: We saw this.
32:43
SPEAKER_01: We went through a period post-George Floyd where, for example, there were these conversations.
32:46
SPEAKER_01: People would come up to white people who were trying to be allies and say,
32:49
SPEAKER_01: well, you're a bad ally.
32:51
SPEAKER_01: Well,
32:52
SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you how many people I had to talk off the ledge who came back to me
32:55
SPEAKER_01: and said, well, hell, you know, pucks on both your houses.
32:58
SPEAKER_01: I can't win here.
32:59
SPEAKER_01: I try to help, but they tell me I'm a bad ally.
33:01
SPEAKER_01: I don't try to help, but I'm a racist.
33:03
SPEAKER_01: So to hell with all of it, you know.
33:05
SPEAKER_01: And as opposed to coming to somebody and saying, look, thank you for your intention to help.
33:11
SPEAKER_01: Deeply appreciate it that you intend to help.
33:13
SPEAKER_01: Can I give you some coaching as to how you can do a better job helping?
33:17
SPEAKER_01: And most people will say, yeah, please, right?
33:20
SPEAKER_01: Because they do want to help.
33:21
SPEAKER_01: But if you kind of broad-breast say because you're doing so – or people
33:26
SPEAKER_01: who say white liberals are worse than overt racists, it just doesn't make any sense.
33:30
SPEAKER_01: And it actually made it more difficult for a lot of people to do the work.
33:36
SPEAKER_00: I am hopeful because I just think we have to have the courage to talk
33:40
SPEAKER_00: about different perspectives and also be effective communicators.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: And it sounds like it's also about creating a healthy feedback culture.
33:52
SPEAKER_00: It's about feedback as well.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: How to give feedback,
33:54
SPEAKER_00: how to receive feedback and keep people staying at the table, around the table.
34:01
SPEAKER_01: No question about it.
34:02
SPEAKER_01: Look, feedback is huge.
34:04
SPEAKER_01: And I think one of the things that we work often with people,
34:08
SPEAKER_01: with organizations or with leaders about is how to give feedback,
34:10
SPEAKER_01: you know,
34:11
SPEAKER_01: working with things like nonviolent communication and other tools
34:15
SPEAKER_01: that are really helpful in being able to give feedback in a constructive way
34:19
SPEAKER_01: that enrolls people in a conversation rather than having them feel branded,
34:23
SPEAKER_01: blamed and shamed.
34:26
SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's one of the great tools that we have.
34:29
SPEAKER_01: If I come up to you,
34:30
SPEAKER_01: just an example I just gave,
34:31
SPEAKER_01: if I come up to you and say,
34:33
SPEAKER_01: hey, thank you, and can I give you some coaching, that's a partnering conversation.
34:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm approaching you as a partner who I can support and help, and you then are much more likely.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: Now, some people are hyper-defensive,
34:47
SPEAKER_01: you can't help it, but overwhelmingly, most people will be grateful for that.
34:50
SPEAKER_01: They'll see you as wanting to help me,
34:52
SPEAKER_01: as wanting to enroll me in the conversation, not to fix me.
34:57
SPEAKER_01: Look, when people feel like somebody's trying to fix them,
35:00
SPEAKER_01: it triggers activity in the dorsal posterior insula of the brain,
35:03
SPEAKER_01: which is the same part of the brain associated with physical pain.
35:07
SPEAKER_01: That's why when your partner tries to fix you, it never feels good.
35:13
SPEAKER_01: When your partner says,
35:13
SPEAKER_01: you always,
35:15
SPEAKER_01: you always such and such,
35:16
SPEAKER_01: you shouldn't do this,
35:17
SPEAKER_01: I can't count, you know, it's like, you need to blah, blah, blah.
35:21
SPEAKER_01: That's really always welcomed, isn't it?
35:23
SPEAKER_01: As opposed to when your partner comes and says, look,
35:25
SPEAKER_01: I love you,
35:26
SPEAKER_01: you know what I'd really appreciate if you could do this, I'd so appreciate it.
35:30
SPEAKER_01: You're like, of course I want to do that for you, you know, or more likely, you know.
35:35
SPEAKER_01: But if somebody says,
35:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
35:37
SPEAKER_01: you suck as a husband,
35:38
SPEAKER_01: therefore, you know, do this, it's like, hell with you, you know.
35:42
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh, you're not thinking about what you, well, you're number two, you know.
35:47
SPEAKER_01: And this is no different.
35:48
SPEAKER_01: It's human interaction we're talking about.
35:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, whether you do it at work or you do it at home, it's all human beings interacting.
35:53
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
35:56
SPEAKER_00: I think this goes back again to creating a healthy feedback culture.
36:01
SPEAKER_00: I think if you're a leader and if people feel that they can speak up,
36:10
SPEAKER_00: tell you what they think,
36:12
SPEAKER_00: have a different opinion,
36:17
SPEAKER_00: they tell you they don't agree with you,
36:18
SPEAKER_00: they give you feedback on your behavior as well,
36:22
SPEAKER_00: Then you've created some kind of psychological safety as well.
36:27
SPEAKER_00: Howard, I would like us to move on because now it's time for promotion.
36:36
SPEAKER_00: Do you think a system, a promotion system can look fair on paper, but produce unfair results?
36:47
SPEAKER_00: And how?
36:49
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
36:49
SPEAKER_01: A hundred percent.
36:51
SPEAKER_01: In fact,
36:52
SPEAKER_01: There is no system design that simply by the design of the system,
36:59
SPEAKER_01: it ensures mitigation of bias because the way people use systems could be influenced
37:05
SPEAKER_01: by bias.
37:09
SPEAKER_01: So let's say we're basing our promotions on performance reviews, right?
37:16
SPEAKER_01: So I'm Thinking of promoting somebody,
37:19
SPEAKER_01: and I look at the performance reviews that they've had,
37:21
SPEAKER_01: and I see, well, they've had several good and a couple not so good.
