How Unconscious Biases Block
Effective Interactions
Sara
Taylor discusses her new book, 'Filter Shift: How Effective People See the
World'
Most people would not consider themselves
biased. But a new book says that nearly everyone has unconscious biases — and
they affect how we interact with others, with real consequences. Filter
Shift: How Effective People See the World by Sara Taylor notes that one
can learn to manage these biases, or filters, by being mindful that they are
there and then working on ways to address them.
Critical to the process is
the “Platinum Rule,” which is learning
to treat people how they — not you — would like to be treated,
because what works for you may not work for others. Taylor recently shared
insights from her book on the Knowledge@Wharton show, which is part of Wharton Business Radio that airs on SiriusXM channel 111.
An edited transcript of the conversation
follows.
Knowledge@Wharton: When
you talk of ‘filter shift,’ what exactly do you mean?
Sara Taylor: This is
about how our unconscious [biases] dictate how we’re seeing our interactions.
What we need to [recognize] are the filters operating in our unconscious, and
eventually [learn] to shift those filters in order to be more effective.
Knowledge@Wharton: How
many people realize they probably have this problem and are able to manage it?
You say that to navigate through this problem one could learn along the way.
Taylor: With
one of the cultural competence models that we use, we see that between 95% and
99% of us don’t realize that we have a problem. That’s the number of folks that
have a significant gap between where they think they are versus where they
actually are in their [level of] competence in interacting [with other types of
people].
What does that mean? If I think that I’m Wonder Woman when it
comes to having interactions with folks that are different from me, in reality,
I don’t have that skill. That means I’ve got some huge blind spots, and it
might also mean that I’m unintentionally offending others. None of us wants to
unintentionally offend others. So, learning how to filter-shift helps us to
become more intentional, and match our impact with that good intent.
Knowledge@Wharton: There’s
an interesting example in the book involving [a meeting between former Iraqi leader] Saddam
Hussein and [former New Mexico governor] Bill Richardson, and how subtle some
of these slights could be
Taylor: The key
learning in that story is, we’ve got all kinds of great mantras and
philosophies that we all live by. But we don’t realize that many times, those
mantras perpetuate this ineffectiveness. The one that we talked about with that
particular story is the mantra of the Golden Rule: We should treat others as we
want to be treated. That is a reflection of one of the ineffective [phases
along the] five stages of development.
Why is that ineffective? Because it’s based on just this teeny,
tiny assumption that the whole universe wants to be treated the way I want to
be treated. That’s not the case. We’ve got to learn how to treat others
as they want to be treated, which is the Platinum Rule.
Knowledge@Wharton: Richardson
was sitting at the table, getting ready to meet with Saddam Hussein, and he had
his knee crossed over his other leg. That allowed the bottom of his shoe to be
seen, which is a big insult in Iraqi culture.
Taylor: Bill
Richardson is a very competent, very successful and very effective person. He
even had three staff people helping him prepare for that meeting for three
months. Yet, it was still over in less than a minute, because it was incredibly
offensive, the way he was showing the sole of his shoe.
That would be the equivalent of Saddam Hussein sending a
diplomatic emissary to President Clinton, and that diplomatic emissary sitting
down in the Oval Office would be flipping off President Clinton. (While Saddam
Hussein abruptly left the room, he returned a while later to the meeting, as
Richardson noted in a 1996 interview in Fortune magazine.)
The learning there is that we can’t know what every gesture
[means]. But, Bill Richardson [could have prepared] from the perspective of Saddam’s
filters — how does Saddam look at this meeting? [Instead,] what he did to
approach it was to say, “What would I want if I were in Saddam’s shoes?” That’s
the Golden Rule, and that’s what tripped him up.
[Richardson] thought, “If I were in Saddam’s shoes, I wouldn’t
want the big powerhouse of the world, the United States, coming in and being
all uppity and formal with me. I’d want them to be informal.” That’s why he
went into that meeting, sat down, leaned back, crossed his legs, and up went
the sole of his shoe.
