Recognizing And Managing Your Unconscious Bias

John: You’re listening to The Present Professional, where we explore the intersections of personal and professional development.

Tony: To change your experience of life and work with every episode.

John: So tune in, grab your notebook, and let’s go. Let’s go.

Tony: Welcome to another episode of The Present Professional. On this episode, we’re going to be diving into all things unconscious bias and how you can start to recognize your own and how you can start to make different choices in the moment and start to transcend some of these natural tendencies that we have in the workplace, at home, out in society, just so we can build really a more connected world. And the first thing that we want to talk about is the fact that it’s natural. You have to give yourself grace and accept that being a part of your group and looking towards folks that were like you, that had the same tendencies, that looked the same, were less of a threat when you were fighting to be a part of the tribe. When you were fighting to be a part of the nomadic tribe, it literally kept you alive. Right staying within that so it’s first is just giving yourself grace and understanding that everyone has an Inherent bias like everyone is naturally more comfortable around people that look like them They’re naturally more comfortable around people that think like them and it creates this sense of safety that have been conditioned over really over you know evolution and then over just Within our own upbringing as well, right? Just you have your family your extended family that you start with in the comfort of being raised So give yourself grace in that nature and I’ll let I’ll let Tony speak on that a little bit here before we move into a little bit more of the thinking behind that

John: Yeah, like you said, you got to give yourself grace. I mean, unconscious bias is something that we subconsciously adapt to just kind of with our upbringing. Like, you know, you were raised in a household, you’re raised in a community, and a lot of times those communities are homogenous, meaning that they’re the same. Because a lot, yeah, I think about it, when you think about a community, usually most people in the community are in the same income bracket. So regardless of race, we’re talking about just social class. So that is its own subculture. One thing I love about understanding unconscious bias and understanding where we are as people is that we have a trust factor or trust issues amongst different cultures and that brings one of the biggest pieces of unconscious bias. That’s one of the biggest troubling pieces is overcoming that trust factor and understanding that just because you may not be able to relate to someone on a regular basis, that doesn’t mean that they’re untrustworthy. And I think that goes in many ways. It’s, will they accept me? Are they going to allow me to be who I am? And that’s a two-way street. Most times people are not so untrusting as you may think. A lot of times people actually would love to embrace someone who’s in a different culture than them, but we just naturally just stay within our own cliques and stay within our own people. I love that unconscious bias is just so natural. I mean, you touched on it in most of your opening, but I just want to reinforce that we all have a bias behavior. It doesn’t matter race. It doesn’t matter gender. It doesn’t matter sexual orientation. We all just naturally have this biasness towards difference. I always think of this quote, I always say sometimes that we hate what we can’t understand. And so when you can’t understand another person’s culture, you just disregard it. But if you were actually able to just kind of approach it like an anthropologist, meaning that you approach it like, you know, I’m here to learn, I’m here to adapt, I’m here to listen, I’m here to understand what makes these people these people. Even if it’s a party or a different social environment, it’s always an opportunity to learn. So I just want to chime in with that, man, and then we can dive into some of the deeper topics whenever you’re ready.

