Women's Forum: Unconscious Biases 10.4.2016

Women’s Forum: Making the Shift from Addressing Unconscious Biases to Cultivating Conscious Inclusion #Inclusion BritishAmerican Business @BABNewYork @bab_newyork

1. It’s All About Perspective Like unconscious bias, there is such a thing as ‘implicit bias’, and as a framework, practicing inclusion is generally a proven strategy towards creating a more tolerant environment. But, giving individuals the opportunity to grow by offering instances to view themselves from another’s standpoint can provide meaningful insight into accidental discriminations.

Akiba Smith-Francis Senior Consultant, YSC @YSCNews

Personalities generally do not change, but applications of personalities do.

To acheive success as as organization, there needs to be dialogue.

2. Methods Unfortunately, biases cannot be ‘trained away’. They are real and exist as a product of cultural environment, upbrining and personal experiences.

Sharon Sloane President & CEO, WILL Interactive Sharon@willinteractive.com @willinteractivezine

Regardless of the availability of resources, the culprit is ultimately general discomfort. Uncomfortable situations, make for uncomfortable individuals, paving the way for biases to be revealed.

By structuring environments for individuals to feel comfortable, effectively forcing uncomfortability, the opportunity for discomfort is drastically decreased.

3. Supporting Leaders In most organizations, decisions are made from the top down. Effective leadership incorporates effective communication. Without believing in a team’s mission, no changes will be made.

Jennifer Ashley Global HR Director, CBRE @cbre

Coaching is an option for proper implementation of inclusion strategies. However, change management can be effected via a lower level of hierarchy. Those individuals who reach out to other employees daily are the main controllers of the conversation.

4. Walking the Talk Is this topic worthy of conversation? The jury is out...

Unconscious bias should not be the main focal point of all inclusion strategy. Awareness is the first step, promoted only by an internal need to want to change. However, recent data suggests that specific training designed to combat unconscious bias is ineffective.

Colleen Doherty Director, HR, Cognizant @Cognizant

Inter-company collabortation is necessary to identify problems and collaborate to form actionable solutions.

Ignorance is tough to fight, but educating employees on the implications biases have for the entire organization will resonate strongly.

Left to right: Wendy Mendenhall, Managing Director, BritishAmerican Business Sharon Sloane Colleen Doherty Jennifer Ashley Akiba Smith-Francis Kyle Schoppman, Executive Managing Director, CBRE