This might seem like a strange headline to write for a blog, especially from someone who has been training people on this very topic for the last decade!
I have seen a few of these headlines recently along with some discussion on social media, so thought I should review what the points are. It is important to be open to critique and learn from all different perspectives.
What seemed to prompt a lot of the recent discussion was due to the UK boss of KPMG resigning. Some of his leaving remarks included:
‘After every single unconscious bias training that’s ever been done nothing’s ever improved. So unless you care, you actually won’t change.’
I read a few articles on this and a lot of them are agreeing with his view that unconscious bias training doesn’t work. This article discusses that the training is about showing the participant ‘just how far from grace they truly are’. They discuss that training usually includes taking the Harvard Implicit Association Test and then receiving a debriefing. They do go on to research whether the Harvard IAT should be used for this training, and share some findings from the test creator who states that this wasn’t the purpose of the Harvard IAT.
A recent BBC article states that unconscious bias training is to be scrapped for Civil Servants as the government does not see evidence in the training. This was following a report from the Government Equalities Office who commissioned research on the evidence for unconscious bias and diversity training, which found ‘there is currently no evidence that this training changes behaviour in the long term or improves workplace equality in terms of representation of women, ethnic minorities or other minority groups’.
The Government Equalities office carried out a systematic review of unconscious bias training (UBT) examining 492 studies (involving more than 87,000 participants). Their review found changes to unconscious bias measures were not associated with changes in behaviour. The Equality and Human Rights Commission’s assessment of the evidence on UBT examined 18 papers and found that:
- UBT is effective for awareness raising when using an Implicit Association Test2 (IAT) followed by a debrief, or more advanced training designs such as interactive workshops or longer term programmes to reflectively reduce biases.
- UBT can be effective for reducing implicit bias, but there is no evidence that it can eliminate it.
- UBT interventions are not generally designed to reduce explicit bias and those that do aim to do so have yielded mixed results or very small effects.
- Using the IAT and educating participants on unconscious bias theory is likely to increase awareness of and reduce implicit bias.
- The evidence for UBT’s ability effectively to change behaviour is limited. Most of the evidence reviewed did not use valid measures of behaviour change.
Their recommendations were
- Avoiding ‘one-off’ training sessions – training should be an ongoing process, involving multiple sessions and different formats;
- Making training voluntary – as evidence suggests that mandatory training can result in backfire. Note that voluntary training may only attract people who are already engaged though one study found that positive effects of in-depth training became more likely to persist once a minimum of 25% of team members participated in it
- Integrating training with wider organisational initiatives that seek to debias processes themselves.
There was some limitation to the research that was identified as training programme design will have huge variations between providers. Also, that a lot of the studies were done on student populations rather than samples that included employees in an organisational setting and those that were done in a work setting, and that used pre and post evaluations and so changes in behaviour could not be clearly identified as being due to unconscious bias training or due to another reason. These limitations should be taken into account for this discussion as clearly more research is needed for the impact within workplace settings.
I do agree that there are limitations to what UB training can do. I agree that you cannot just tell people what common biases are, or just ask them to complete the Harvard IAT test. Those things are not motivating enough to make real change. I have done some training where it is mandatory training and people are there sometimes to tick a box so again, there is not enough motivation for learning. I do think that any sort of mandatory training is going to have a tough challenge in making any change. If people don’t want to be there, then it is hard to get them to feel curious and engaged in the subject matter. In this case, we have to be clear about the context for the training and ensure the objectives and support are there too.
However, this is the big issue for me. So many people have never had any training or education on how the human brain makes decisions and the crux of unconscious bias training is to inform people how we, as humans, think.
I have taught unconscious biases on MBA programmes as part of decision making and in organisations as part of diversity training. Participants rarely have had insights into how we make decisions and that we rely on automatic processing to do so. I often use Daniel Kahneman theory on system 1 and system 2 thinking to explore this which allows us to discuss how biases and shortcuts of thinking impact so much of our thinking for working life and for our personal life. Once we realise how dependent we are on automatic processing, then we can explore where this may lead to a limitation on our awareness of other perspectives. We explore how these heuristics that we use for automatic processing can also create a ‘bounded awareness’ in how we see the world, and also why we all as human beings rely on shortcuts of thinking (or bias). When people realise how this impacts their careers, relationships, decision making, productivity, strategic thinking then they are usually more motivated to learn more about the limitation in our thinking. There is so much evidence from neuropsychology, behavioural economics and cognitive psychology that influence good awareness building on the impact of bias. When we use all this evidence to then help with how people can consider how their shortcuts of thinking may impact how we deal with others, then we can open the conversation about how to be more inclusive.
I do see change in people’s behaviours…. Sometimes this is supported with dealing with specifics such as recruitment, marketing, inclusive leadership, decision making or diversity initiatives, so I agree that it has to have some practical application. I also use the theory to work with individuals to help them become more inclusive through one-to-one coaching so I see the real impact of individual behaviour change. In my academic work, I see the impact of mindset shifts through individuals’ reflective and academic work.
There are lots of modern leadership theories that support a more open mindset, which is all linked to people being aware of their shortcuts of thinking and bounded awareness. Some of these theories and practices that are foundations of leadership development are emotional intelligence, learning agility, productivity, growth mindset, resilience, effective communication, strategic thinking, reflective practice etc.
If we go back to the original quote from KPMG, look at the second sentence ‘so, unless you care, you actually won’t change’. This is so true. Nobody can force someone to think differently so just telling people they are biased is not enough. It is people’s motivation to want to challenge their current heuristics and bias. If people do want to be more open to understanding different perspectives and be more inclusive then letting them know how the human brain works, can have a huge impact.
I don’t think we need to dismiss the importance of unconscious (and conscious) bias. Maybe the topic is, how we understand them and how we communicate them. The current training may not be adequate, but the subject matter is hugely important… in my opinion! I feel that the current debate will make us diversity practitioners work even harder to make sure the work we do does have a return on investment. I appreciate the debate and will ensure I continue to learn about the challenges and reflect on how we keep improving the communication and education about Diversity and Inclusion.
There is a lot to discuss on this subject and I would love to hear your views on this topic. If you would like to chat further, then please drop me an email [email protected].