Tony: Yeah, of course. The one thing I wanted to hit was from Daniel Kahneman’s book, thinking fast and slow. I think it does a great job of differentiating the two parts of the brain that, well, really the first part where unconscious bias comes from that he refers to as system one in the book. And what this means is, you know, it’s more of your automatic brain. So the brain that saw the lion and started running before you even had to put together, you know, before you even had to put together a plan, right? it’s the associated with the limbic system or specifically the amygdala and really all that what that means is it’s your fight-or-flight response it’s your fear your fear response center in the brain that’s closest to your closest to your spinal column so it will get your muscles to move more rapidly. That’s why sometimes you can feel before you even have the time to process a thought, you can feel discomfort in your body first because system two is your more executive functioning part of the brain, your frontal cortex, like the part that developed that has really made us into like higher processing beings, like higher thinking beings, like being able to make the tough choice. Like when the tough choice is not the quickest choice, right? It’s the calculated, it’s the calculated choices. It’s the, Values that you stand behind and who you want to be like over what’s naturally occurring So it could be the choice that you know, you want to create a more inclusive integrated culture and that’s something that you value like that you value getting to know other cultures and Getting a little uncomfortable just to expand your consciousness to expand your experience, you know through the through experiencing others and that’s a choice that system to has to make and The initial discomfort and noticing that in your body and noticing that that’s just an inherent natural reaction and now how do I notice that and then make a choice from the executive brain. That comes back to self-awareness. We’re always going to be popping back to self-awareness. That little gap between stimulus and response is where you can choose to act from that system two part of the brain, the frontal cortex choice of saying, you know what, maybe I’ll ask to learn a little bit more about this person. Maybe I’ll wait and consider all candidates in the same light and know that I already have a natural bias towards the ones that are like me, like you mentioned. The natural side of things and you know, this book does a really good job of delineating all of the irrational choices that humans make and It’s really really fascinating. So Listeners, I would highly recommend you check it out. It’s it’s kind of a long read but you learn some really really amazing things about human decision-making and really why we do what we do and so I just wanted to bring that up to say that expand a little bit more into the neuroscience of the it being natural right and the natural tendency of of the survival mode. So system one always comes first and it’s mostly unconscious, right? That’s what kept us alive. That’s what kept, that was the, where the survival mechanisms are. But then moving to system two is what helped us develop the world that we live in now. It’s what helped us develop technology, which helps us develop societies, helped us develop language. It’s the higher order thinking. So that’s where we want to move. And we’re going to go through some ways that you can start to move into that. You can start to disassociate some of the fear with folks that are different from you, with systems that are different from you. And I think that’s kind of where we’ll move here for the rest of the show. So. The first one we wanted to talk about is really moving yourself into demystifying the experience. And what I mean by that is putting yourself in situations that you wouldn’t naturally tend towards, right? You just think about the group of people you know, if you’re listening right now, you think about a group of people you come upon, you know, as you’re a complete stranger in a strange land, new country or new state or something. And the people that would be, you know, a breath of fresh air, you walked into this group, you know, that, Oh, okay. Like I can, I can wiggle my way in here pretty easily. I’m already kind of naturally comfortable. Now think of the group that you’d be tiptoeing into the room with and looking around, kind of feeling a little out of place. But really, it’s take that group and go find them. Immerse yourself in that environment and see what happens. And you immerse yourself in that environment with compassion, with curiosity, like Tony mentioned before, just, you know, like an anthropologist. I love that. I come here to learn more about people, but not that you’re in there studying them. that you’re in there immersing yourself as a fellow human being. And through that, you’re learning. Through that, you’re learning more about them. Through that, you’re decoupling this fear response from folks that are not like you. So it really takes the work to make a choice, to put yourself in that environment and make it a habit. And the more you get comfortable with the naturally uncomfortable, you’ll start to see some of these tendencies fall away and a little bit easier to grab for those system two thoughts and behaviors.