37:25
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I got to take that into account,
37:27
SPEAKER_01: and I, on a very, you know, very thoughtful basis, I process that.
37:34
SPEAKER_01: But what I don't know is, what was the bias of people who did those performance reviews?
37:39
SPEAKER_01: Is that bias now being transferred to me like a virus, without my knowing it?
37:45
SPEAKER_01: Because the person who did that performance review three years ago,
37:48
SPEAKER_01: maybe even from a whole other division of the company,
37:51
SPEAKER_01: and I've never met this person,
37:54
SPEAKER_01: is now influencing my decision whether I know where they're coming from or not.
37:59
SPEAKER_01: And so the same conversation that could be true around hiring is true for promotion,
38:06
SPEAKER_01: it's true for job assignment.
38:08
SPEAKER_01: In fact,
38:09
SPEAKER_01: in the appendix of the book,
38:13
SPEAKER_01: we have a A whole section is like 20 pages that talks about
38:21
SPEAKER_01: the entire performance talent management system and all the different aspects
38:29
SPEAKER_01: of recruitment, hiring,
38:31
SPEAKER_01: interviewing,
38:32
SPEAKER_01: recruitment,
38:33
SPEAKER_01: sourcing,
38:33
SPEAKER_01: interviewing, hiring,
38:34
SPEAKER_01: onboarding,
38:35
SPEAKER_01: mentoring and sponsorship, performance review, calibration, recognizing talent.
38:39
SPEAKER_01: Developing and promoting talent.
38:41
SPEAKER_01: Every single one of those areas has aspects in which we can or can,
38:45
SPEAKER_01: we may or may not have structures in place that mitigate the bias.
38:50
SPEAKER_01: And so we have to be,
38:51
SPEAKER_01: we have to be really careful because let's say we put in place, okay,
38:54
SPEAKER_01: we're going to,
38:56
SPEAKER_01: we're going to,
38:57
SPEAKER_01: we're thinking of hiring somebody or better yet,
39:00
SPEAKER_01: we're thinking of promoting somebody.
39:02
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we look at the tasks that they've taken on in our company.
39:09
SPEAKER_01: And we say, let's, I use the law firm example because I talked about law firms earlier.
39:12
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
39:13
SPEAKER_01: We're thinking of offering this young man a partnership
39:16
SPEAKER_01: because he's been here three years or four years, whatever.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: And he's been on,
39:20
SPEAKER_01: you know, 22 cases and, you know, and worked for this partner and really great.
39:26
SPEAKER_01: And, you know,
39:27
SPEAKER_01: this other person who we have,
39:28
SPEAKER_01: this woman here has only been on 10 cases,
39:30
SPEAKER_01: only worked on 10 cases and her performance reviews are good.
39:34
SPEAKER_01: So this guy's the obvious choice, right?
39:37
SPEAKER_01: Except what we don't know is that the partners who are evaluating,
39:40
SPEAKER_01: the one guy had a partner who liked this guy.
39:43
SPEAKER_01: He liked to play golf with them.
39:45
SPEAKER_01: They both went to the same college.
39:47
SPEAKER_01: And so he's thrown him on all kinds of cases because he kind of trusted he'll make it.
39:50
SPEAKER_01: And the other person was with somebody who wasn't necessarily even negative,
39:54
SPEAKER_01: but was much less inclined to help them.
39:57
SPEAKER_01: And so they only get on 10 cases,
39:59
SPEAKER_01: even though they had just the same talent, intelligence, ability.
40:03
SPEAKER_01: All of that.
40:04
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know,
40:05
SPEAKER_01: so this is where,
40:06
SPEAKER_01: as I said,
40:07
SPEAKER_01: looking,
40:07
SPEAKER_01: it's like,
40:08
SPEAKER_01: you know,
40:08
SPEAKER_01: the thing they're talking about with computers, Geico, garbage in and garbage out.
40:11
SPEAKER_01: It's the same thing with our own internal processing system.
40:14
SPEAKER_01: Is the data we're getting legitimate data, quality data, or is it garbage?
40:17
SPEAKER_01: You know, is it already influenced by bias?
40:20
SPEAKER_01: And then even in conversations, it can happen.
40:22
SPEAKER_01: This can happen, this sort of virus effect I'm talking about.
40:25
SPEAKER_01: For example, another example, and I've seen this happen.
40:28
SPEAKER_01: A person comes into a company,
40:31
SPEAKER_01: First day at work,
40:32
SPEAKER_01: they don't even know where the bathrooms are, but their boss is on a deadline.
40:35
SPEAKER_01: And they say, look, man,
40:36
SPEAKER_01: we'll get you all set up in a couple of days,
40:39
SPEAKER_01: but the next few days, I need you to do this for me.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: I need you to do research on this, blah, blah, blah, blah.
40:44
SPEAKER_01: And you're like, all right.
40:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, it's like you do the best you can.
40:47
SPEAKER_01: You're completely unprepared because obviously you don't even know where
40:50
SPEAKER_01: the bathrooms are yet, right?
40:51
SPEAKER_01: So you do the best you can and you give it to your boss and the boss says, it's okay.
40:57
SPEAKER_01: And they fix it, they move it on.
40:58
SPEAKER_01: And the next day, somebody comes into the boss and say, hey, I'll use myself as a devil.
41:02
SPEAKER_01: I saw that Howard did a project for you.
41:04
SPEAKER_01: How'd he do?
41:05
SPEAKER_01: He's okay.
41:06
SPEAKER_01: And then somebody asked that person, what do you know about this new kid Howard who's here?
41:10
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I understand.
41:12
SPEAKER_01: How long is it before everybody in the company thinks that I'm okay?
41:16
SPEAKER_01: Because that one thing triggered this viral messaging about me.
41:22
SPEAKER_01: You know the old saying, there's no second chance to make a good first impression.
