We all have prejudices we're not aware of; the key is to acknowledge their existence and make decisions in spite of those biases. In this path, Dr. Stefanie K. Johnson helps us understand what unconscious bias is and strategies we can use to mitigate that bias.
Diversify: Overcome Unconscious Bias
"My goal is not to stand here in bemoan all the problems with unconscious bias. Instead I want to focus on what's next. How do we mitigate unconscious bias? And so I've created the ABCs of breaking bias."
"A lot of organizations focus on being colorblind and gender blind - let's not talk about race and gender - and the research shows that that actually has the opposite effect as intended. It causes people to make more biased - more gender bias and racially biased - decisions. So let's just *admit it*"
"We took the names off the applications and one year after we blinded it, male evaluators actually rated female principal investigators the best of any group - it showed that there was a bias, and we got rid of it. This is especially effective during early stages of applications and many many companies are starting to use it. So the B in the ABCs of breaking bias is *blind it*."
"The C is *count it*. Any organizational initiative that improves company performance, impacts bottom-line outcomes - the company is going to set targets and they're going to measure their success. Why don't we do this with diversity? Well in fact some of the best companies in America do."
"The S is *support it* and that means everyone - not just women and minorities, because we know that that can cause them to be evaluated as less effective, but white men as well. This isn't a woman problem or a minority problem, it is an initiative that can overall improve global economic health and organizational performance."
Connect with Stefanie to learn more through her writing and work.
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