If you could overcome your unconscious biases, how great could your team be?

None of us are born believing that gender, skin color, or height determines who makes a good leader. Instead, we are influenced by learned false beliefs and unconscious biases that shape our thinking.

These beliefs and biases not only affect our decisions but also distort how we perceive and remember things. Science shows that this is not about personal choices but about how the human brain has been trained to associate certain traits with false perceptions. Neuropsychologist Donald Hebb coined this process as “neurons that fire together wire together.”

Organizations often address conscious biases through internal policies. For example, they emphasize non-discrimination in recruitment and monitor gender and age distribution trends. However, unconscious biases, which are harder to detect and address, remain the leading cause of challenges in diversity, inclusion, and equality.

Unconscious biases undermine trust, hinder psychological safety, and lead to inefficient and underperforming teams. When biases and their impact go unrecognized, leaders fail to address problems, unintentionally fostering feelings of inequality within their teams.

The good news is that once biases are recognized, they can be unlearned. According to Anu Gupta*, teams can mitigate the impact of false assumptions on decision-making through five specific routines.

These so-called PRISM routines are:

🌱 Perspective Taking: Stepping into another person’s shoes to foster empathy and recognize their experiences.

🌱 Prosocial Behavior: A set of practices to focus the mind on positive aspects, reducing the negative emotions caused by false assumptions.

🌱 Individuation: Differentiating individual behaviors from preconceived notions, instead identifying unique strengths.

🌱 Stereotype Replacement: A visualization exercise where stereotypes are actively replaced with fact-based positive examples.

🌱 Mindfulness: Proven to be an effective tool for becoming aware of biases.

In workplaces, addressing unconscious biases should be a priority. Identifying and mitigating biases within a team strengthens trust, creativity, and psychological safety, leading to better business outcomes and lower unnecessary costs.

Research shows that change can be achieved in less than three weeks if these practices are consistently part of the daily agenda.

So – how great could your team become?

*Read more in the HBR article:
A Simple Exercise to Help You Check Your Biases (Oct 24, 2024)