Knowledge@Wharton: That
could similarly play out in boardrooms or negotiation tables and have a
negative effect.
Taylor: That’s
right. The reality is, lots of us aren’t in situations like that, with a
dictator who can just get up and leave a meeting because they’re upset. For the
rest of us, we may be in meetings or in other interactions, and we might get a
sense afterward that, “Hmm, I don’t know that that went very well.” We don’t
have the [other] person telling us [what was amiss]. We don’t have the person
getting up and leaving. So, we don’t have those cues from others everyday that
we’re not being our most effective [selves].
Knowledge@Wharton: The
word ‘see’ is important to this process. The letters in the word stand for See,
Explain, and Evaluate.
Taylor: That’s
right. When we observe anything, or when we’re in an interaction, all kinds of
thoughts come to our mind: I think he’s this, I think he’s that; I thought this
about what he said. What we don’t realize is, the vast majority of those
thoughts are coming from our unconscious. That’s the “Explain” and “Evaluate.”
My unconscious takes what I see, what’s objective, and then its
job is, “I’ve got to pass up an explanation to that conscious mind. Here’s how
I’m going to explain what I think I see.” The unconscious goes even further. It
says, “Now I’ve got to place a judgment on it. Here’s the judgment of what I
think I see.”
Those filters are operating, doing all this in my unconscious,
but those filters are created by my past experiences. In my interaction with
you, my brain is giving me all kinds of explanations and judgments about you.
But I have no idea if what my filters are telling me matches what your filters
are telling you.
You’ve got it coming from the other side [as well]. Your filters
are telling you all kinds of things about me. And then we can get into a
misunderstanding. What we don’t realize when we’re in those misunderstandings
is, many times those are filter fights.
Knowledge@Wharton: How
often are some of those situations just misunderstandings?
Taylor: I think
it’s the vast majority of the time. I’ve asked this question to probably tens
of thousands of people — folks in the audience during my presentations, and I
see head-nods in agreement — “Do you think the vast majority of us enter the
workplace every day with positive intent?”
If we all are entering the workforce and want to have positive
relationships, we want to contribute, and we’ve got that positive intent, then
why do we have misunderstandings? The reason we have misunderstandings is
because we aren’t able to match that positive intent with an equally positive
impact.
When it gets down to it, what is it that really matters? I could
have the best of intentions. Let’s say I’m presenting, and I’ve got my stiletto
heels on, which I never do when I present. I accidentally step on someone’s
foot, in the front row with my stilettos. Their reaction is going to be a
scream, probably, right?
I’m going to say, “Oh my gosh! I didn’t mean to hurt you! I’m so
sorry.” Now, what’s going to actually determine whether that person was hurt or
not? Is it going to be the scream, or my ‘Oh my gosh, I didn’t mean to’? We
know it’s the impact that decides.
Going back to our interactions, it’s our impact on others that
decides our effectiveness, not our intent. I can have the best of intentions,
and then I get into a misunderstanding with someone, and then [conclude that]
it must be their fault [or] they were disrespectful. I don’t say, “Wait a
second. How is my unconscious really controlling that situation? How did that
determine how I interacted? What do I need to do to have a better impact the
next go-around?”
Knowledge@Wharton: You
mention that a lot of times this happens because people aren’t taught to be
able to deal with and understand others. Why do you think that’s the case? And
how are you able to handle that?
Taylor: Exactly.
Why aren’t we taught? I would say that the reason why most of us aren’t taught
this competence is because we believe a number of myths.
One is we believe that just being comfortable with differences
means that I’m going to be competent. Think about it, in what other areas does
comfort equal competence? I am completely comfortable holding my high school
clarinet that I used to play. But you do not want to hear me try to play it. I
am nowhere near competent.
The other myth is, “I’m exposed to all kinds of differences.
I’ve got differences all around me. My best friend is gay. My next-door
neighbor is black. My mom has lived with a disability all of her life. I get
this stuff.” But in what other area would we say that exposure equals
competence? If that were the case, we wouldn’t need schools. We’d just have,
say, a math guru, and everybody would send their kids to be exposed to the math
guru for an hour, and they’re going to know math. We know that that’s not true
in [cases where skills are a competence to be learned].