41:25
SPEAKER_01: In this case,
41:25
SPEAKER_01: the first impression was adulterated by the fact that I didn't get the opportunity
41:31
SPEAKER_01: to really even get settled in.
41:33
SPEAKER_01: Not to mention the fact that I'm nervous to ask too many questions
41:35
SPEAKER_01: because my first day of work,
41:37
SPEAKER_01: I don't want them to think I'm stupid and don't know how to do things.
41:40
SPEAKER_01: So these kinds of things can be influencing our culture without us realizing it.
41:44
SPEAKER_01: And I think the one thing that we do know is that structure creates behavior.
41:50
SPEAKER_01: And so if we do have structures in place which slow us down a little bit and call
41:54
SPEAKER_01: for us to be more thoughtful,
41:56
SPEAKER_01: it's not like we'll eliminate this totally,
41:58
SPEAKER_01: but we will definitely mitigate how often it happens.
42:04
SPEAKER_00: And how do you create the structures?
42:07
SPEAKER_01: Well, there are some of them that we know,
42:09
SPEAKER_01: and this is what I said,
42:09
SPEAKER_01: you know,
42:10
SPEAKER_01: for example,
42:10
SPEAKER_01: we have a lot of them listed in the book,
42:11
SPEAKER_01: but they're,
42:12
SPEAKER_01: you know,
42:13
SPEAKER_01: you do your homework for one thing,
42:14
SPEAKER_01: you look up and say,
42:15
SPEAKER_01: there's tremendous amount of research now,
42:17
SPEAKER_01: you get,
42:18
SPEAKER_01: what are the least,
42:18
SPEAKER_01: what are the,
42:19
SPEAKER_01: you know,
42:19
SPEAKER_01: structures for hiring that seem to diminish bias,
42:22
SPEAKER_01: and you go online and Go into your favorite AI and ask them that.
42:26
SPEAKER_01: All kinds of things will show up.
42:28
SPEAKER_01: You'll find a whole, you know, glossary of different kinds of things you could try.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: So if we're talking about interviewing,
42:34
SPEAKER_01: one of the things we know,
42:35
SPEAKER_01: for example,
42:36
SPEAKER_01: is that,
42:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
42:38
SPEAKER_01: that the place where you interview people can be or
42:42
SPEAKER_01: the circumstance you interview people in can be a factor.
42:44
SPEAKER_01: If I interview one person,
42:46
SPEAKER_01: nine in the morning in my office,
42:49
SPEAKER_01: you know,
42:50
SPEAKER_01: When I'm peaceful,
42:51
SPEAKER_01: I haven't got a chance to get in my day versus the other person,
42:53
SPEAKER_01: you know,
42:54
SPEAKER_01: one o'clock in the afternoon in the cafeteria with a million people around
42:57
SPEAKER_01: when I'm busy and rushed, you know, that's going to have an influence.
43:01
SPEAKER_01: There's an incredible study from University of Toronto.
43:05
SPEAKER_01: The guy Don Ruedelmeyer did this study a number of years ago.
43:08
SPEAKER_01: He tracked medical school interviews,
43:11
SPEAKER_01: which are among the most,
43:13
SPEAKER_01: you know, I mean,
43:13
SPEAKER_01: everybody who's going to medical school, virtually everybody is pretty smart.
43:17
SPEAKER_01: So it's not easy to weed out who are the smartest people, you know.
43:20
SPEAKER_01: What he did was he tracked the scores that people gave those medical interviews
43:23
SPEAKER_01: against the weather report from the days that the interviews were done.
43:26
SPEAKER_01: And he found that on rainy days, people tended to score people lower than on sunny days.
43:33
SPEAKER_01: Oh, come on.
43:34
SPEAKER_01: I know, completely irrational, right?
43:36
SPEAKER_01: Completely nuts.
43:37
SPEAKER_01: Until you stop for a minute and think about it.
43:39
SPEAKER_01: So think about this for a moment.
43:41
SPEAKER_01: It's a miserable rainy day.
43:44
SPEAKER_01: You get out there and like, you know, your feet are wet.
43:47
SPEAKER_01: The traffic is terrible.
43:49
SPEAKER_01: You're, you know, you've got water on your pants, your skirt, you know.
43:54
SPEAKER_01: It's just,
43:55
SPEAKER_01: you get in the office and there's a slog to get there and you sit down for
43:58
SPEAKER_01: the interview.
43:59
SPEAKER_01: And the person, you know, what do you want?
44:01
SPEAKER_01: You know.
44:02
SPEAKER_01: And then it's another day,
44:04
SPEAKER_01: like it is here where I am in the Shenandoah Valley,
44:06
SPEAKER_01: west of Washington,
44:07
SPEAKER_01: D.C., where we just have an absolutely stunningly gorgeous day today.
44:10
SPEAKER_01: It's now 78 degrees or something.
44:13
SPEAKER_01: And I come out in the morning like this,
44:15
SPEAKER_01: and it's like, oh, my God, it looks like God is shining down on me.
44:19
SPEAKER_01: And I come in and I say, hey, man, it's great, great, great.
44:23
SPEAKER_01: To meet you and to interview you.
44:26
SPEAKER_01: That, of course, interview influences the interview.
44:29
SPEAKER_01: If I'm rushed,
44:30
SPEAKER_01: because I've got a big meeting that afternoon,
44:32
SPEAKER_01: and my mind is planning,
44:34
SPEAKER_01: you know how we are sometimes like that,
44:36
SPEAKER_01: the mind is just planning,
44:37
SPEAKER_01: and I'm in the interview,
44:38
SPEAKER_01: I'm less present than if it's a time when I know I got nothing following
44:41
SPEAKER_01: and I can just fully be with you.
44:43
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I could list 100, you could list 200.
44:45
SPEAKER_01: You know, there are all of these different kinds.
44:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm hungry.
44:49
SPEAKER_01: And I haven't had lunch yet.
44:50
SPEAKER_01: You know, I had too much caffeine this morning.
