POTENTIALITY EXPLORED No. 3

In a world as turbulent as a tumble dryer what are you assuming?

This image is from HSBC’s thought-provoking marketing team from around 2017

This has sometimes felt like a month of deeply unsettling change and upheaval. The tumble-dryer effect. As we tumble about how are our biases showing up? Our newsletter offers some points for reflection and action, invites you join our group coaching and answer a random question!

March Thoughts

In an ideal world, UN days wouldn't be necessary. As it is, they give us an opportunity to pause and reflect to become aware of our own responsibilities. There are three in March which focus on people who routinely face both conscious and unconscious bias and others across the UN annual calendar.

With this in mind, we are thinking about unconscious bias. We mean those sneaky unconscious forms of discrimination and stereotyping based on race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, ability, age, and so on that sometimes slip into language and attitudes.

They are kind of “brain shortcuts” and they are amazingly nuanced and deeply embedded. We most often recognise them when we are on the receiving end (ouch!) Yet we all have them and they can be helpful and harmful.

On the good side, a bias can aid fast decision-making potentially moving you more quickly away from potential danger, helping us develop strategies for testing and often helping find friends and a sense of community.

Much less great, are the missed opportunities for you and the object of your biases. Being routinely stereo-typed creates barriers to understanding and opportunity. Lots has been written about the value-add of diversity. Teams with mixed race, gender, ability, age, neuro diversity and thinking processes do better. Biases literally make us all poorer.

The trouble is as the name suggests, unconscious is, just that, unconscious.

Unconscious bias spotting! Here are four things to try

This year the theme begun on UN Zero Discrimination Day (1^st March) is “We stand together”. In the tumble dryer the clothes fall over each other each one on its own. How might curiosity and action over our biases help usb this year?

March Offer and More

Harriet’s Random Question

Last but not least a random question: Are humans the only species to clap? I found myself clapping at a concert recently thought how strange it is that we do. Please comment!

Thanks for reading. If you have enjoyed this, please:

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• Comment – we’ll be there!

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