Anthony Ashby, FACHE – Countering Bias in the Workplace

Countering Implicit or Explicit Bias in the Workplace

Be self-aware. It is not a matter of “Are you biased?” It is a matter of “How are you biased?” We are all biased in some way based on our unique lived experiences. It is our responsibility to continuously be aware of our biases. One of the key lessons I learned in studying Stephen Covey is about the circles of control influence and concern. We can often get stuck focusing on things in the world we do not control or other people, as opposed to continuously working on yourself.

Build a network of work relationships of people who represent groups different than yourself and are interested in addressing biases that can hold you accountable as well as you can do the same for them. This could mean debriefing from a meeting to share and hear their perspective or to prep for a meeting to get their perspective ahead of time.

Be fact based. Since oftentimes biases come from assumptions, one tactic is to have a questioning attitude in challenging ourselves: If and how do we know something is true? Things get mentioned anecdotally or based on one or few experiences so leveraging data is essential whenever possible to help compliment opinions and emotions.