44:53
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just you name it.
44:54
SPEAKER_01: You know, all of these things can influence it and they can influence all of these decisions.
44:58
SPEAKER_01: You know how short we are with people in staff meetings.
45:02
SPEAKER_01: Are we taking the time to listen to everybody or do we rush to the first response or decision?
45:06
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, like I said, we have almost 20 pages of these things to look at.
45:10
SPEAKER_01: So I think Creating,
45:13
SPEAKER_01: the first thing is to know that we need structure around these kinds of decisions.
45:17
SPEAKER_01: And then to look for the best one to do it.
45:19
SPEAKER_01: Now, some of us, I'm not somebody who
45:21
SPEAKER_00: likes structure, frankly.
45:22
SPEAKER_01: I tend to be an unstructured person.
45:24
SPEAKER_01: That's what,
45:25
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:26
SPEAKER_01: those of us,
45:26
SPEAKER_01: I call myself organic, but it just means I'm not very good at structure.
45:30
SPEAKER_01: I'm a bit ADD.
45:31
SPEAKER_01: So I know that I have to have people around me who are more structured than I am,
45:35
SPEAKER_01: who can help, you know, make sure to pick up the things that I miss, you know.
45:39
SPEAKER_01: And when I was Working full time and I had an assistant,
45:42
SPEAKER_01: those were the qualities I looked at in the assistants I hired.
45:46
SPEAKER_01: You know,
45:47
SPEAKER_01: I guess I wanted to be nice people,
45:50
SPEAKER_01: but they had to be people who were,
45:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
45:52
SPEAKER_01: had that orientation,
45:53
SPEAKER_01: a really structured mindset,
45:55
SPEAKER_01: because I knew that's what I needed to fill in the blanks,
45:58
SPEAKER_01: so to speak, of my way of being.
46:02
SPEAKER_01: And when you do have structures,
46:05
SPEAKER_01: they tend to,
46:07
SPEAKER_01: If the right structures anyway will tend to move us towards thoughtfulness,
46:11
SPEAKER_01: a lack of structure will tend to move us towards more implicit
46:15
SPEAKER_01: and impulsive decisions.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: I like what you said.
46:21
SPEAKER_00: Structure creates behavior and behavior creates outcomes.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: That's correct.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: That's well put.
46:31
SPEAKER_00: You've worked with a lot of teams.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: Now, What do you think strong teams do differently when it comes
46:43
SPEAKER_00: to challenging their own assumptions?
46:48
SPEAKER_01: What is they talk about them?
46:50
SPEAKER_01: That's the very first and most important thing.
46:52
SPEAKER_01: They're willing to put their assumptions on the table to look at.
46:56
SPEAKER_01: And I think we have to recognize that You know,
47:01
SPEAKER_01: if we get back to our very first conversation today,
47:03
SPEAKER_01: which was this normalcy of bias,
47:06
SPEAKER_01: the everyday nature of bias, that often we're even asking the wrong question.
47:11
SPEAKER_01: So we're approaching a hiring situation, let's say.
47:15
SPEAKER_01: We say to ourselves, hmm, do I have any bias in this circumstance?
47:20
SPEAKER_01: Actually, the more appropriate question would be, what are my biases in this circumstance?
47:24
SPEAKER_01: Because of course you have some.
47:26
SPEAKER_01: Some of them may be helpful, by the way.
47:28
SPEAKER_01: You know,
47:29
SPEAKER_01: the notion of bias is always unhelpful and inaccurate as well,
47:32
SPEAKER_01: because we know that there are four fundamental ways bias works, right?
47:36
SPEAKER_01: You have bias against somebody,
47:38
SPEAKER_01: which is counterproductive or negative,
47:40
SPEAKER_01: which is the kind of standard way we think about bias,
47:42
SPEAKER_01: you know, biased against women, let's say.
47:47
SPEAKER_01: Bias against white people in some cases,
47:48
SPEAKER_01: bias against black people,
47:50
SPEAKER_01: bias against Muslims, bias against Jews, you know, whatever, you know.
47:53
SPEAKER_01: That's the way we normally think.
47:54
SPEAKER_01: But there's also bias for people.
47:59
SPEAKER_01: Let's say you and I are interviewing two people for a job,
48:02
SPEAKER_01: and one of them comes in and they remind me,
48:05
SPEAKER_01: I was just at the grocery store earlier,
48:07
SPEAKER_01: so it's a great example,
48:08
SPEAKER_01: just at the grocery store earlier,
48:10
SPEAKER_01: and the guy who checked me out at the grocery store was a doppelganger
48:13
SPEAKER_01: for my grandson.
48:15
SPEAKER_01: He looked exactly like my grandson's gonna look in three or four years.
48:19
SPEAKER_01: It was stunning, you know?
48:20
SPEAKER_01: And I called my son, or sent my son a note afterwards.
48:23
SPEAKER_01: I said, you can't believe it.
48:24
SPEAKER_01: Now, I said to him,
48:26
SPEAKER_01: I said, you know, hey man, you look exactly like my grandson, so I already like you.
48:30
SPEAKER_01: And it was, I felt warmth towards him, right?
48:32
SPEAKER_01: So something like that can trigger, you know?
48:35
SPEAKER_01: So let's say somebody comes in and reminds me of my grandson.
48:40
SPEAKER_01: All of a sudden,
48:40
SPEAKER_01: he's got an advantage over somebody who comes in,
48:44
SPEAKER_01: even if I'm negative, He's got a positive advantage.
48:46
SPEAKER_01: So the imbalance is that way.
48:48
SPEAKER_01: Now, sometimes there can be constructive uses or positive uses of negative bias.
48:57
SPEAKER_01: Let's say,
49:00
SPEAKER_01: so that's a negative use of positive bias,
49:02
SPEAKER_01: but maybe there's also a positive use of negative bias in that I know That people
49:07
SPEAKER_01: who don't have a certain skill are not gonna be effective in this job.
