WHAT ARE WE TALKING ABOUT REALLY?

Here’s the low-down on stereotypes, bias, and unconscious bias: Stereotypes are beliefs about people based on their membership in a group, such as race, gender, nationality, religion, sexual orientation, education, etc. (Often, stereotypes are unnoticed automatic thoughts and beliefs.) Bias is positive or negative treatment of people based on their membership in a group. Bias is usually the result of a cognitive shortcut, often growing out of stereotypes. It manifests in inequitable judgment, unfair acts, and systematic barriers. Implicit (or Unconscious) Bias is positive or negative treatment of people that is unnoticed by the actor.

The Cambridge English Dictionary has what I find to be the strongest definition of bias: The action of supporting or opposing a particular person or thing in an unfair way, because of allowing personal opinions to influence your judgment. The last part is the most important part: “allowing personal opinions to influence your judgement.” (If you are thinking, Of course my personal opinions influence my judgement, Susan!, stay with me and read on.)

We have established that we all have biases, known (conscious) and unknown (unconscious). Examples of some of the often unconscious biases that impact the workplace include:

• Affinity Bias: The tendency to warm up to people like ourselves.
• Perception Bias: The tendency to form stereotypes and assumptions about certain groups that make it impossible to make an objective judgment about members of those groups.
• Halo Effect, or Optimism Bias: The tendency to think everything about a person is good because you like that person.
• Anchoring and Insufficient Adjustment Bias: The tendency to be over-reliant on the first piece of information you hear.
• Confirmation Bias: The tendency for people to seek information that confirms pre-existing beliefs or assumptions.
• Group Think: The tendency to drive for consensus with others at the cost of a realistic appraisal of alternatives.
• Recency: The tendency to weight the latest information more heavily than older data.

Our implicit ways of processing information impact our attitudes and decisions—without us being aware. If you aren’t already thinking about the plausible negative consequences of the short list above as you navigate at work, let me be very clear: all these different types of biases are happening whether you are aware of them or not. With perception bias, for example, we habitually assume things about people born and raised in certain countries and regions, and judge people by their appearance. We may not do it on purpose, but the majority of us are guilty of some amount of judgment. Our ultimate moment-to-moment practice is to lead with conscious awareness (the mental state that will be pressed upon throughout our work with the hurdles), ultimately shifting from a state of unconsciousness (resulting in exclusion of others) to a state of conscious awareness (where we can consciously include or accept those who we don’t automatically relate to). I know, I know. Being oblivious can have its upside.

The more I attune to my own unintended impact and/or catch myself in a biased thought, I can’t help but agree that ignorance sometimes is bliss. (Cue the Inner Critic: Did you REALLY just have that thought, you horrible, mean woman who professes to be self-aware?!) But better than blissful ignorance (by a lot) is when I catch myself noticing the thought, “Those types of people can’t drive,” and pushing pause on the thought as it computes and reorienting my internal dialogue (with compassion, not harshness) to say, “No, Susan, that PERSON seemed to be swerving in the road and appeared to be driving in an unsafe way.” My point: I am a fellow traveler; self-awareness is a practice.

We all have biases and stereotypes, and we will be confronted with the biases of others. I am inspired by Yolanda Conyers, who shares her own reflections on the role bias has played in her life.

TOO YOUNG TO UNDERSTAND?

A former colleague, Abri Holden, a mindfulness manager and leadership coach, can attest to the power of self-awareness in not only recognizing someone else’s bias, but also standing up to it. First, Abri needed to tune into her thoughts and feelings about how some of the comments she was in receipt of landed for her. Then, she needed to get curious about it, move into Compassionate Center, and from that place, make requests.

The bias Abri identifies is ageism, and it has a few tricky and bizarre nuances in the workplace because its manifestation may not seem harmful, as evidenced by Abri’s example:

“I am a white female in my thirties. I’ve been told: ‘You’re too young to understand that.’ ‘It’s before your time.’ or ‘Sweetie, you wouldn’t understand that.’ That type of language has the potential to exclude people from the conversation, whether intended or not. Another woman on my team at a previous job kept calling me ‘sweetie’ and ‘honey.’ I noticed I was often triggered by this language and had to come clean with myself. It took courage, but I spoke up and said, ‘I need to be honest with you. That language is a pet peeve of mine. I know it’s nothing you intended to do, but I want to share the impact of our exchange and make a request for the future.’”