The reality is that we just don’t see [bias shifting] as a
competence [that needs to be developed]. But we need to start seeing it that
way.
Knowledge@Wharton: You
also talk about how some things seem so obvious to some people. Yet, we have
problems believing that it could be that easy.
Taylor: What we
sometimes do is [point out] something that is obvious — an obvious difference,
in particular. But we [may be] uncomfortable talking about it.
[This is something that happens] all the time, with my husband
and me. I’m a white woman. My husband is a black man. There are times when
we’re in all-white groups, except for my husband. Somebody will say, “Sara,
which one’s your husband?” If I’ve got the one black guy in a sea of white
folks, wouldn’t it be obvious to just say — as I’m trying to point him out —
“the black guy?”
But, many times, folks just feel very uncomfortable with that,
because we [get many social] messages that we shouldn’t talk about those
differences. So, lots of times, when I say that, I’ll get very uncomfortable
responses. Particularly, what I get most is a nervous laughter. I know what
they’re thinking: “Oh my gosh, Sara just said ‘black.’ She called her husband
that. She doesn’t even know that she’s not supposed to say that.”
There, it’s our unconscious telling us, “Oh, that’s a topic you
should avoid.” But then, what happens if we’re avoiding those topics — when do
we get into them? If we’re uncomfortable talking about differences, especially
the easy-to-see differences, then how are we ever going to be comfortable in
our workplace, interacting with those differences? And also, talking about the
differences that are even more difficult to see?
Knowledge@Wharton: Do you
feel we can effect change in these areas with more understanding relationships
in our personal lives, and hopefully that will carry over into our business
life, where some of these issues apply as well?
Taylor: Yes, I
hear that all the time. I work with people, mainly in the workplace. What I
hear from them is, “Oh my gosh, you just solved an issue that I’ve been
struggling with for 20 years with my husband.” Or, “I just want to bring my
wife in,” or, “I just want to bring my partner in, my kids in, so they can hear
this.” So, yes, it definitely plays out both at home and at work.
The second piece is that this is something that can be
developed. There are some people who might naturally be nicer people. There are
some people who are naturally more extroverted, versus introverted. That’s not
what we’re talking about. We’re talking about a competence that we can develop.
To that point, let me see if you can guess — we plot this out —
the five stages of development. They’re progressive; you have to move through
them to get to the most developed stage. In the most developed stage, we can
see the full complexity of differences that are around us, and we can respond
to them effectively. So, what’s your guess? How many of us, do you think, operate
in that stage?
Knowledge@Wharton: I’m not
sure what the percentage is, but I would say it’s got to be way up there.
Taylor: That’s
what most of us think. But guess what? I don’t mean to be a Debbie Downer here,
but it’s only 2.5%. Only 2.5% are operating in the highest stage of
effectiveness, where we can see the full complexity [of someone else], and
respond to it. The good news is we can develop this competence.
Knowledge@Wharton: What do
you think is the best way to try to do that? That seems like it would be a
large task to undertake.
Taylor: The
good news is, it isn’t. It used to be, though. To get folks to that last stage,
it takes about 40 hours of intentional development work. During that work, we
show people all kinds of differences, from all kinds of different groups.
Eventually, what will happen is, you’ll develop [that competence].
We did that for years, and what I started to see is that the
process did work, and people developed to that last stage. But, as we did it, I
started to hear and see patterns of people making these shift points. And so, I
said, what if we just taught those shift points? At the time, I called them
‘key developmental shifts,’ or things that you needed in order to develop
[these skills.]
There are six of those. I started to teach just those key
developmental shifts. With that, we were able to bring the 40-hour process down
to nine hours. That’s the process we talk about in Filter Shift. It
starts with myself, understanding my own filters, then understanding the
filters of others, and finally, understanding how I shift my filters to approach
a situation more effectively.
http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/how-unconscious-biases-block-effective-interactions/
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