49:12
SPEAKER_01: I knew, for example,
49:13
SPEAKER_01: when I was hiring my assistants,
49:15
SPEAKER_01: if somebody was a big picture thinker who wasn't good at details,
49:19
SPEAKER_01: they could be brilliant and wonderful and they were not right for that job.
49:23
SPEAKER_01: I need somebody for details, right?
49:25
SPEAKER_01: And so that's really helpful for me.
49:27
SPEAKER_01: And on the other hand, we know that sometimes biases for certain people Can be really valuable.
49:36
SPEAKER_01: So let's say you know you've got a multilingual customer base you're looking for
49:42
SPEAKER_01: and everybody in your company only speaks one language,
49:45
SPEAKER_01: then having a bias towards people who are multilingual as you're hiring is
49:49
SPEAKER_01: a good idea because it fills in something you're missing.
49:52
SPEAKER_01: So I think we need to realize that it could be any one of those four domains
49:55
SPEAKER_01: that it's occurring in.
49:56
SPEAKER_01: It's not always that bias is bad or that bias against people is bad.
50:00
SPEAKER_01: These other components could be a factor of times as well.
50:03
SPEAKER_00: You say that strong teams, they talk about their biases.
50:10
SPEAKER_00: And this reminds me of Amy Edmondson, who talks about psychological safety.
50:15
SPEAKER_01: Yes, of course.
50:16
SPEAKER_01: Very much so.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: She said that strong teams talk about their mistakes because they feel safe in
50:25
SPEAKER_00: that environment with their team members.
50:27
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
50:28
SPEAKER_01: And so given what we've been talking about,
50:30
SPEAKER_01: if you've got people who are demonizing bias and then you say,
50:33
SPEAKER_01: so, are anybody having any biases here?
50:35
SPEAKER_01: It's like, are you kidding?
50:37
SPEAKER_01: There's no way my hand's going up.
50:38
SPEAKER_01: But if on the other hand, you say, all right, we all got them.
50:42
SPEAKER_01: So let's just lay them out.
50:43
SPEAKER_01: What are our biases coming into this circumstance?
50:46
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry.
50:46
SPEAKER_01: We know just the way, just the thoughts your brain are putting out.
50:49
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean you're a bad person.
50:50
SPEAKER_01: So let's just get them out on the table.
50:52
SPEAKER_01: You're much more likely to To get stuff that you could really look at.
50:56
SPEAKER_01: And then you could say, okay,
50:57
SPEAKER_01: now that we've heard all that,
50:58
SPEAKER_01: how are we going to make sure that it doesn't influence our decision?
51:02
SPEAKER_01: And collectively as a team, we make that determination.
51:04
SPEAKER_01: And so, again, I said before, nothing's perfect.
51:07
SPEAKER_01: I'm not suggesting anything's perfect,
51:08
SPEAKER_01: but we can pretty obviously see that that's far more likely to lead us to
51:12
SPEAKER_01: a thoughtful, fair decision than just, you know, the other side.
51:16
SPEAKER_01: Just like talk, you know, reacting.
51:19
SPEAKER_00: Howard.
51:23
SPEAKER_00: What should someone do if they see bias happening in their team?
51:34
SPEAKER_00: What do you think they should do?
51:35
SPEAKER_01: Well, I think the first thing is not to start by assuming ill intent.
51:43
SPEAKER_01: I think one of the things that we know is that good people can have bad thoughts.
51:50
SPEAKER_01: Good people can have programmed thoughts that That show up,
51:54
SPEAKER_01: even though,
51:55
SPEAKER_01: you know, I mean,
51:55
SPEAKER_01: I think one of the things that was the most surprising to me as I got
51:59
SPEAKER_01: into this work was how I would run into these people who are just really nice,
52:03
SPEAKER_01: good people,
52:04
SPEAKER_01: obviously really good people,
52:06
SPEAKER_01: who would then have these sort of,
52:08
SPEAKER_01: you know, stereotypes about certain people or something like that.
52:12
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, so I always start by saying, hey, can I give you some feedback?
52:16
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, just to be clear, I'm not in any way assuming that you meant any harm by this.
52:21
SPEAKER_01: You know, I usually start with that.
52:24
SPEAKER_01: And make it really clear that I start by assuming that people don't realize
52:29
SPEAKER_01: that what they're saying is hurtful.
52:30
SPEAKER_01: Now, I'm not being some Pollyanna about this, Ibrahim.
52:33
SPEAKER_01: I'm not suggesting that there are times when it's obvious that people are hateful and hurtful.
52:39
SPEAKER_01: When people make statements that are grossly insulting to certain people
52:44
SPEAKER_01: or something like that,
52:45
SPEAKER_01: I'm not suggesting that,
52:48
SPEAKER_01: like I said, being a Pollyanna But for the most part, that's not what we deal with.
52:52
SPEAKER_01: My experience has been very few people wake up in the morning and say,
52:55
SPEAKER_01: how can I suppress women and people of color today?
52:57
SPEAKER_01: I mean, sadly,
52:58
SPEAKER_01: we've got some of those people in governmental positions right now,
53:01
SPEAKER_01: but as a rule, that's not what people do.
53:04
SPEAKER_01: And my experience has been that when we can give people feedback in a healthy way,
53:08
SPEAKER_01: and I know that this theme of feedback keeps coming up,
53:11
SPEAKER_01: coming up,
53:11
SPEAKER_01: coming up,
53:12
SPEAKER_01: but we can learn to give that feedback in a healthy way by saying, Look,
53:15
SPEAKER_01: I want to start by just like,
53:16
SPEAKER_01: you know, look, any fundamental feedback tool starts with using iMessages, right?
53:21
SPEAKER_01: This is how it affected me.
53:22
SPEAKER_01: Not you are this, but this is how it affected me.