For Abri, the comments about her age were micro inequities, small or subtle slights that demean or marginalize the recipient. The result of these comments for Abri was that they took her right out of the conversation. “It’s still a challenge, but I have to trust my voice to say what feels not right and name it and make a request for myself and the other person.”

Ultimately, biases can wear your best people down. I wonder how many more times Abri’s participation and contributions would have been minimized by another woman’s ageist language had she not spoken up.

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One of the best things women can do to impact gender parity is to become aware of implicit biases we have about other women—and actively support one another.

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Abri suggests, “When I see women overtly be unsupportive or dismissive of other women (including myself), I have found it usually comes from a place of scarcity mentality, limited seats at the table or at a certain place or level, and so if I put someone else down or take them out of the conversation or even do it subtly, it also creates more space for me at the table. I don’t know if it is intentional, but I notice it. I’ve had conversations with different women around this topic. The scarcity mentality holds us back in growing and moving forward together.”

Warning: You may be the one who unconsciously says something that is received by another as ageist. The first step in all of this business about bias is to identify your own.

PLEASE JOIN ME: IDENTIFY YOUR OWN UNCONSCIOUS BIAS

To better understand some of your own unconscious biases, take one of the Implicit Association Tests by Harvard’s Project Implicit: https://implicit.harvard.edu. This is a fantastic way to begin to get conscious about what you might not yet be aware of.

I recently took the “Gender-Career Implicit Association Test.” In some ways, how I scored both surprised me and didn’t. Here’s what I learned: I am in the majority of web-respondents to this test in scoring a moderately “automatic association” (therefore, implicit bias) of ‘Male with Career’ and ‘Female with Family’ (32 percent of responders).

I suppose it is better than being part of the 24 percent who scored with a strong automatic association of male with career and female with family, yet I was a bit miffed. Isn’t my entire story-line about my formative influences wrapped up in a balance of loving men who represent both family and career? If being raised primarily by a single father doesn’t make a grown woman identify “male with family” with some ease, what on earth does?

How did I internalize (albeit moderately) that men = career and women = family? I believe it is because of the pressure I feel on a daily basis to be a great mom to my two daughters. The bar I set for myself is high for kicking ass at home and at work. My results underscore what so many working mothers and/or caregivers live every day: The feeling we just aren’t enough anywhere we go. Taking this Implicit Association Test woke me up to a deeply held belief (and one that is apparently in spite of, or perhaps because of, my childhood experiences) that I need to be aware of. I share more about the level of distraction my Inner Critic causes when I am confronted with how imperfect a mother I am in Chapter 6. But first …

The question we ask on each hurdle in our Advancing Women in Leadership Assessment instrument is also the work we women need to do on each hurdle. For the internal hurdle of bias, the prompt is: [She] … is open minded and unlimited in her thinking about her own capability and potential to achieve. It makes me sad to think of the number of women I have met from almost every continent on the globe who believe their potential and capability to advance is limited, for a variety of reasons. Examples include: Felt bias (no one sees her as having high potential); lack of opportunity in the company (low attrition, thus limited openings); lack of sponsorship (no one in power advocating on her behalf); the need to move geographically in order to advance; the fact that she has children and thus, the assumption is she wouldn’t want to advance; the fact that she has home responsibility so she requires flexibility and this is deemed as a leadership non-starter; the list goes on. The follow-up question then is this: What current stories or beliefs or biases do you have about yourself that no longer serve you? Let me share my own example.

Many of us possess biases about things we prefer. Many of our preferences are what we have been good at, been told we are good at, or been told are good things by those we respect or who raised us. I was encouraged and applauded for my ability to “get things done.” My dad’s motto—the words I hear every time I close my eyes and channel his abundant spirit into my consciousness—are, “GO. FOR. IT.” My bold, hardworking, action-orientation made me, me. I wore this moniker with pride.

I was a leader, a doer. (The description was once synonymous for me and one of my unconscious biases; more on that when we look at Proving Your Value in Chapter 5.) Need something done? You can count on me. I unconsciously tied my worthiness (my value as a human being) to my ability to get ‘er done. The problem with that? When I wasn’t “doing” (or leading with a lot of my own effort) or going for it, I wasn’t okay. I wasn’t worthy. And that caused me to feel unsuccessful.

One of my own answers to the question, “What deeply held belief(s) do you have about yourself that no longer serve you?” was somewhere in the mix of “you can count on me,” “I’ll do it,” “if I don’t do it, it won’t get done well” (control), and ultimately, “I need to take action to perform at a clip second to none or others won’t see my value.” This deeply held bias for action has played out for me in ways I never meant nor fully understood until recent years, and my ability to lead hinges on reframing this internal bias.

