Overcoming Unconscious Bias: The Road To Innovation
In our previous article we talked about the types of unconscious bias that impact the workplace. Now we’re going to unveil strategies leaders can implement to overcome those biases and create an environment for innovation to thrive.
Everyone has unconscious biases. We have them. You have them. And their impact on day to day decisions is not small. In fact, research done by the Noble Prize winning psychologist, Daniel Kahneman, demonstrated that the vast majority of human decisions were made based on biases, beliefs and intuition - and not facts or logic.
As a leader, your biases have the opportunity to wield significant power. So what can you do to overcome them?
The first step is recognizing them. If you haven’t already, check out our last article where we talked about the different types of unconscious bias and how to identify them in yourself and the workplace. The second step involves implementing systemic changes within your business in order to mitigate the impact of biases on business decisions, your talent, and especially innovation.
Why unconscious bias is the enemy of innovation
There are many senior leaders who hire or promote people they get along with. Half the time, these leaders probably don’t realize they are doing this (that’s why it’s called unconscious bias). They hire people of the same backgrounds, gender, ethnicity, education, belief systems or personality traits because humans tend to favor what’s familiar to them. Unfortunately this seemingly innocent behaviour can cause serious and long-term harm to a company’s performance.
The outcome of hiring people who are similar to you, or who you simply get along with, is that you develop a groupthink mentality. Groupthink is a psychological phenomenon in which people strive for consensus in a group. In business, groupthink causes people to overlook problems and alternative ideas in pursuit of consensus. It devalues critical thinking and promotes self-censorship in fear of disrupting the status quo. Simply put, groupthink creates an echo chamber that throttles new and unique thoughts.
Low diversity also leads to a human capital deficit. Overwhelming research has shown that diversity increases both innovation and financial success. That’s because diversity (alongside an inclusive environment) leads to the diversity of ideas, perspectives, and experiences - which are all integral to creativity and problem solving. (Check out our previous article on How to build a culture of innovation for more on this).
Consider the following statistics:
Companies with higher-than-average diversity have 19% points higher innovation revenues and 9% points higher EBIT margins (Source)
Companies with more ethnic diversity are 36% more likely to outperform financially (Source)
Diverse teams are 70% more likely to capture new markets and are 87% better at making decisions (Source)
Higher representation of women in C-suite level positions results in 34% greater returns to shareholders. (Source)
Although only 5% of Fortune 1000 companies have a female CEO, they generate 7% of the Fortune 1000’s (Source)
In short, Diversity = Creativity = Innovation.
“We work with a large number of innovated organizations and have noticed there is more diversity in startups and tech-driven companies. It’s the big corporations who have much less diverse leadership at almost all levels. That’s both from a gender, ethnicity and age perspective. It’s the younger startups and high-growth companies who are more aware that innovation requires diversity. They’re more open to hiring different types of people, from different places, and with different experiences.
If you can tackle unconscious bias, you have a greater chance at driving creativity and disruption. The disruptors out there are using diversity to their advantage.”
- Ari Aronson, CEO Ari Agency & Ari Executive
How leaders can overcome biases
ACKNOWLEDGE & IDENTIFY BIAS
In order to inspire change, you need to ensure others around are equipped with knowledge about unconscious bias and its impacts. This can happen in small and large ways. Many companies, such as Starbucks, conduct mandatory anti-bias and discrimination trainings. Investment in these trainings help educate staff and also makes it clear that the company prioritizes eliminating bias in its culture.
There are also self assessment tools, such as Harvard’s Implicit Association Test (IAT), that can help leaders and staff become conscious of some of their own biases. While company-wide trainings and self assessments won’t eliminate bias, these methods help staff understand the concept in general which assists them in recognizing unconscious biases in themselves and others.
Furthermore, leaders should lead by example, encouraging others publicly and in 1-on-1 settings to focus on objective inputs when it comes to decisions and hiring. This approach is casual but critical - it shows employees what types of behavior will and will not be tolerated from a top down approach.
BLIND HIRING
Blind hiring entails scraping out all of the personal information (such as names, gender, and implied demographics) from the resume so that hiring managers can focus on the experience and qualifications of the candidates. Studies done on blind hiring have shown that this method significantly increased the likelihood of women and minorities getting interviews and hired. Companies big and small have adopted this practice - including big names like HSBC, Deloitte, Google, and Ernst & Young.
MEASURABLE PERFORMANCE TARGETS
All too often, the subjective opinion of managers are the evidence, judge and jury during their staff’s performance assessments. This can lead to acknowledgement, compensation, and advancement opportunities being awarded based on bias instead of actual performance. In fact, one of the largest studies on feedback found that over half of the variance associated with performance ratings had to do with the quirks of the person giving the rating - rather than the person being rated. The rater’s bias was the biggest predictor and influence for rating results - more so than actual performance. The consequence of biased performance assessments, other than the unjust treatment, is high attrition and demotivation of your top employees.
That’s why it’s important that businesses implement SMART goals for employees that dial back to the business’s objectives. SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Time-bound. By using measurable performance goals, performance assessments can rely less on the subjective memory and biases of managers, and more on the actual business results each individual is achieving.
Predetermining these goals is just as important as making them measurable. In three separate studies, Yale researchers found that when you first agree to the criteria used in an assessment and then you make the evaluation, you are less likely to rely on stereotypes, and your assessments are less biased.
COLLECT STRUCTURED & ANONOYMOUS FEEDBACK
It’s easy for leaders base to business direction on their context that is mostly constructed by their own perspectives - which lacks fullness and in many cases accuracy. That’s why it’s so important to gather real, untampered feedback from the stakeholders that matter. Examples of this can include:
Anonymous employee satisfaction surveys which help companies achieve a more truthful window into the happiness and motivation of employees.
Customer based feedback surveys, such as NPS surveys, which help reveal customer satisfaction as well as what’s working vs. what’s not.
Market Research to determine the feasibility and perceived value of new products and services.
SKILL-BASED ASSESSMENTS
Many companies rely solely on interviews when hiring. While interviews will always be a valuable part of the hiring process, they are also highly subject to unconscious bias. That’s why companies should aim to enhance their hiring process with more objective inputs, such as skill-based assessments.
Skill-based assessments can take more than one shape. Most popularly, companies either request that candidates complete an example work-task (i.e. solve a problem or create a presentation) or a knowledge test (i.e. a quiz). The goal is to get a more tangible understanding of each candidate’s skills and thought processes in a way the is standardized and allows for easy comparison.
You’ll find that once you introduce skill-based assessments to your hiring process, the conversation becomes much less focused on subjective interpretations of a candidate’s skills, and much more grounded in their actual demonstration of skills. This helps leaders make fairer and smarter decisions on which candidates will perform best in a role.
Our take
Bottomline: Unconscious bias holds people and businesses back from their true potential.
Leaders who want to drive innovation need to hire people who are bringing different perspectives and experiences to the table. This means hiring people who are different from you. And that can make some people uncomfortable. Embrace that discomfort. We guarantee you that the more you open yourself up to diversity and the more you challenge your biases, the easier it becomes.
At Ari Agency & Ari Executive, we work with digital, innovation and tech-focused companies who rely on our ability to help them build strong, diverse teams. That’s why we’re constantly innovating the hiring process to reduce bias and help identify truly game-changing talent. Contact us today to learn more about how we can help you improve your talent acquisition strategies and find your next all-star.
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