Sea Change

Like a fish that doesn't know it's wet, when we swim in bias long enough, we don't notice our worldview is all wet.

Prejudice, bias, and exclusionary behavior have always played a role in human society. Somehow, over time we did break down some of these deep-seated barriers, but it wasn't easy and it will never be easy. Although these older stereotypes still exist, they are not spoken about as much.

Fast-forward and now the population of the United States is trending 35 to 40 percent people of non-white races. This is a staggering increase in just 50 years and a trend that is going to continue.

This massive shift makes many uncomfortable and tests the boundaries of what we have learned about cultures, beliefs, and values. The conflict is inevitable as is the need to change.

The luxury of slow integration that existed in the past no longer exists.

Let's look at the demographics of Europe. By all accounts it has an aging population with declining birth rates. Immigrants are needed to fuel the economy. Migration of people with dramatically different cultures is happening fast with little time to digest those differences. The influx of new nationalities, religions, and race reveals a deep-seated fear—a fear that the ethnic culture of the European countries will be lost forever.

This frightens people and causes them to retreat to a safety mode—a natural mode that we now understand from studying neuroscience is deeply hard-wired in the brain.

The same reaction sometimes occurs when women invade what was traditionally male culture.

Young people today have been raised to believe they can achieve their dreams regardless of their race, gender, religion, sexual orientation, or age. But as a people we have not been able to get out of our own way in providing paths for a more inclusive society.

Have you heard this riddle?

A father and son were in a terrible car accident. The son was seriously injured, the father died. The son was rushed to the emergency room, where the doctor on call said, “I can't operate on this person because he is my son.” Who was the doctor?

Most people struggle with the answer. (The doctor was the boy's mother.) Many can't solve the problem because of an unconscious bias that only men are surgeons.

The Facts about Women

Today, many still struggle with women in leadership roles. To tackle this, Britain passed an ordinance to put more women on boards to little effect. Look around at how few minorities sit on the boards of or lead Fortune 1000 companies.

It was in 1970 when the Wall Street Journal coined the phrase “breaking the glass ceiling.” Books were written and research was conducted to try and understand the issue. In recent decades we have only increased the number of women as CEOs of Fortune 500 companies to a little under 5 percent. Yet woman account for more than 50 percent of the global population and 46 percent of the total U.S. labor force.¹

The picture is even bleaker for people of color. Only 0.8 percent of CEOs at Fortune 500 companies are African American and less than 2 percent are Hispanic.

Having worked in Silicon Valley leading diversity and inclusion efforts, Linda can personally attest that there were many qualified women and minorities who existed in these companies, but they were never tapped for the bigger jobs for a whole host of reasons. Many of the reasons were based on underlying beliefs that people rarely own up to.

Nobody wants to admit that they are biased toward certain people or hold beliefs that exclude others. Usually the excuses go something like this: “They lack polish, are too shy, or too assertive.”

While recruiting for a senior vice president job at one of the top 10 companies in the Fortune 500, our team put together an internal slate of candidates to choose from. The slate was presented and discussed with the hiring leader and executive vice president. At this level no two candidates had exactly the same experience and credentials, but they all brought something exemplary to the table.

After much wrangling and discussion the lone woman candidate was selected. Sadly she lasted only 18 months before being forced out. She did not play poker or golf and at times had to go home to take care of her children, although she put in 12-hour days, worked weekends, and delivered results, she was perceived as contributing less than her [male] colleagues.

What some people remembered was that she had to go home to take care of her kids. Frankly, most of her male colleagues had stay-at-home wives. This woman was being consciously or unconsciously stereotyped. She just plain did not fit into the good old boys culture.

Stereotyping Is Personal

Linda has personally experienced this type of stereotyping numerous times. At a conference, she was sitting on a dais next to her boss, and people assumed she was there as his assistant.

She was the keynote speaker.

Stereotyping is personal because we apply our own experience and intent to the situation at hand. When someone speeds past us on the highway, we tend to label them as a bad driver, a road hog, and jerk.

When we drive fast because of a family emergency or the piping hot take-out food we need to get home, we don't think of ourselves as being bad drivers, road hogs, or jerks.

We don't give others the same benefit of the doubt.

This is why forced ranking so often fails. The assumption, and bias, is that the bottom 10 percent of employees underperform. And more insidiously—will always underperform.