John: Yeah, I love the science that you brought up behind unconscious bias and how some of the ways you can work to eliminate it and work through it a bit. I was reading an article about unconscious bias and racism also, and some of the standpoints that unconscious bias looks at as far as a definition. I know we’ve already defined it in some ways, but I just want to reinforce again that People are mostly unaware of their bias. It’s deeply ingrained, so you really have to work really hard at changing. It influences attitudes, and it probably influences behavior, and it can be measured. At least it can be quantified. And, you know, with unconscious bias, there’s one group that this article touches on that probably doesn’t want to change. So what I want to say is, I’ll preface this by saying most of us, especially listening to this podcast, are probably not in this group. So I’m bringing this group up to say that if you are not in this group, then you can certainly change your unconscious bias. And that group is called aversive racists. So aversive racism, in this article, it proposes that those are people who are proud of their lack of prejudicedness. They’re bold and they’re bolsterous in their negative beliefs about other racial groups and that stems from their own socio-cultural influences. So it’s kind of like you were brought up this way, you’re proud of it, and you love it, and you embrace it, and it is what it is. I’m never going to change and you’re proud and bolsterous about that. And that doesn’t, that’s not one particular group. That can be anyone. Any group can be bolsterously racist. So I wanna make sure that the listeners know that, again, if you’re listening to the present professional and you’ve come along this journey this far, you probably are not in that group. 99.9% believe that. So all this information that we’re saying, you can definitely work to change. A lot of us have unconscious bias because of what the article touches on, which is modern racism or colorblind racism or symbolic racism, which is the way that the society is constructed. You don’t question things because the way that it’s constructed and it’s like, oh man, I never thought of that like that. Let me work to change. That’s where most of us fall into that category. So in order to do that and demystify the experience, another thing that you have to do is make strides towards changing your behavior so that you can develop a diverse network. And it’s uncomfortable. Like John said, when he was giving that visual of walking into the room and you have one room where you’re very comfortable and the other room where you’re not comfortable, I immediately could feel myself in those rooms and trying to figure out how I’m going to navigate through that social setting. But it’s uncomfortable and it’s uncomfortable on purpose and I think that You know, for me, I’ve been in a lot of scenarios, a lot of social settings where I’ve been uncomfortable. But the more than I’m uncomfortable, the better I am with people. I’m going to say that again in case you didn’t catch that. The more than I’m uncomfortable, the better I am with people. And I think that that can go for anybody. So what you have to do to develop a diverse network is go to things that you normally wouldn’t go to. Go to events, go to social gatherings that you just pretty much just show up just because of the topic or because you like what the presentation had to offer. You don’t go because of who’s there. You’re not even thinking about who’s there. So funny that that’s how John and I met. He saw our event for our nonprofit in 2015, 2016 on a think tank for millennials. And he just showed up and showed out. We just, you know, we’ve already talked about it in previous episodes, but that’s how we connected. But that’s how you build your diverse network is you show up because of what the subject matter is. For me, I’m currently doing that in my doctoral program. It’s not about the group of people. It’s not about the race. I don’t really care about all that. I’m here because I have a purpose for being here. And that’s how you have to work to develop your network. And as I’m doing that, not just in my doctoral work, but when I do that period in community or if I do that in any other social setting, I actually make connections with all types of people just because of what I bring or because of what they bring and that is how you develop that diverse network so that you can work to eliminate your unconscious bias. The more people that you associate yourself with that you’re not usually around, which you could call maybe a heterogeneous network, where it’s very diverse and it’s all different types of people, your unconscious bias will start to eliminate itself because you’ll realize that Brad here and Steven here are alike. They just don’t look the same. And you’ll realize that we all have problems. We all have goals. We all have different ways of having fun. I mean, that’s because we’re all human. So, you know, get uncomfortable and be okay with getting uncomfortable and I would say where I try to live is I try to live in the uncomfortable. I think every day I’m always uncomfortable in some way. So try to take that with you and just be okay with that. The more we age, the older we get, the more we have to put ourselves in uncomfortable situations if we want to call ourselves leaders.

