How to Keep Perceived Bias from Holding Back High-Potential Employees
When talented people from diverse backgrounds
fail to rise in a company, there are three powerful solutions: having more
inclusive team leaders, more diversity among the top leadership, and better
sponsorship practices.
“I’m just disgusted,” said Angela (not her
real name), a vice president at a major financial-services firm. “The company
can keep doing things the wrong way. It’s not my problem.”
That is the last thing that leaders of most
businesses want to hear. And Angela herself, an African-American woman who
originally had been fast-tracked as a high-potential employee, was not happy
that she felt this way. But it was grounded in a sober realization: She was
receiving consistent signals that even though she believed in her own potential
to rise higher in the enterprise, her superiors didn’t.
For example, the year before, she had
identified a significant flaw in the way her company was analyzing a
risk-related metric. She brought it to her boss’s attention but was ignored. So
she convened a small group of more experienced executives at the firm, who all
happened to be older white men, to review her analysis. This group reached the
same conclusions she had. The result would enable the firm to dial down risk
exposure that it hadn’t known it had.
Angela expected that her superiors would
congratulate her for her analysis, her persistence in raising awareness of it,
and her ability to bring together a group inside the company to confirm it. She
hoped that her superiors might let her present her findings to senior
management. Instead, they merely thanked her for thinking to put together the
group. They asked a white man on Angela’s team who was junior to her to write
up their findings. His report repeated, word for word, Angela’s insight of the
month before, but didn’t mention her. Her superiors lavishly praised him for
his good work and invited him to present his report to senior management. His
career was now launched. Angela’s remained stuck in place.
“I’m used to being mistaken for a secretary,”
Angela says. “Or if a superior had taken credit for my work, that’s maybe
normal too. But this was too much. I’m now just going through the motions here
until I get the right offer someplace else. They’re not exactly grooming me to
rise any further here. As far as I can see, they never do that for black
people.”
Many people feel that their potential is
misjudged at some point in their careers. Like Angela, they may see someone
else get opportunities and support that they believe they deserve. But how
widespread is this experience of career diminishment? Does it happen more often
to members of particular groups? And does this perceived bias then undermine
the performance of the organization as a whole?
At the Center for Talent Innovation, our
research often focuses on questions like these. Thus, in early 2017, we
conducted a survey of 3,570 full-time, college-educated employees in
white-collar jobs in the United States. The results suggest that Angela isn’t
alone in feeling misjudged. We found that 9.2 percent of white-collar workers
at large companies (defined as having more than 1,000 employees) perceived that
they were underrated in assessments of their potential by their bosses. The
proportion of people perceiving this type of bias varied widely, sometimes
rising above 20 percent, and other times falling to zero, depending on the
company and the characteristics of the individual. The problem is indeed more
acute among members of specific groups. Employees with disabilities, people of
color, and those born outside the U.S. seemed to be affected most often. And
the resulting loss of their commitment and enthusiasm can lead to major costs
for the enterprise.
Misjudgments of employee potential that are
grounded in deeply held attitudes and biases may seem to be an intractable
problem in many organizations. But in CTI’s ongoing studies of employee
perceptions of bias, three factors have been identified that can be implemented
in just about any company, and that appear to make an enormous difference in
supporting talent of all backgrounds. These factors are having more inclusive
team leaders (fostering a culture in which people feel free to speak and feel
confident of being heard); diversity in the leadership (that is, more people
from different backgrounds in top positions); and the sponsorship of diverse
people by senior executives. This most recent survey confirmed the power of
these three solutions to the perceived-bias problem. With these factors in
mind, leaders can do a great deal to change employees’ perception that there’s
a bias against them.
The Perception of Bias
To measure the kind of misjudgment that
Angela perceived, we asked survey respondents to assess their own potential
along the following lines: ability, ambition, commitment, connections,
emotional intelligence, and executive presence. Because of the letters these
attributes start with, we call it the “ACE” model. We also asked respondents
what feedback they’ve received — or how they believe their current superiors
judge them — on the same ACE model. Then we compared the two.
When respondents (using the ACE model) rated
their own potential highly but perceived that their superiors rated them
poorly, we included them in the group who believed themselves unfairly judged.
For example, if you say that you’re dedicated to your work but that your
supervisors don’t see it, then you believe that your commitment is incorrectly
judged.
Potential, unlike performance, is an
inherently subjective measure. How can you prove beyond a doubt to your
superiors that they should consider and groom you for the leadership role that
you think you deserve? Your superiors must be willing to see in you the
capacity and potential you see in yourself. When there is a gap in judgment
between you and your superior, this comes across as bias, and you are more
likely to withdraw your effort and commitment in ways that impose costs on your
employer.
By
comparing responses from various individuals with different backgrounds, we can
gain significant insight into this judgment gap. In this case, we narrowed our
data to the 1,918 respondents who worked at large companies and put the results
into a heat map (see exhibit). The map shows what percentage of members
of different groups perceived being underrated in the six ACE assessment
categories.
Some respondents perceived bias in two or
more of the ACE categories, a phenomenon that we call “ACE bias.” ACE bias
correlates with several potentially costly impacts on employee morale,
retention, and performance. Compared with peers who don’t perceive bias,
employees at large companies who report ACE bias are more than four times as
likely (33 percent versus 8 percent) to regularly feel alienated at work, 3.1
times as likely (31 percent versus 10 percent) to intend to leave their company
within a year, and 2.6 times as likely to have withheld ideas or solutions (34
percent versus 13 percent) over the previous six months.