Inversely, executives are perceived as successful and perceive themselves as successful because they are at the senior levels rather than acknowledging their success occurred despite their flaws.

Take Susan Boyle's famous first television appearance on Britain's Got Talent in 2009. Despite her amazing talent and potential, she was ignored most of her life, and certainly not considered star material.²

As she marched onto the stage, Simon Cowell rolled his eyes, and the audience laughed.

Until she sang her first note.

How often do we overlook talent and potential because of deep-seated stereotypes and unfavorable first impressions? And how many first impressions are actually tangible examples of unconscious bias?

The 2014 Sony Pictures hacking scandal revealed that the company's female executives and producers made substantially less than their male counterparts.

We have put in place programs like day care and flexible work schedules. Quotas were established for how many women and minorities' need to be hired and promoted. Development programs offering coaching and mentoring were established for minorities to get more exposure with senior leaders. But these programs fall woefully short.

Advancement for women and minorities—and for that matter, anyone who does not fit our Western view of leaders—has been a slow trickle.

Why? Because even well-intentioned programs don't fully address unconscious bias.

When Bias Seems Pragmatic

While working with a Fortune 100 company, Linda was in charge of talent career movement. A hiring manager and she were discussing promotions for talent in his business unit with a typical conversation that went like this.

“Well, what about Jasmine for the promotion? She is a top performer, her track record with customers is excellent. Her team is the best in the department.”

“She is really great but you know she has three kids and she probably won't move.”

“Have you checked with her? She just might.”

“No, I'm sure she won't.”

Jasmine gets passed over and didn't even know it. A male counterpart, who also had three kids, was selected. The unspoken bias was that child-rearing requirements looked different for the candidates.

Jasmine ultimately left the company and started her own company. You'd be surprised how often this kind of conversation takes place behind closed doors.

Talent reviews and deciding about promotions can signal a whole host of prejudices. But the most insidious comment we've heard relates to lack of “executive presence.”

Make a tally sheet and in most cases those who are perceived to lack executive presence are minorities, women, LGBTQ, introverts, and foreign nationals.

The leaders making these decisions are not necessarily bad people. They just don't realize that the subliminal messages and context they are drawing from to make decisions about others is exclusionary. We have set patterns, images, and context for what we believe people should be like, and often these are so subtle we don't even realize it.

Linda and Morag have both had mentors, male and female, who helped them along the way. Many have been staunch advocates for inclusiveness in their organizations.

One such individual is Jim Murren, chairman and CEO of MGM International, headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada, who has mentored many women in his organization. Jim understands that diversity and inclusion is an imperative. In his hospitality and gaming business he must cater to global tourists. They make up 16 percent of the total customer base and stay twice as long as domestic travelers. In his company 45 percent of the employee base is minority and 48 percent are women.

The changing demographics of the new workforce make inclusive hiring an imperative.

Stand at the front door of any global corporation today and you will see diverse talent walk in and out in droves. But go to the executive floors and you will see a very different picture. This is the real point. The opportunity to be included at top levels of organizations is still slim.

Even after all the programs, quotas, awareness training, and pressure to put diverse talent in greater roles of authority, the speed of action has been glacial. These attitudes are by no means directed only at women and minorities. White males who want to spend more time with their families are experiencing backlash too. Many males cite not wanting to take child care leave when they have a newborn for fear it will adversely impact their career.

The question is not really about diversity but about how we ensure that those who are different are included. If you can't include others who are different, your business will not survive. We can no longer attack the symptoms. We must own up to the root cause.

Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will control your life and you will call it fate.

—Carl Jung

Brain Science, Bias, and Diversity

We all have unconscious bias that causes us to embrace some and discriminate against others. And this distinction happens unconsciously and instantly.

The last frontier of the human body—the brain—is finally being understood in more depth. As we examine how the human brain works we begin to understand why long-held views are hard to change. We have known for some time that the brain's function is to fight anything that poses a threat to our survival.

Neuroscientists' recent research has proven conclusively that the brain's primary function is to keep us safe. It detects threats of all sorts and reacts accordingly.

The brain collects clues about what constitutes danger and then elicits a mental and physical reaction. Many times people perceived as threats are different-looking people and tribes with unfamiliar practices that endangered the survival of their own tribe. Our brains learned to be wary of others who were not like us.