53:26
SPEAKER_01: You know,
53:27
SPEAKER_01: I just felt like that decision,
53:28
SPEAKER_01: the way we made that decision,
53:31
SPEAKER_01: the way it hit me was that it would make it harder for a woman rather than a man.
53:35
SPEAKER_01: Well, really, why?
53:37
SPEAKER_01: We didn't mean to do that.
53:38
SPEAKER_01: Why?
53:39
SPEAKER_01: Well, let me tell you why I think that might make it harder.
53:42
SPEAKER_01: Oh, gosh, I never thought about that.
53:44
SPEAKER_01: You know, those kinds of conversations are more likely to happen than when we're accusatory.
53:48
SPEAKER_01: Now, to be fair,
53:49
SPEAKER_01: I understand how it can become accusatory for some people,
53:52
SPEAKER_01: because if you've been dealing with sexism your whole life,
53:55
SPEAKER_01: at some point you have a pretty short fuse,
53:57
SPEAKER_01: understandably, when it comes up time and time again.
54:00
SPEAKER_01: And, you know, I don't want to unfairly put the burden on just the people who are affected.
54:05
SPEAKER_01: And that's why I think it's really important when you're on a team
54:08
SPEAKER_01: that people not only speak up for themselves,
54:10
SPEAKER_01: but also when they see it influencing other people.
54:14
SPEAKER_01: We know that one of the things we've heard about so often,
54:18
SPEAKER_01: and I think you mentioned this earlier,
54:20
SPEAKER_01: somebody says something in a meeting,
54:21
SPEAKER_01: and let's say a woman says something in a meeting,
54:23
SPEAKER_01: and nobody notices,
54:24
SPEAKER_01: and 10 minutes later a guy says the same thing,
54:27
SPEAKER_01: and everybody says, oh, what a wonderful idea.
54:29
SPEAKER_01: And to have a third person at a meeting that says,
54:32
SPEAKER_01: wait a second, didn't Linda just say that 10 minutes ago?
54:35
SPEAKER_01: Didn't she just say the same thing?
54:37
SPEAKER_01: Can be enormously helpful so that Linda doesn't have to always be doing it for herself.
54:42
SPEAKER_01: So I think that's where team comes in.
54:44
SPEAKER_01: I think we have a collective commitment to support each other,
54:46
SPEAKER_01: to coach each other,
54:47
SPEAKER_01: and coming from a coaching standpoint rather than a gotcha standpoint.
54:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
54:53
SPEAKER_00: And like you say, speak up.
54:56
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
54:57
SPEAKER_00: And it's going to create tension, but at least speak up.
55:01
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
55:02
SPEAKER_01: Well, the reality is not speaking up creates even deeper tension.
55:06
SPEAKER_01: And that's what people don't realize.
55:08
SPEAKER_01: That's so true.
55:09
SPEAKER_00: That's so true.
55:10
SPEAKER_00: Do you think there's a danger that organizations focus too much on diversity numbers
55:18
SPEAKER_00: and not enough on what actually happens to people once they are inside
55:27
SPEAKER_00: the organization?
55:28
SPEAKER_01: Oh, sure.
55:29
SPEAKER_01: Very much so.
55:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think this is where the difference between diversity,
55:33
SPEAKER_01: inclusion, and belonging come in.
55:36
SPEAKER_01: I like to say that diversity is being invited to the dance.
55:41
SPEAKER_01: Inclusion is being allowed to dance,
55:43
SPEAKER_01: actually, and belonging is actually being able to choose some of the music.
55:50
SPEAKER_01: I think that a lot of the early diversity work that was done was all about hiring,
55:55
SPEAKER_01: and it was needed because there were people who had been excluded from
55:58
SPEAKER_01: the workplace, and so people put a big intention on to hire people.
56:01
SPEAKER_01: And then they had these environments where people would come in,
56:03
SPEAKER_01: but they still weren't treated with any kind of equity or equanimity for
56:07
SPEAKER_01: that matter.
56:08
SPEAKER_01: And so they were frustrated, ended up leaving, or they weren't successful in the organization.
56:13
SPEAKER_01: And then we get to the next level,
56:14
SPEAKER_01: we say, okay, we're going to bring them in and we're going to create cultures.
56:17
SPEAKER_01: And this is the kind of work that you and I,
56:18
SPEAKER_01: of course, believe in, this systematically create cultures of inclusion.
56:22
SPEAKER_01: But the people at the top are still pretty much homogeneous.
56:25
SPEAKER_01: You know, they're still the ones making the decision.
56:27
SPEAKER_01: So, I mean,
56:28
SPEAKER_01: I think we have to realize at all levels that that's the case,
56:30
SPEAKER_01: that just having people in the room isn't it if they can't play,
56:35
SPEAKER_01: you know, if they can't dance.
56:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
56:39
SPEAKER_01: Or if they're only allowed to dance to certain songs.
56:44
SPEAKER_00: You have to work with it at every level.
56:48
SPEAKER_01: That's right.
56:48
SPEAKER_01: That's exactly right.
56:49
SPEAKER_00: Of the organization.
56:51
SPEAKER_00: Howard, let's say tomorrow you become the CEO, the leader of a large organization.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: And the goal of the company is to build stronger teams, greater trust, and fairer decisions.
57:11
SPEAKER_00: What are the first three things you would do to reach your goals?
57:18
SPEAKER_01: First of all,
57:18
SPEAKER_01: I would declare my commitment to the organization about the kind of culture
57:23
SPEAKER_01: that I'm committed to having here.
57:25
SPEAKER_01: So everybody knows where we're headed.
57:28
SPEAKER_01: Then I would, secondly, I would then do an assessment.
57:33
SPEAKER_01: Now there are lots of ways to do assessments.
57:34
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to.
57:35
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't necessarily prescribe one way or the other.
57:37
SPEAKER_01: It depends on the size of the organization.
57:38
SPEAKER_01: But I'm going to gather some information to get a sense of where we are now
57:44
SPEAKER_01: and what's the path between where we are now and where we need to get to.
