 "Battling unconscious biases")
Consider this. More than 60 per cent of the corporate CEOs in America have a height of over six feet, but only 15 per cent American men are taller than six feet.
Researchers at Yale University found that when asked to evaluate a job application with randomly assigned names, 200 faculty members consistently scored applications with a male name higher, not only with respect to competence but also in terms of their readiness to mentor and willingness to pay a far higher salary.
Can criteria like height or gender be seriously considered to evaluate a candidate? The thought is absurd and the answer a categorical "no", rationally speaking. It is obvious, therefore, that something is playing out a silent trick in the unconscious mind. The answer could lie in unconscious biases.
We are prone to developing biases - the filters through which we view the world - as a result of our environment and social conditioning. Conscious biases are prejudices we nurture for or against somebody in our full awareness. For instance, one of the jurors in the iconic film "Twelve Angry Men" sincerely believed that people living in slums were a potential menace to society.
Unconscious biases are rooted in the brain. Our brain is an amazing device. It is bombarded with an astronomical 11 million bits of information every second, while it is capacitated to process only 40 bits. How does the brain address this? It circumvents this by discerning and hardwiring patterns pertaining to people, situations and objects, and then leveraging these patterns while evaluating situations and making decisions. This allows us to perform routine activities like walking or running without having to consciously think about it, saving us time and effort.
The trouble starts when unconscious biases colour our people-related decisions. Affinity bias prompts us to gravitate towards those who are like us. For instance, while interviewing a candidate, the interviewer is likely to be positively predisposed towards one with whom he shares commonalities in terms of city, country, religion, community, alma mater and interests. This, in turn, would generate positive vibes or affirmations that are reflected in his body language, giving the candidate a sense of comfort, leading to better performance and final selection. Compare this with a candidate without a similar advantage. He might have been at par across all the job criteria, but may not have performed as well in the interview in the absence of a positive connect and a comforting environment.
Rajashree Nambiar, CEO, India Infoline Finance Ltd, has noticed similar unconscious biases based on community in the context of Indian companies, nationalities in multinationals and ethnicity favouring white, male Caucasians in the West. She has observed strong gender biases, frequently unconscious, during re-structuring exercises and consequent layoffs in organisations.
The impact
These biases tend to creep into decisions made at every stage of the employee life cycle - recruitment, promotion, compensation, assignment allocation and termination - influencing decisions in a way that favour some at the cost of others. Recruiting or promoting decisions, for instance, may be coloured by seemingly irrelevant factors like height, weight, colour, religion, ethnicity or gender, thus eroding the elements of fairness and objectivity. Unconsciously, as a result, we may be going against the grain of egalitarian values to which we might be consciously committed, with an obvious impact on people's careers.
Copious research confirms that unconscious biases are one of the underlying factors why women and other minority groups struggle to move up to enter the higher echelons of management.
Ways to mitigate
Bring unconscious biases to the conscious level through awareness sessions.
Second, bring in more objectivity in the processes related to the employee life cycle. For instance, identify relevant job related competence and standardise interview questions around these, besides anonymising CVs by stripping them off information like home town, religion, name and gender that are not relevant to the job performance, but could potentially invoke unconscious biases. In an interesting experiment it was found that more women got recruited when auditions for spots on an orchestra were carried out behind the curtain without disclosing the identity of the candidate.
Third, deliberate on decisions impacting important milestones in an employee's career through the collective wisdom of a panel of people, rather than depending on the discretion of a single individual.
Fourth, carry out a reality check by getting inputs from current and former employees, especially minority groups, to understand the biases they may have experienced.
A study by Brigham Young University shows that on an average women get a voice share of only 25 per cent in professional meetings. The leader, thus, needs to be a role model through an inclusive approach towards minority groups, giving them time and space to express themselves at meetings and other fora. These micro-affirmations, or small gestures of inclusion, would be picked up by others since people tend to take cues from the leader. Nambiar is striving for greater balance in her management team by consciously recruiting women specially in roles like operations, which because of its huge demand on time and commitment, is considered a male bastion.
Charu Sabnavis
Director, Delta Learning
Director, Delta Learning