This has been the cause of many wars over the centuries. We have learned not to trust people who are not like us because they have attacked us, taken our territory, or pillaged our property. These stored subliminal memories signal the brain and trigger a threat response before we even realize it.

The brain evolves in a context, and over 11,000 messages hit the brain during any given minute. These messages create synapse and internal connections that shape our reactions. For example, we see a red light and put our foot on the brake before we're even aware of it.

The brain, and the context in which it was developed, forms a kind of human gyroscope that keeps us in balance throughout the day. It enables us to be safe in most of the circumstances we encounter without having to consciously think about the situation.

Bias impacts our behavior every single moment. During a recent client visit in Mexico we were making our way to dinner. As we climbed a series of steps we were laughing and, in the next minute, Linda laid sprawled on the ground. What had happened? After we picked her up and dusted her down, we realized that the steps were not the standard height that we are used to in the United States. In fact every tread was a slightly different height to the one before. The step that tripped Linda up was higher than any other. A painful example of our internal gyroscope being thrown out of balance.

A 1980s study by Benjamin Libet found that study participants moved their finger before they were consciously aware of wanting to move their finger. This study, and other similar studies, concluded that “an unconscious part of your brain ‘wills’ an action before you are consciously aware of your wanting to direct” movement.

Another famous study built on Libet's findings using encephalographs to study the brains of students and how they reacted to certain signals. This research again showed that the brain initiates action before the conscious mind is aware of it.

In other words, if your brain has been conditioned to believe that males hold executive roles or that women can't do certain types of work, you will react and make a decision before you're even aware of it. You will react before you realize that you had a negative or positive response.

Stereotyping and Personal Beliefs

If you study history, you see deep-seated historical and psychological distrust among various countries that still carry over today. The Eurovision Song Contest plays this out in real time, year after year. Voting for the winning song and country follows a predictable pattern that reflects millennia of rivalry and history.

The French and English have always had a cantankerous relationship. Japan and China are other good examples. The suspicions have been so engrained in these countries that it can be difficult for some to get past their dislike for each other.

The brain stores memories and emotions. It captures every story you have ever been told and categorizes it. Stories of countries in conflict and enemies are in your subconscious. These stories raise your awareness when confronted with a similar situation, and you react even when the story may no longer be applicable. This is an example of unconscious bias.

Unconscious brain function makes up approximately 80 percent of the brain's activity.

It is not that we inherently dislike other people, but we have been programmed with subliminal and not-so-subliminal messages. This includes, but is certainly not limited to, media advertising that covertly promotes an ideal figure for women, which consciously and unconsciously impacts our self-image. There are some 100 billion neurons in the brain, and each is connected to many others, creating a network of connections. These shape our values and ultimately shape how we each respond to life's situations.

Vicious Cycles

A young girl grew up in South Philadelphia where she was told that Italians who lived on the next block were not to be trusted. Her parents believed they were mafia because that is what their parents were told about Italians.

This little girl grew up to have a very negative bias toward Italians that still lingers today and impacts the stories she tells her own children. Three generations of one family impacted by bias.

Another interesting study of the brain revealed some startling facts regarding empathy. When people were asked about feelings for someone who was injured, they professed to have empathy. Certain portions of their brains would glow on the screen showing strong empathy for the injured individual.

When they were shown injured people of a different race, they would again say they were empathetic to their plight. But their brains' responses were not as intense and glowed less than if the person was of the same background or race. The researchers concluded that despite our professed feelings, many find it harder to identify with others' plights if they are different from us.

We all have bias. Some gets in the way of personal growth and societal progress. This is the root cause of why programs and processes to increase diversity in the workplace have not worked and will not work—until we come to grips with our own unconscious bias.

Bias in the Mirror

Another factor revealed by studying the brain is that the messages sent to us as children carry over into adulthood.

Some children grow up being told they can't do certain jobs, can't play certain sports, or are not smart. These messages impact their view of themselves and the perceived capabilities. If people think they're not smart or can't do something, it impacts their behavior, their values, and how they live their lives.

A recent news story highlights this. An elementary school teacher asked the class to draw pictures of fighter-pilots, surgeons, and fire fighters. Of the 60-plus drawings, less than a handful showed women in these roles. Bias is formed early.

Parents unwittingly pass on their bias and stereotypes to their children causing an unconscious reaction in their children that can either help them or hinder them as they move into society. This is one explanation for a current phenomenon among women shown in recent research.