57:48
SPEAKER_01: And then the third is then to look at that gap between where we are and where we want to get to.
57:54
SPEAKER_01: And develop a strategy for moving forward.
57:57
SPEAKER_01: What are the systems that we need to change?
57:59
SPEAKER_01: Is there education needed in the system?
58:01
SPEAKER_01: You know, are there different communication strategies or styles that we need?
58:05
SPEAKER_01: Do we need to teach people feedback skills?
58:08
SPEAKER_01: You know, all these things come from doing that gap analysis.
58:11
SPEAKER_01: You know,
58:11
SPEAKER_01: when we analyze the gap between where we are and where we need to be or
58:14
SPEAKER_01: where we want to be.
58:15
SPEAKER_01: And then that becomes then,
58:17
SPEAKER_01: in essence, it's a strategic plan or the business plan for us moving forward.
58:22
SPEAKER_00: Is there something I should have asked you, Howard?
58:28
SPEAKER_01: I can't think of anything offhand.
58:30
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm sure,
58:30
SPEAKER_01: of course,
58:31
SPEAKER_01: you and I could, look,
58:32
SPEAKER_01: you and I could talk for hours and hours and hours,
58:33
SPEAKER_01: but I think we've had a good job of covering your work.
58:37
SPEAKER_01: But I guess,
58:38
SPEAKER_01: I would like to speak about one last thing,
58:39
SPEAKER_01: and that is sort of the mental state that people have about this work right now,
58:44
SPEAKER_01: because I think it's a difficult time for people who really care about this work and
58:48
SPEAKER_01: for people who do the work.
58:53
SPEAKER_01: What I would have to call this campaign against,
58:55
SPEAKER_01: this terrorist campaign against DE&I,
58:57
SPEAKER_01: which obviously is coming from, I mean,
59:00
SPEAKER_01: for anybody who's really,
59:02
SPEAKER_01: you know,
59:02
SPEAKER_01: tells the truth, you have to admit it's coming from somewhat nefarious place.
59:05
SPEAKER_01: This is obviously a reactive thing.
59:07
SPEAKER_01: It's designed to hurt and, in fact, was intentionally done to hurt certain people.
59:13
SPEAKER_01: And we know that that's going on right now.
59:15
SPEAKER_01: And so for a lot of people, you know, they're struggling with that.
59:17
SPEAKER_01: And what does that mean about the future?
59:19
SPEAKER_01: And I think it's really important for us to remember.
59:21
SPEAKER_01: This is where having...
59:23
SPEAKER_01: Having the benefit of 45 years of history in this field really is helpful
59:28
SPEAKER_01: because this may be the worst time,
59:30
SPEAKER_01: but it's not the first time that people have gone after this work.
59:33
SPEAKER_01: And I think that we have to be careful as people are being intentionally critical
59:40
SPEAKER_01: and intentionally trying to take it down that we don't block the notion
59:42
SPEAKER_01: that there still may be some things, in fact, that we didn't do well.
59:46
SPEAKER_01: And there are certain things that we tried that we We're counterproductive.
59:50
SPEAKER_01: And even if we were well-intentioned in trying them, they contributed to this.
59:55
SPEAKER_01: Now, on the other hand,
59:56
SPEAKER_01: that doesn't mean that the fact that this
59:59
SPEAKER_01: a terrorist campaign is still not happening,
1:00:01
SPEAKER_01: but we don't want to use that to become victimized by it.
1:00:04
SPEAKER_01: Instead,
1:00:04
SPEAKER_01: we want to look and say, okay,
1:00:05
SPEAKER_01: what are we learning about what works and didn't work and continue to move forward?
1:00:09
SPEAKER_01: And most importantly, to recognize that DE&I was never the issue.
1:00:14
SPEAKER_01: Doing DE&I work was never the issue.
1:00:16
SPEAKER_01: The issue was creating environments And DE&I is a tool that can help us get there.
1:00:33
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:00:33
SPEAKER_01: if that's not the tool that we have available to us,
1:00:35
SPEAKER_01: then we need to find other tools,
1:00:37
SPEAKER_01: team building,
1:00:38
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:00:38
SPEAKER_01: leadership development,
1:00:40
SPEAKER_01: decision-making skills,
1:00:41
SPEAKER_01: feedback skills, like you said, you know, all of these things.
1:00:45
SPEAKER_01: And so I think that it's important for people to recognize that this is a time
1:00:51
SPEAKER_01: when we need to,
1:00:52
SPEAKER_01: you know,
1:00:52
SPEAKER_01: regroup, see what's needed and try to provide it in whatever ways necessary.
1:00:56
SPEAKER_01: And frankly, I don't care what you call it.
1:00:59
SPEAKER_01: You know,
1:01:00
SPEAKER_01: I've said so many times to people in the D&I space,
1:01:03
SPEAKER_01: you can call it Eleanor for what I want,
1:01:05
SPEAKER_01: that somebody said to me recently, maybe we'll start calling it Eleanor.
1:01:09
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, you can put any name on it.
1:01:10
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter what you call it.
1:01:11
SPEAKER_01: The important thing is to not forget what the end game is.
1:01:15
SPEAKER_01: Not forget.
1:01:16
SPEAKER_01: And this is challenging sometimes for human beings.
1:01:18
SPEAKER_01: You know, this is what we do sometimes.
1:01:19
SPEAKER_01: It's like we have something we're committed to.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_01: We create a strategy for getting there.
1:01:24
SPEAKER_01: And then we get committed instead of to the end result, we get committed to the strategy.
1:01:29
SPEAKER_01: So I know People who've become runners because they wanted to get healthy.
1:01:33
SPEAKER_01: And then they became committed runners and their hips started to bother them.
1:01:36
SPEAKER_01: But they had to keep running and they blew out their hips.
1:01:38
SPEAKER_01: So now they can't do anything, you know.