Tony: And I think I love everything that you said about The comfort level and I wanted to bring up I wanted to bring I feel like we’ve been you know on Just kind of naturally trending towards, you know race and culture and you know, there’s there’s also You know sexual orientation gender and you know see a lot of you know that show up in the workplace as well as kind of you know people you know some folks feeling like you know strangers in their own land just because you know they they feel that maybe they’re you know, not in the same, you know, not in the same way as everyone else around them and maybe not comfortable being their true selves. Right. And, you know, that’s like having friends that are, you know, of different sexual orientation. Having friends that are women, you know, if you’re if you’re a man like that’s that’s okay, right? Like it’s in a lot of things that show up in the workplace as well. Right? I mean, I remember, you know, I remember seeing, you know, men step up and just interrupt interrupt women right in the middle of sentence in a meeting. I remember seeing a lot of mansplaining going on. I remember seeing a lot of things that were said to women that I noticed in the workplace. Like one was, uh, like, you know, maybe you could smile more or something like feedback that a girl got. And I was like, but, and it was funny, it was like, but if it was a man, it’s like, oh, you know, he’s just like serious and about his business, you know, but the feedback landed differently for the girl because it’s like, oh, well then what, then she’s just mad, you know, because she’s not smiling. Mm hmm. You know, that that is that feedback itself was unconscious bias, like living within that manager. Right. That, you know, oh, because you’re not smiling, what that’s not can’t connect with people and can’t, you know, do a great job. You know, I think there are a lot of things that go between gender roles and work. And, you know, I think we’ve made a lot of strides to, you know, bringing that up to equality, you know, over the past decade. And, you know, I think we’ve made a lot of strides but we still have a long way to go and you know i do want to also shout out to like some of the amazing amazing female managers and you know co-workers that i had and that you know the females that i work with even today are like incredible and I’ve actually you know I was blessed my first my first team out of college was majority women actually on my pricing team and they were all amazing you know and it was and it kind of went like that throughout my career I was blessed with having you know really really powerful women that I worked with and You know, I think that, you know, that’s something that having that opinion at the table, especially as we move up into, you know, more leadership roles. And, you know, we may be may have been diverse down at the employee level and, you know, mid-level management even. But then, you know, getting up, getting up into the C-suite, you know, that’s where we still need some more infiltration and diversity, diversity of thought. background, culture, gender, and you know, there’s having diverse thought like produces the best product, period. So I just wanted to bring that up. So we, you know, just because that is, you know, that’s a big, that’s a big thing as well. And in addition to race.

John: Yeah, there’s stats behind that. There’s data behind that. Your product is better when you have diversity in it, period.

Tony: Mm-hmm. And then you know wanted to give some some quick tips here on just just checking checking your thinking and Even if you feel like it’s just a natural decision, you know whether you’re in the office or you know Whether you’re saying something at home like just question the first thing that comes to your mind You know question your first instinct and what that can look like is, you know, maybe rereading an email that you’re sending and And ask yourself, what would I have said if I was sending this to a man? What would I have said if I’m sending this to a woman? What would I have said if I’m sending this to my friend? Sure, there are different settings. And you adjust your energy and your voice to match with the setting, to match the tone. When you write it, pause, maybe even put that minute or two delay on the email send, and take a look. Question your first instinct of what you wrote down. And then that will translate into, think before you speak. So question the first thing that you go to say. Where is this coming from? And then say you check it. And this isn’t, I don’t want to go against your intuition. This is different than questioning your intuition. It’s more about when you’re making a judgment call that you do it without evaluation. If you’re doing it without evaluating anything, you’re coming from system one. you know where your bias lives so once you question your first thought consider other possibilities and even ask for a contradictory opinion so this can happen to meeting rooms a lot where you know one you know one boisterous person that is usually outspoken comes up with the first idea You know and that’s kind of the plan and everyone just kind of falls in line with you know This which is you know, usually usually a guy usually you know someone that speaks often it feels that you know his Opinion or his or her opinion is usually the one that rides and people like will typically fall in line But where there is a unanimous agreement in a meeting or unanimous agreement on something consider asking for someone to contradict the opinion in that room without moving on until someone objects in some way. And even if it’s just theoretical, it’s just so you don’t get in this group think of just falling into one opinion, which could be one bias opinion. So I invite listeners to always invite contradiction into a unanimous decision, especially in the workplace.

John: That’s so powerful because when we’re in those settings at work, if you’re not conscious about that or you’re not present to that, and you are in a room where you have that one person who’s the loudest or that one person who’s always right or who always has something to say or is basically the de facto leader. A lot of times we don’t question that person because they just, this is what it is and we just kind of let it roll. But I mean, that’s the beauty of diversity of thought is where you say, no, I mean, I don’t, I’m not sure I agree with that. And you can back up your thoughts and have your own data points and your own reasoning to push back in the right way. That’s how we make change. I mean, that’s how we step into the C-suites. I think, you know, I was talking to someone months ago about how she feels like at work, she’s the angry black woman. And she wants to change that feeling, but she also, or not hurt that feeling, but she wants to change that persona, but she also wants to move up. And I asked her, I said, so what’s, give me some examples of some women that you know that are in those positions. And she gave me some examples and I said who I said, what’s their personality like and she said, oh man You know, she’s a she brought up this one particular woman. She said she’s a badass man She just goes in the room and she just she says what she says and no one cares she you know, she doesn’t care what anybody thinks about her and when she says what she has to say and And I said, well, that could be you. Maybe it’s in your mind that you feel like you have this persona that you’re carrying on, but in order to be the rock star that you want to be, you may have to get out of your own way. So, you know, hopefully that helps somebody else, because it really unlocks some things for her, is when we were talking about that, because the reality is that leadership sometimes is loud, but then sometimes you’re also asking for thought from others in a way that empowers other people. If you feel like you’re in a position where you need to express yourself more, carry that torch high and don’t be ashamed of challenging that de facto leader. Because honestly, they’re not always right and they don’t always have the answers. A lot of times it’s just the position that they’re in.