Many women don't aspire to the most senior roles, despite the fact that more women have advanced degrees than ever before. They were conditioned to believe they could not attain those jobs. The unconscious message that played in their heads was they could only get so far in an organization.

We've interviewed many such women with outstanding credentials who just don't believe that having a top role is achievable. Many also believe they can't do that role without a great deal of personal and family sacrifice. The messages they were sent as children is that certain levels of success are beyond their reach.

Other women were told they could do anything, believed that, and acted accordingly. These are the women who broke through the barriers.

In Linda's recent interview with Inc. magazine's editor-in-chief, Eric Schurenberg, he said, “if you live in a culture in which it's accepted that members of your group perform worse at a particular exercise than the population at large, then if you're given that task and reminded of this societal prejudice, you will do worse than the average group that hasn't been reminded of this supposed disability.”

Rewiring Inclusion

The good news is that the brain can rewire with repetition.

Since childhood, a young man was told that he was not athletic and could not catch a ball. He was participating in a research-based learning experience where he was told that he would have to catch an orange. The man responded that he wasn't good at catching.

The trainer then showed the man the orange and asked him to concentrate on the navel of the orange. He then tossed the man the orange, and he caught it without dropping it. He repeated the exercise several times, and the man continued to catch the orange. He was rewiring his brain from a negative stereotype he learned in his youth.

The trainer then tossed him a ball the next time and told him to focus on the color of the ball. The man was again successful.

All your neurons, circuitry, and synapses can respond differently if you can rewire your thinking. If you grew up like most of us did, you were constantly being told, “Don't do this and don't do that.” Yet annoyingly, you continued to do those things. “Don't suck your thumb” doesn't work. This approach of telling people what not to do is totally counter to how the brain learns.

Scientists now know that telling someone not to do something generates a picture in their mind of them doing something. Therefore, that is exactly what they do. Reframing the picture to something positive changes the dynamic. Instead of saying “don't wet the bed,” a better way to achieve the result is to say, “Picture yourself sleeping through the night in a nice, dry bed.”

We see these kinds of triggers on the golf course all the time. A cart partner will say, “Don't hit into the water on the left.” Invariably most golfers in the foursome hit into the water. Instead, envision yourself hitting the ball straight down the fairway. Every time you do this you'll hit a great shot (including occasional great shots into the water).

Taking Action

The action we all must take is to dump the focus on diversity and all the programs devoted to shaming and blaming others for lack of diversity.

The word diversity has become too closely associated with the failed focus on “don't.” Instead, let's focus on inclusion as the positive, and more accurate, alternative.

Understand that we are already diverse in so many ways. It has always been part of what makes us human and who we are.

Creating a culture that fully embraces, and includes, all participants is essential for a future-proof organization.

Inclusion is the new paradigm that replaces the old paradigm of diversity. And the first step is honesty.

Future-Proof Your Company

• Leaders often delegate inclusiveness to HR. Realize that everyone in every department must own company culture. The next time you're hiring or promoting and can't find anyone who's any good stop and consider if bias is involved.
• Take practical steps to acknowledge bias. There are many tools and techniques to do this. One in particular is the Implicit Association Test developed by Harvard. Bias does not make us good or bad, but it does sometimes get in the way of what we ultimately say we want to do and be.
• Pull groups of leaders and employees together and paint a picture of what a truly inclusive workplace looks like. What are people doing, how are they treating each other, what are the rules of the road for inclusion? Use this picture to help others reshape and rewire their brains to celebrate others. Then examine your workplace practices to see if and how they support or limit this positive picture of inclusion.
• The real danger is settling for platitudes over real change.

Future-Proof Your Career

• Make sure you aren't modeling what you're fighting against. “Inclusiveness begins with me.” Look for opportunities to help people to talk about tough issues in a respectful way.
• Understand your triggers. What exactly tips your bias to the forefront of your brain and drives you to unconscious action? This is an excellent way to bring the unconscious bias to the conscious level.
• Rewire your brain. Paint a positive picture of how you will respond, and respond that way until it becomes a habit. Find someone who is different from you who you would normally not talk to and spend some time asking him what is most important to him about his work and about his family. See how much common ground you really have.
• Check the mirror for unconscious bias against yourself. What negative stereotypes and limitations have you allowed to be imposed on yourself? Then take steps to rewire your brain.