May 25th, 2010
It was my privilege to kick off the 15th Annual OCI Diversity Summit last week and my presentation was titled Facts, Fictions and the Naming of Elephants. My hope with this presentation was to shine some light on a really big, really dangerous blind spot that we have regarding how we make decisions. We like to think that we are very rational, logical and intentional regarding how we make decisions, but there is more and more evidence that it does not quite work that way. A really important example of this is unconscious bias.
We seem to be buying into the idea that bad people are biased and that good people are not biased. There are probably some semantic arguments that we can get wrapped up in here, but I think this is a dangerous fantasy and one of the great challenges in moving this work forward today. There is a great deal of evidence that we are all biased, though in different ways, for different reasons and to a different extent.
If we tell ourselves that the only problem is hate, we avoid facing the reality that it is mostly nice, non-hating people who perpetuate inequality.
-Ellis Close
One of the stories that I examined in my presentation was the tragic shooting of Amadou Diallo. I presented this as a possible example of unconscious bias and it is an example that I have used several times since first reading Malcolm Gladwell’s perspective on it in Blink. Clearly, I cannot know, but I think that this could be an example of unconscious bias causing armed police officers to make decisions about Diallo based on fiction rather than fact.
I think that Diallo, an innocent and unarmed man, was shot and killed because he was black…but I think that this incident may have been free from racist intent. Based on what we know today about unconscious decision making, especially in high stress situations, I think it is entirely possible that the police officers truly believed that Diallo was armed and dangerous when they opened fire. The outcome is still what it is, but the difference becomes very important when we begin to consider solutions.
I have to clarify a couple of things here, because often when I present this idea there are people that are uncomfortable with my perspective. I am not suggesting that we should feel differently about this incident. I also am not suggesting that we should feel differently about the police officers. My intention is not to convince anyone that we should be more understanding or forgiving of the shooters (or other officers involved in similar shootings…unfortunately there are many similar shootings).
This is still a racist outcome. I am simply suggesting that it might be free of racist intent or bias as we generally use the word.
My aspiration with this message is very simple. I want us to reduce the likelihood of this happening again. I also want to reduce the likelihood of us not hiring, mentoring, or promoting the right people because we are influenced by stereotypical ideas, regardless of our intentions.
We do violence to our destinies whenever we trust our stories over our experiences.
-Martha Beck
If the police officers had racist intentions, the solution to this situation is fairly simple. We get rid of those bad apples and redouble our efforts to not bring any additional bad apples into the police force. If, on the other hand, this incident is free from racist intent, getting rid of those police officers is still entirely appropriate but it may not reduce the likelihood of this same thing happening again…because all of us are susceptible to the same flawed decision making (though we obviously do not all work in life and death situations).
I believe that we focus far too much attention on intentions. Intentions (whether good or bad) are entirely overrated. We need to look harder at outcomes…the outcomes of our individual behaviors, and the outcomes produced by our organizations, institutions and communities. A lot of organizations and leaders are saying the right things today about diversity and inclusion, but so many outcomes are skewed by things like race and gender.
You know the type…loud as a motor bike, but wouldn’t bust a grape in a fruit fight.
-Jay Z
Even if there is not a hateful bigoted person involved, we need to be radically dissatisfied with biased outcomes. We fly in to a complete tizzy when someone says something that is clearly prejudiced (Don Imus for example), but we overlook prejudiced outcomes every single day…in our schools, in our organizaitons, in our houses of worship, in our criminal justice system, etc., etc.
These skewed outcomes are evidence that we are not being who we claim to be. But we keep taking our eye off of the prize, because we love to hate mean people. If you work for an organization that has outcomes that are skewed by things that should not be skewing them and there is not action being taken, you work in an organization without leadership. Talk is cheap.
Read about addressing unconscious bias in your workplace here.
Be good to each other.
Joe,
I’m with you on a lot of this subject matter. What I’m surprised by is that I’m the first person to comment since this was posted 2 days ago.
I’m constantly alarmed by how people jump to assumptions about what other people are thinking. One of the first things I learned in HR was to examine behavior, and not to believe that I can read minds. Thus an HR person or manager should never say someone has an "attitude" problem.
There is also another layer to this: how does one determine who is a good person? Often I see, a good person is determined by a label. For example, I know people who consider all registered Republicans as bad people, regardless of the individual’s behavior. I find that behavior to be very narrow-sighted.
I don’t comment often. But I learn a great deal from your blog.
Thanks for this post.
Thanks Paul, I agree labeling is a powerful dynamic and gets in the way of good functional relationships, especially in the workplace. Thanks for reading and commenting!
-joe