Tony: And I would just add that you know, carry the torch high in service because I feel like that takes a lot of the, you know, a lot of the angry energy out of it. Like you can, you can speak up, you can be assertive. And at the same time, like as a leader, you’re there to serve others. Like you’re there to win through your people. Right. And I think if you have that intention in mind, Whenever you go to speak, that you’re speaking in service, that gives the balanced approach to moving up in that regard. And one thing I wanted to say was that when you’re When you’re at that table as well, when you’re questioning the first thought and getting everyone’s thought at the table, another trick that you can use is when you show up in the meeting, and if you’re leading meetings especially, You can have everyone around the table, like write down what they feel like the outcome of this meeting could be, or write down their thoughts on the topic that you’re discussing before anyone speaks. At least write it down, write some key points and things and have everyone go around the room and give their thoughts and opinions before it’s just naturally led by the one boisterous person. So, Rather than asking for the contradictory thought at the end, you can also start your meetings with that as well. Like start with the diverse thought all around without judgment. You just go around the circle and have everyone share their opinion first, and then you can co-create from there. And everyone’s heard from the jump of the meeting.

John: Yeah, that’s some good real time tips there for people. You know, I want to talk about accountability in the unconscious bias journey. And, you know, the first thing before we talk about the actual tips you can you can do for this is that you should also acknowledge your ignorance and let that be OK. Because on the journey of self-awareness or even social awareness, let’s take it back to emotional intelligence a little bit. When it comes to unconscious bias, we have to realize that a lot of the things that we were taught were wrong. A lot of the ways that we were brought up to think about other people were inaccurate. And it’s not from one particular person. I’m not saying you should blame your mom or you should blame your grandma. I’m saying Society has taught us wrong. So, whomever it may have been, you should recognize that ignorance that you have embraced for so long, whether it’s been 30 years, 50 years, you know, maybe even 70 years of ignorance, just acknowledge to yourself at least. that man, that sure is an ignorant way to think about another person. And after you kind of start to acknowledge that, keep acknowledging those ignorances so that you can change. One of the keys to changing in any setting, whether it’s relationships, whether it’s unconscious bias, whether it’s social settings, is just knowing when you were wrong and being okay with knowing that you were wrong. That doesn’t mean you have to beat yourself up. You don’t have to walk around with the with the dark cloud over your head. You don’t have to broadcast this to the world, but one tip you can do is keep an accountability journal. And what that journal can look like is maybe it’s just thoughts. Maybe it’s in your phone. Maybe you have in your phone are your notes where you just kind of type out some things that you’ve now become aware of. Maybe you can label that note as new discoveries. or my new self, whatever it may be. And that’s for you to keep. You don’t have to share that in a social setting. Hey, I’m really on this journey of unconscious bias and I made this note of all my ignorance. It’s no, no, don’t do that. This is for you to change because growth happens individually. Growth happens internally first. And so recognize that. And once you have that accountability journal, act on it. Read, look at it. Look at it often. Use it often. And also, and this may sound a little aggressive, but in your journal, you can even write down people that you want to connect with, you want to make deeper relationships with that are different than you. You can say, man, you know, I really want to make a relationship with Amanda and I’m going to make an effort to make a relationship with Amanda and I’m going to listen more when Amanda speaks and I’m going to try to make some kind of commonality between Amanda and I because I know that we’re different and I want it to be genuine. So let me really work at this. A lot of times when you’re deepening your diverse network and you’re going through this unconscious bias journey, it takes work. It’s not gonna always happen organically, especially if you’re just at the beginning of your understanding of your new self. So I just wanna let people know that it’s okay to have a journal. It’s okay to walk through the process one day at a time, one step at a time, even one person at a time. If you only have one diverse friend, that’s okay. Keep working at it, and maybe that may be your only diverse friend, but you might wanna just have a really deep relationship with that person so that they can hold you accountable so you can grow. So, just want to throw those tips in there for accountability and stay at it. It’s a lifelong journey. It’s not a one year or this one job I have at this one company. No, it needs to be your life.