EXQUISITE CURIOSITY IS THE ANSWER

The self-aware leader is curious about perceptions others have of them. As the fellow Linkage Women in Leadership Institute cochair, Carla Harris, reminds us often: Perception is the copilot to reality, and as such, we need to be curious about how we “land” with others. Are we making the impact we intend? Are we checking with others to ensure our intention and impact are aligned?

When I worked for a spin-off of the Harvard Negotiation Project from 2002 to 2007, I became disciplined in this practice. This spin-off, in part, brought the work of Roger Fisher and others who followed into the world. Two seminal (and bestselling) books served as the core of the work we did with clients: Getting to Yes and Difficult Conversations. The authors of Getting to Yes and Difficult Conversations didn’t call this “self-awareness,” but I would argue that that’s what it is. The authors, as their apt subtitles read, knew that if we wanted to negotiate agreement without giving in or discuss what matters most, we had to acknowledge our impact and take responsibility when it might not have been aligned with our intention.

So, I was schooled by the best of the best and deeply believed that my commitment to practice curiosity (seeking to understand others’ perspectives), combined with owning my contribution and any unintended impact my actions might have on those around me, fueled much of my professional success. Essentially, I believed that if I worked hard, was smart, was kind to others, practiced curiosity, and separated intention from impact, nothing could stop me.

And then I tripped over the power of the Inner Critic and the power of bias.

Getting curious about our own bias is the place we must start. Gliding over all of the hurdles rests on our ability to get curious with ourselves, and in developing a practice where we hold our self in warm regard and with compassion while we do. Where I see all leaders (men and women alike) trip up (and where I do, too) is when we don’t bring a more intentional process of thinking and curiousness to the conclusions we reach. When leaders derail, lead with implicit bias, or have unintended impacts are the moments when there is no space between stimulus and response or conclusion. The art of self-awareness requires taking space and pausing between stimulus and response—first by thoughtfully questioning the conclusions we reach and sometimes deploying this on a moment-to-moment basis.

In Iris Bohnet’s groundbreaking book, What Works: Gender Equality by Design, which is loaded with research-based checks and balances on bias, the chapter “De-Biasing Minds Is Hard” emphasizes that sometimes “our better natures do not whisper in our ears.” But if you look closely at Bohnet’s data collected by companies, universities, and governments in Australia, India, Norway, the United Kingdom, the United States, Zambia, and other countries, you would be inspired by the speed with which we could all flip biases on their weary heads. She calls the solutions “evidence-based interventions” that could be instantly adopted.

Introducing another blueprint for where bias may surface in our brains, the bestselling book Thinking, Fast and Slow, by Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics Laureate Daniel Kahneman, is equally impactful. In it, Kahneman takes us on a tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think. System 1 is fast, intuitive, and emotional; System 2 is slower, more deliberative, and more logical. To master the Inner Critic and to scale any of the hurdles, we must activate System 2.

I would just add to remember the Compassionate Center folding its arms around you the moment you realize your System 1 is in the driver’s seat, and especially when, in System 2, your curiosity reveals the impact produced by your System 1.

LIKEABILITY ROBS CREDIBILITY? A DOUBLE BIND

While I have always been fascinated by how people get along and the science of relationships, it wasn’t until my mid-twenties when I realized I may not be as gifted in the people department as I thought I was. First came the advice from a senior executive (man) at one of my first jobs that I might want to work on my “vulnerability” (I had to look up the definition of the word). Then came the results from my first 360 (raters were men and women), where my raters scored me lower on emotional intelligence than I scored myself. Hmmm. …

It turns out, and this is something I struggle with to this day, the unintended impact of my take-charge style at times leaves others feeling cast aside. Working with this awareness, and while holding myself in warm regard, I make a concerted effort to moderate my intensity and engage others more thoughtfully. I needed to become aware of some of my own actions that no longer served me (often a result of an exuberant knee-jerk, go-go-go style), and make a moment-to-moment choice to slow it down a bit. Slowing down, or shifting to my System 2 level of conscious awareness, is still hard for me; some days are better than others. What helps me pause is remembering that the deeply held belief that I needed to move quickly to get things done is no longer serving my efficacy as a leader.

