Leaders across the globe are striving to make their organizations more diverse, inclusive and equitable. In their efforts, they often resort to so-called unconscious bias (UB) training.
What does the evidence say?
And how do you implement UB training that works?
"Ony 10% of conventional UB training programmes give attendees strategies for reducting bias. Imagine a weight-loss programme that told participants to step on the scale and left it at that."
Francesca Gino, Harvard Business Review, September 2021
― Dan Ariely
Human thinking isn’t as objective and rational as we’d like to believe. Much of our thinking occurs unconsciously and we are continuously affected by our environment. In the words of Dan Ariely, we are "predictably irrational", prone to cognitive bias. Research points out up to 25% of resources in organisations is lost due to cognitive bias!(*)
But... if we are "predictably irrational", this means you can anticipate where bias will occur. It is possible to (re)design your organisational processes in a way that takes into account the reality of human thinking and behaviour. Measurably improving your organisational performance in many areas:
(*) Dan Ariely (2008) "Predictably Irrational"
*McKinsey, 2017, "The Business Logic in Debiasing"
*Gallup, 2012, "Applying Behavioral Economics to Drive Growth and Profitability"
*PwC, 2017, "How a Deeper Understanding of Human Behaviour Can Transform Your Business"
HumanInsight enables individuals and organisations to think smarter and make better choices using behavioural insight.
Our training and consultancy is evidence-based, results-driven and made to measure. You learn to understand the psychology underpinning human behaviour. You receive the necessary tools to effect real and lasting behavioural change.
Human thinking and behaviour affects all processes in organisations. Research points out that applying behavioural insight is crucial:
To teach you those new skills that will allow you to steer the "predicably irrational" thinking (of yourself and others!) and enable lasting behavioural change, we have designed a number of learning instruments. All these are evidence-based and geared towards maximum impact in your organisation.
Karen Vandevelde, HR Director Universiteit Antwerpen
University of Antwerp, tailor-made training & consultancy I "Countering implicit bias in recruitment & promotion"
Anne Starkie-Alves, European Commission, Brussels
European Commission,
incompany workshop on "Nudging"
We are all biased. It's part of being human. So why not use it to your advantage?
Learn how to make use of the so-called 'positive illusion' to increase engagement in your team and even improve employee performance.
'Negativity bias' concerns our brain's innate tendency to emphasize all things negative. Its effects? An overly dramatized world view, increased feelings of stress and bad decision-making.
Here are some tools to avoid it...
As human beings, we are biased. We automatically prefer those who are similar to us and tend to focus on the short term. This causes bias when evaluating others.
How do you level the playing field when evaluating performance?
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