“I’m a natural relationship builder,” an
African-American account manager at an advertising firm told us. “If I could be
myself a little more, I could contribute more to the company. But to fit in,
there’s a lot of myself that I have to keep under wraps. I’m preoccupied with
how I’m presenting myself, all day, every day. It’s exhausting.” A Latino
portfolio manager at an industrial conglomerate told us, “If I hear of an
opening in a firm with the right culture, I’ll try for it, even if the
compensation is less than what I’m getting now.” He continued, “What I want is
a place that will recognize my work and give me a fair chance to move up.”
Building an Inclusive Culture
How can leaders increase the odds that their
organization will be perceived as giving all employees a fair assessment,
without distortion from bias? To find answers, we looked at our three possible
solutions, and their effects on the percentage of employees who perceive ACE
bias. In other words, we tested three behaviors or structures that might “cool
down” the heat map.
The
first solution was to develop an organization where inclusive leaders are
prevalent. In prior
research at CTI, we defined inclusive leaders as
those who create a “speak-up culture” where members of their teams feel welcome
and included, free to share their ideas and opinions, and confident that their
ideas are heard and recognized. Leaders, we found, can foster a speak-up
culture through the following behaviors:
•
Ensure that everyone gets heard. Find
ways to draw out people dialing in from remote places, or people who are less
fluent than others in the language being spoken by the group. You can assign
each member a speaking role ahead of time, or actively discourage participants
from interrupting hesitant speakers or talking over those with quieter voices.
• Make
it safe to propose novel ideas. Continually
ask for unconventional contributions. Offer your own outside-the-box ideas to
show that radical notions carry no penalty, and respond to novel ideas with
enthusiasm.
• Give
actionable feedback. Make your comments immediate and
concrete. For example, establish a regular five-minute debrief with your direct
reports after meetings where they were visible: “one thing you did well; one
thing you need to work on.”
• Take
advice and implement feedback. Ask
for input on your own decisions and behaviors, and then heed it. For example,
you might visibly show that you are convinced when a team member presents you
with a conclusive reason for changing your mind.
•
Empower decision making among team members. Give
people ownership of pieces of the strategy and lend them the support they need
to succeed.
•
Share credit for team success. Stand
back and let team members present success stories directly to senior
management.
The rates of employees at large companies who
perceived ACE bias plunged when they had inclusive leaders. Employees at large
companies were 87 percent less likely to perceive ACE bias when they had an
inclusive leader. They were also 39 percent more likely than those without an
inclusive leader to say that they were engaged at work.
Having a wider range of diversity among top
leaders is the second solution. The survey asked respondents about gender,
race, sexual orientation, and five other lines of difference in company
leadership. Employees at large companies with high levels of diversity in their
leadership (with at least three lines of difference represented) were 64
percent less likely to perceive ACE bias than those with low levels. Notably,
every employee category — including whites — was less likely to perceive ACE
bias when leadership was diverse.
The third solution, sponsorship of diverse
talent, had the most dramatic impact on perceived ACE bias: Individuals at
large companies with a reported sponsor (a senior-level advocate willing to use
his or her power and influence to help advance the career of a protégé) were 90
percent less likely than those without to perceive ACE bias. Moreover, with
sponsors, the risk of foreign-born talent, LGBT employees, and
African-Americans at large corporations perceiving ACE bias dropped to nearly
zero.
“To
move up, it’s so important for senior management to know who you are and know
what you’re doing long before the promotion decision is made,” an Afro-Latina
client relationship vice president at an entertainment conglomerate told us.
“That’s an area where a sponsor can make a big difference, but in my company
you almost never see women or people of color having a sponsor.” Data backs up
this anecdote: prior
CTI research found that white employees are 63
percent more likely than people of color to have a sponsor.
An Asian-American pharmaceutical executive
reported a similar experience: “A while back, I had a manager who was out to
get me. She’d never let me take on any kind of responsibilities. Then I got a
sponsor, who got to know me and took a leap of faith on me. She arranged for me
to get a new position even though I didn’t check every box that an HR computer
might have generated for an ideal candidate. That relaunched my career. I’ve
had two promotions since then.”
Taking the Next Steps
Our data suggests some solutions to the bias
that appears to persist in corporate America. Your organization can also
perform its own diagnostics. Mapping where bias is perceived inside your ranks
will make it easier to target, prioritize, and assess interventions. You can
later assess an intervention’s efficacy by repeating the diagnostic to see how
your employees’ perception of bias has changed. This new diagnostic will
indicate where additional efforts are needed.
The
heat map research shown here identifies and quantifies bias where it strikes
individuals and organizations most: in the experiences of employees. Heat
mapping takes a different tack from the unconscious bias trainings that are
currently popular but that lack evidence
of effectiveness and may even make bias worse through the implication that managers are to blame.
It may be easier to enlist managers as allies if you focus on the perception of
bias and on the cost it brings to the organization.
Bias and inequity can’t be eliminated. But by
training and encouraging managers in specific inclusive behaviors, working to
increase diversity in leadership, and offering sponsorship opportunities to a
wider range of people, your company can take measurable steps toward disrupting
the experience of bias and reducing its costs. You can then reap the gains of a
more motivated workforce and signal to incoming talent that no matter who they
are, they won’t be held back because of the groups to which they belong.
by Sylvia Ann
Hewlett, Ripa Rashid, and Laura Sherbin
Published: September 11, 2017
https://www.strategy-business.com/article/How-to-Keep-Perceived-Bias-from-Holding-Back-High-Potential-Employees?gko=a8740&utm_source=itw&utm_medium=20170912&utm_campaign=resp
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