1:01:41
SPEAKER_01: We have to remember what the end game is that we're working towards and always check in.
1:01:45
SPEAKER_01: Is this going to serve getting us to there?
1:01:48
SPEAKER_01: Is this going to produce the result we want?
1:01:51
SPEAKER_01: And that's how I think we educate ourselves into understanding the outcomes of
1:01:56
SPEAKER_01: the things that we take on.
1:01:59
SPEAKER_00: I want to thank you for your commitment to this field because for me it
1:02:05
SPEAKER_00: about creating psychological safe environments,
1:02:10
SPEAKER_00: creating a level playing field for everybody to feel included and to thrive and
1:02:15
SPEAKER_00: to have equal opportunity.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_00: And you've done some amazing work in this field and so I want to thank you for that, Howard.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_01: Very kind of you.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, brother.
1:02:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, thank you, sir.
1:02:30
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
1:02:31
SPEAKER_00: Howard, two more questions.
1:02:33
SPEAKER_00: Sure.
1:02:34
SPEAKER_00: Number one, what's up?
1:02:36
SPEAKER_00: What are you doing these days?
1:02:37
SPEAKER_00: What about the book?
1:02:39
SPEAKER_01: The big push right now is for us to get this book out into the world.
1:02:43
SPEAKER_01: As you know from our previous conversations,
1:02:45
SPEAKER_01: one of the things that we did in this book is to really focus on How
1:02:49
SPEAKER_01: the technologies that are influencing so much,
1:02:53
SPEAKER_01: AI, social media, et cetera, are influenced by bias and are in fact expanding bias.
1:02:59
SPEAKER_01: And so my son Jake,
1:03:01
SPEAKER_01: who I know you interviewed as well,
1:03:04
SPEAKER_01: who has a lot of expertise in the technologies and AI is particularly looking at
1:03:09
SPEAKER_01: that because It's fascinating that what we're seeing is that AI is
1:03:13
SPEAKER_01: an incredible bias spreader for many reasons,
1:03:16
SPEAKER_01: but two of the major ones is that,
1:03:18
SPEAKER_01: first of all, it's so obsequious, it makes us feel so good that we tend to trust it.
1:03:22
SPEAKER_01: And secondly, because we know it's more knowledgeable than us.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_01: But we also know that,
1:03:27
SPEAKER_01: you know, Grock,
1:03:30
SPEAKER_01: for example,
1:03:31
SPEAKER_01: is constantly putting things out that are different than other AI systems.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_01: They always tend to be more dismissive of things like diversity.
1:03:39
SPEAKER_01: Not surprisingly, it's Elon Musk's AI than other AIs do.
1:03:44
SPEAKER_01: So we just have to be really careful as we get into these new technologies,
1:03:48
SPEAKER_01: not fall into the lap that because it's a computer, it's not susceptible to bias.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_01: Not true.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_01: It's just simply not true.
1:03:56
SPEAKER_01: We are just as susceptible to bias, in fact, even more so in using technology.
1:04:00
SPEAKER_01: So that's one of the big things that we're doing is getting that out there.
1:04:03
SPEAKER_01: And then the second thing,
1:04:04
SPEAKER_01: I think,
1:04:05
SPEAKER_01: is making sure people don't let this whole anti-DE and IFA stop us from doing
1:04:10
SPEAKER_01: the work that we need to do to create environments of psychological safety
1:04:14
SPEAKER_01: and effective environments for all people to create and be present to a sense
1:04:19
SPEAKER_01: of belonging that will enhance their ability to do their work effectively.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_00: Hmm.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
1:04:25
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much, Howard.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're very welcome.
1:04:28
SPEAKER_00: Howard, the last question.
1:04:29
SPEAKER_00: I asked you this question in December last year.
1:04:31
SPEAKER_00: I'll ask it again.
1:04:33
SPEAKER_00: One advice for a better, more meaningful life.
1:04:43
SPEAKER_01: One.
1:04:44
SPEAKER_01: Only one.
1:04:46
SPEAKER_01: After I say this, you'll have to remind me of what I said last time.
1:04:48
SPEAKER_01: But I think right now, what occurs to me,
1:04:55
SPEAKER_01: Is to recognize that our discord with other people is almost always generated by fear.
1:05:01
SPEAKER_01: And that we have an alternative, which is to come from love and acceptance and understanding.
1:05:07
SPEAKER_01: And that when we have that immediate reaction to people,
1:05:11
SPEAKER_01: to stop, to pause, and to come from a different place.
1:05:17
SPEAKER_01: And that's true with our partners, our children.
1:05:21
SPEAKER_01: It's true with our coworkers.
1:05:23
SPEAKER_01: It's true with the neighbor next door.
1:05:25
SPEAKER_01: Now, that doesn't mean that you may not find out if you try that the person is hostile.
1:05:30
SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
1:05:31
SPEAKER_01: You know, maybe that happens.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_01: You can't love everybody.
1:05:33
SPEAKER_01: But at least you give a chance for humanity to occur.
1:05:36
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what we could do and should do as best we can.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:05:41
SPEAKER_00: Fear paralyzes us.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
1:05:44
SPEAKER_01: And it causes reactivity.
1:05:46
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
1:05:51
SPEAKER_00: Howard, my friend, my brother, thank you so much for coming and joining Speaking of Meaning.
1:05:56
SPEAKER_01: Ibrahim Salaam, brother.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_01: I just, I think, I love what you're up to and it's always good to be with you.
1:06:03
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to Speaking of Meaning.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_00: If today's episode helped you see communication in a new way,
1:06:10
SPEAKER_00: share it with someone you care about,
1:06:12
SPEAKER_00: a friend, a partner or a colleague who wants to grow.
1:06:16
SPEAKER_00: And don't forget to follow the podcast so you never miss an episode.
1:06:20
SPEAKER_00: I'm Ibrahim.
1:06:21
SPEAKER_00: Until next time, better communication, greater impact.