Here is what I am now convinced is also true: I have faced a trade-off between being seen by others as competent or likeable over and over in my lifetime. I just didn’t know it until I learned about the now well-documented Harvard Business School study, which is widely being used to demonstrate bias. As described by Lesley Symons and Herminia Ibarra in their illuminating April 2014 report, “What the Scarcity of Women in Business Case Studies Really Looks Like,” for Harvard Business Review, different groups of students read a case study about a venture capitalist with one single difference—gender. Everything about the case study and the person is the same; however, in one case study, the name used is “Heidi” and the other, “Howard.” Time and again in applications of this exercise, students respected both “Howard” and “Heidi,” yet Howard was described as likeable and Heidi was seen as selfish and not “the type of person you would want to hire or work for.” This phenomenon has become known as the “likeability penalty” or the “likeability bias.” It goes like this: Success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women. When a man is successful, his peers often like him more. When a woman is successful, both men and women often like her less. This trade-off between success and likeability creates a double bind for women. If a woman is competent, she does not seem nice enough, but if a woman seems really nice, she is considered less competent.

Until about two years ago, I never knew that the cost of being liked was having my competence questioned. Or, that the cost of my successes/competence might leave me as seen as less likeable. Have you experienced this weird phenomenon in which you are questioned about possessing both competence and likeability? If you’re unsure, it kind of feels surreal—receiving a suspicious reaction to being naturally personable and intelligent, as if both traits cannot coexist in a human being.

Let me set the record straight here, as I do now in every talk I give: I am both competent and likeable. My bet is that you are, too. You are smart. You, like me, have grown businesses and product lines or brought ideas to high-impact action. You have marshalled the resources of others to manifest a vision that has and continues to impact others. Being likeable didn’t hurt in these successes, but let’s be clear: You are as competent as you are likeable.

I have images of a not-too-much younger version of myself, enthusiastically (even gleefully) running fast around a track only to stumble. But whatever hurdle that was there was, in fact, invisible. I stood up, brushed myself off, and set out again.

For a girl who doesn’t run hurdles, I’ve done a lot of running … and falling.

I can only presume that this likeability bias has negatively impacted my career. I believed in meritocracy until I was passed up a time or three in subtle and not so subtle ways—not just for jobs, but for my opinion about things. I walked away from meetings and discussions feeling tolerated, even listened to, but not heard. I have been confused about why, when I have had ample successes, leaders at different phases of my life in different organizations didn’t see me as someone competent enough to lead more than what I had been leading.

Apparently, what is seen (and, arguably, celebrated) as entrepreneurship, self-confidence, and vision in a man is perceived as arrogance and self-promotion in a woman. This explains so much of what I have sensed about my impact (but no matter how much self-awareness I had, wasn’t changing). Take the growth of Linkage’s Women in Leadership Institute as an example. While I credit the success and impact the Institute has enjoyed to many men and women who have served to lead and support it (colleagues, faculty, participants, etc.) I have and continue to put myself “out there” as a brand ambassador of the event. Emceeing for a few years, then joining the ranks of keynote faculty, and eventually serving as cochair, was a strategic choice on my part based on the hypothesis that the event would grow if there was explicit and formal affiliation with a person—a courageous woman leader. This took courage, involved a vision, and a good dose of self-confidence to pull off. It was nerve wracking to act out my Inner Critic on stage—and I kept reminding myself that I’m doing it for the purpose of helping other women come to compassion. Yet over the years, I have heard whispers that some have perceived that I involved myself purely out of self-interest and self-promotion. To this day, thinking of these critiques and judgements can make me angry. I have come to believe that there is a limit to what I can do to change this perception, or bias, of my role with the success of the Institute. What I can do is inspire and involve others to engage with me to ensure the Institute continues to have impact. Today, the very capable, smart, and professional Kerry Seitz serves as the Executive Director. Today, the event is her ship; she is the captain. I serve on her faculty, and as an advisor and cochair. Coaching and supporting her (and many of the capable women who came before her) in her leadership of our nearly 20-year old flagship, Linkage’s Women in Leadership Institute, helps me to cast aside the accusation that I am only in this for myself. At some level, we need to trust our own true agenda over the way a common bias may make it appear to others.

The term double bind was first used in the 1950s by the anthropologist Gregory Bateson to describe situations in communication when an individual (or group) receives two or more conflicting messages, and one message negates the other. My double bind was and still is leading (even more slowly and more thoughtfully) at the risk of being seen by some as less competent and by others as less likeable. What do I do about it? I have come to terms with the fact that not everyone is going to like me. I’d rather make game-changing impact and work with people who believe in my good intentions, than sit around and stew about who doesn’t like me. This is a moment-to-moment practice of self-compassion that keeps it all okay.

This double bind may be the fuel to your clarity, the next hurdle we take on.