Tony: And, you know, I know that that was kind of the private side of things. And I agree that’s, you know, starting with yourself and starting in private is a beautiful way to, you know, start your accountability journey. But I think where you were, you know, where you were going with, you know, with your one friend or, you know, even a small group. like having an accountability partner can also be really helpful. And an accountability partner that’s an honest mirror, like not a supportive mirror that tells you what you want to hear to feel good, but an honest mirror that can naturally reflect back to you some blind spots that you’re not seeing. Right? They can reflect back to you something that you, you know, did or said or ignored in a meeting, right? So they can bring it into your awareness because, you know, having someone that helps you bring your unconscious thoughts or unconscious actions into your awareness, like now that’s a true accountability partner right there. like whether good, bad, no, it’s just information. And one last comment to, and one last topic to close us out here, I wanted to introduce the necessary foundation for all of this talk, for all of the Honest Mirrors, for the exploration of different people, for the checking of opinions, Like all of that, especially in the workplace requires an environment of psychological safety. Like there has to be a open and understood feeling that you can say what needs to be said, that you can check the opinion of a superior, right? That you can express that you felt unheard. in the room. And if you can express unconscious bias or uncomfortable conversations, if you can express that in the middle of the meeting, like with your team or at your organization, like that is the pinnacle. of growth like having a fertile ground where you can say you know where you can give your manager feedback in the meeting immediately to check to check some bias there or your teammates and it’s understood that you know this doesn’t mean good or bad this is just information so we can all be better and it’s not only that it has to be safe like you can say that you can put that on your wall right you can put that in your company values you can put that in an email, like this is how we, this is what we support here. But the way that you really bring that in to the organization and in your teams is championing that, is saying thank you. Feedback is a gift. It’s scary to give feedback to your superior. And if your superior responds to that as a gift, and that doesn’t mean that you have to accept every word of it. You can have a dialogue on that but with the understanding that we’re in this together to grow as a team, to grow as individuals in support of each other and as an organization. And then, so once you have that fertile ground, that’s where, you know, a lot of real true inclusion can occur, but it’s got to start with psychological safety and not just in writing, in behavior. Is there anything else you wanted to add on that? No, man.

John: That’s just real talk, man. That’s good information. You got to have those boundaries. The last thing I’ll say is just piggyback on everything today is don’t be afraid to just go on Netflix and just start watching some things about other cultures. You’d be surprised what you can learn from the good old visual encyclopedia of Netflix. You go in there and get you some culture and just watch some things that people put together. Documentaries are great, real time, historical documentaries, whatever they may be. It’s a great opportunity to learn and learn why people think the way they think and operate the way they do.

Tony: Yeah, I agree man exploring other cultures exploring other people and That’s one true north goal of this podcast is to promote connection and life and work your community Like the more that we can all come together and understand each other the better world that we’re going to live in so with that being said thank you guys so much for listening to another episode of the present professional and You can find details for this episode, other recommendations in the show notes. So that can be found at the presentprofessionalpodcast.com. You can follow us on Instagram at the presentprofessional. And Tony and I both can connect through there on all social platforms. So love to connect with you guys. Please rate us and review us on Apple Podcasts and anywhere else that you get your podcasts. And thanks again for coming. We’ll see you next week. on another episode of The Present Professional. Much love, my friends.