Microinequalities training
Microinequalities: How to Spot them and Call them Out
Small behavioural traits are often the only way we have of detecting unconscious bias in our colleagues, but it is often these seemingly small and insignificant behaviours that build up to a feeling of lack of belonging and a toxic culture that leads us to question our 'fit'. How do we spot these behaviours and what do we do to stop them happening through positive action? And how do we get our male colleagues to act on our behalf to effect a change of culture.
Join me in an interactive session to explore these issues.
Background
Unconscious Bias is something that we all have, and for very good reasons from an evolutionary perspective, where the ‘shortcuts’ we make in our minds to help us think more quickly would often be the cause of life or death. These biases – whether they be through learned behaviour or cultural norms - can often be limiting when they are based on stereotypes, especially when we want to break such a stereotype. For example, in the historically male dominated engineering sector these shortcuts leads us to adopt the view that engineers are male – just as we often think of nurses as a female, and this will work against us when we are trying to change the previous norm and diversify the sector.
Biases will generally manifest themselves in behaviour traits that ‘give our biases away’, and so to break a bias or a stereotype we need to know how to act when the bias surfaces in order to produce an effective change in behaviour. The behavioural ‘give-aways’ we observe, however, are often small and seemingly innocuous, and it appears on first analysis that these are insignificant and not worth changing. But the reality is these small biases or microinequalities build up over time, and gain a much greater significance. They also perpetuate a bias and can prevent change of opinion or belief occurring, and so the bias will continue to the next generation.
Illustrated with an example, when engineers are consistently referred to in the masculine in speech and written text (i.e. as ‘he’) then this leads the listener to the assumption that a female engineer is out of the ordinary, and doesn’t fit the norm, which can lead to many much greater problems such as imposter syndrome, lack of belonging, and lack of acceptance in the workplace. It will also have a very negative affect on how younger people see themselves fitting into society, and will lead them to assume – often also unconsciously – that these roles are ‘not for people like me’.
This training session is based on how to address these microinequalities when we come across them (in and out of the workplace) to produce an outcome which is understood and accepted by both the perpetrator and the recipient of the bias: we want to get to a place where the statement “I’m okay, you’re okay” is true, and where we really start to change the culture of the organisation and the mindsets of our colleagues such that they become our allies in identifying and taking action where we come across unconscious bias.
The training will explore several different tools and strategies that we can deploy to address these situations, and the audience will be given different scenarios to work through.
It will also give the ‘bystander’ who is not necessarily affected by the microinequality some strategies for getting involved to ensure that they know what their role is in effecting change in an organisation as an ‘active bystander’.
Contact me if you would like to find out more.
Small behavioural traits are often the only way we have of detecting unconscious bias in our colleagues, but it is often these seemingly small and insignificant behaviours that build up to a feeling of lack of belonging and a toxic culture that leads us to question our 'fit'. How do we spot these behaviours and what do we do to stop them happening through positive action? And how do we get our male colleagues to act on our behalf to effect a change of culture.
Join me in an interactive session to explore these issues.
Background
Unconscious Bias is something that we all have, and for very good reasons from an evolutionary perspective, where the ‘shortcuts’ we make in our minds to help us think more quickly would often be the cause of life or death. These biases – whether they be through learned behaviour or cultural norms - can often be limiting when they are based on stereotypes, especially when we want to break such a stereotype. For example, in the historically male dominated engineering sector these shortcuts leads us to adopt the view that engineers are male – just as we often think of nurses as a female, and this will work against us when we are trying to change the previous norm and diversify the sector.
Biases will generally manifest themselves in behaviour traits that ‘give our biases away’, and so to break a bias or a stereotype we need to know how to act when the bias surfaces in order to produce an effective change in behaviour. The behavioural ‘give-aways’ we observe, however, are often small and seemingly innocuous, and it appears on first analysis that these are insignificant and not worth changing. But the reality is these small biases or microinequalities build up over time, and gain a much greater significance. They also perpetuate a bias and can prevent change of opinion or belief occurring, and so the bias will continue to the next generation.
Illustrated with an example, when engineers are consistently referred to in the masculine in speech and written text (i.e. as ‘he’) then this leads the listener to the assumption that a female engineer is out of the ordinary, and doesn’t fit the norm, which can lead to many much greater problems such as imposter syndrome, lack of belonging, and lack of acceptance in the workplace. It will also have a very negative affect on how younger people see themselves fitting into society, and will lead them to assume – often also unconsciously – that these roles are ‘not for people like me’.
This training session is based on how to address these microinequalities when we come across them (in and out of the workplace) to produce an outcome which is understood and accepted by both the perpetrator and the recipient of the bias: we want to get to a place where the statement “I’m okay, you’re okay” is true, and where we really start to change the culture of the organisation and the mindsets of our colleagues such that they become our allies in identifying and taking action where we come across unconscious bias.
The training will explore several different tools and strategies that we can deploy to address these situations, and the audience will be given different scenarios to work through.
It will also give the ‘bystander’ who is not necessarily affected by the microinequality some strategies for getting involved to ensure that they know what their role is in effecting change in an organisation as an ‘active bystander’.
Contact me if you would like to find out more.