Making unconscious bias more conscious
A while back, I was at an event and connected with someone new. Part of the intention of this event was to have more meaningful and honest conversations. In the spirit of that, this person shared that initially, they held an unconscious assumption that we wouldn’t have much in common because I looked foreign, and how they were confronted with their own unconscious bias after we had a conversation and realised how much we did have in common. This person said they were trying to practice noticing and naming their unconscious biases more to make them more conscious.
I was so impressed with this person’s awareness. The truth is as they mentioned their unconscious bias, I realised I made a similar unconscious leap about someone else in the room that night and I hadn’t even clocked it until this conversation. I loved this person's courage in bringing that up, and their discernment in gauging that I would be receptive and open to that.
This has made me think a lot about the unconscious assumptions I make regularly. As much as I’d like to consider myself pretty aware, my brain is susceptible to unconscious cognitive biases. This interaction showed me how transformative it can be to normalise that and bring it to conscious awareness.
I remember facilitating a session on unconscious bias with a team a while back and someone asked how we identify these biases if they're unconscious. The best way to make the unconscious conscious is to be deliberate about putting our awareness on it. We can do that by asking questions and checking in with people, investing time in building team cultures where it is safe for people to speak up, consciously noting our biases when our first impressions are proven wrong, etc. All these small actions accumulate into a big change over time.
More than anything, normalising naming our unconscious bias especially in the context of a team goes a long way. When I worked at August, we did this especially well. It was a team effort to remain conscious and check ourselves and each other in our blind spots. I remember a colleague telling me the photos I used in a presentation did not represent diversity; I've taken that feedback with me into every presentation. I remember reviewing candidates after an interview and the ways in which we tempered our temptation to be swayed too much by a candidate's confidence, especially when they were a white, cis-male. We invested in learning about institutional racism and understanding how we all play an unconscious part in keeping that alive and had conversations about how that played out. We were far from perfect, but it was pretty special to be a part of a team that took on this effort together.
The more we invested in learning and normalising and challenging each other productively, the more we made the unconscious conscious. All this still only scratches the surface because this stuff runs so deep and is standing on the foundation of an inherently racist human history. But the more we spend time chipping away at it, the more we can start to turn the dial. There are unfortunately no magic bullets or special formulas. But in good news, the change relies on something we can all do- being courageous enough to notice when we've made a false leap and having meaningful conversations about it.
