How to overcome unconsious bias in your business
The ability to identify your emotions and determine why you behave in certain ways necessitates building awareness of your own feelings, what motivates you and how you perceive the world is a must for overcoming the influence of unconscious biases that operate as a parallel to rational thought.
Our unconsious biases can come into play.
Often when we meet people for the first time, we hold back a part of ourselves. Maslow’s hierarchy of needs reflects our instincts for safety and survival. We naturally want to protect ourselves, so to trust another person can often take some time. How much time you ask? Well, here is some food for thought.
Research shows that we make a judgement in 0.07 of a second when we meet someone new. Is that really enough time to get to know someone? I know from experience it is not, yet we often jump to conclusions without facts.
While our biases go unnoticed and unacknowledged, they can impact our decision-making, business opportunities and profitability. Identifying biases allow risks to be mitigated and unseen strengths to be utilised.
How often do you make an assumption, to later find out that you completely misread the situation or opportunity?
Here are three things I have learnt.
Learning 1: Don’t judge on appearance
When I first worked in the travel industry, I had a middle-aged male client, although I was quite young so maybe he wasn’t as old as I thought. He was unkempt, wore a tatty trench coat and rode a bicycle. He would lean his bicycle up against the window of our Collins Street agency and peer in to see if I was there. If I was, he would come in; he wouldn’t speak to any other consultant. From his appearance, one could easily believe he was penniless and homeless. He booked three around-the-world cruises with me. If I had dismissed him on first appearance rather than exploring how I could help him, the end result would have been quite different.
Learning 2: You never know who is connected to whom
The second thing I have learnt is that you never know who the person you are talking to is connected with. They may be a friend, relative or acquaintance of someone you already know. Traditionally, we used to think of six degrees of separation, but ten years ago a study showed that technology has reduced this to three degrees. A simple example, I met my husband, Leigh, through a mutual friend who knew we would get along well. When I eventually met Leigh’s parents, I discovered they had been clients of mine during my first travel role. Leigh and I recently celebrated our thirty-eighth wedding anniversary
Learning 3: Investing in relationships yields unexpected opportunities
Thirdly, you never know what opportunities might arise in the future from past connections. Some ten years ago, I relocated a family to Melbourne from Europe. We maintained our relationship and in recent times, I had the opportunity to provide several workshops on networking strategy for my client’s organisation.
Make bias conscious
Recently , I met Bron Williams, The Bias Specialist who is determined to make bias conscious in the business environment. Rather than aiming to eliminate unconscious bias, Bron suggests we are better served accepting that we are the result of our environment and inherently biased. By finding and making those biases conscious, we can then develop targeted strategies to drive successful growth and change.
Bron works with Executive and Senior Leadership teams across Corporate, Not for Profit, and Public sectors to shift perspective, deliver practical strategies to make bias conscious, and develop bespoke programs to enable the holistic integration of conscious bias across teams and organisations,
Bron spoke at our LIVE Dinner event on 27th April, 2021 . Participants were challenged to consider how bias unconsciously shapes life and decision-making, and can limit the scope of choices you have by confining you to what is comfortable and reinforcing an unwillingness to consider alternate options.
If you would be interested in similar events, and are looking for a rewarding way to grow your business and want to benefit from conversations that help you access the right connections and leverage opportunities, we would love you to come along and experience an event , or perhaps you are interested in sharpening your skills, regularly expanding your knowledge and combining business networking , then check out our YTM Membership and benefits to our community HERE .
