A leader’s guide to unconscious bias & inclusion with Pamela Fuller

Pamela Fuller: A Leader's Guide to Unconscious Bias & Inclusion

Welcome to The Talent Development Hot Seat with your host, Andy Storch. The show is dedicated to helping you develop the most important part of your organization. The people, if you are in HR or talent development, or you just want to learn how to get the best out of your people, then you are in the right place. Each week, Andy shares interviews with talent development professionals, thought leaders, and experts to share best practices, learn about the latest trends, and find out what has been successful in the world of talent development. This podcast is designed to give you what you need to be successful in the world of talent development. Now, here's your host, Andy Storch.

Andy:

Welcome to The Talent Development Hot Seat. I am your host, Andy Storch, and I'm excited that you're joining me today for a fantastic conversation. We are talking all about inclusion and unconscious bias. Our guest today is an author and expert on inclusion and unconscious bias. She has always been tied to issues of inclusion with an emphasis on exploring the impacts of bias and pushing a bit more into making progress in this world. For more than 15 years, she has worked in both the public and private sectors, supporting clients and solving complex problems. She currently serves as Franklin Covey's thought-leader on inclusion and bias as well as a global client partner, responsible for supporting some of the organization's most strategic accounts. Her new book is called The Leader's Guide to Unconscious Bias. Welcome, Pamela Fuller. Welcome to the show.

Pamela:

Thanks so much, Andy. I'm thrilled to be here.

Andy:

Yeah, I'm really excited to have you on, as you know, and as we talked about before, this is a really hot topic in the learning and development world and the corporate world, of course. And I'm excited to dive in and talk about what unconscious bias means to you and what leaders can do about it, specifically so that we can get past this and make an impact and really prove the effectiveness of our workers in the workplace. But before we do, I'd love to start with a little bit of your background and how did you get into all of this?

Pamela:

Yeah, as you know, as it says in my bio, I've always been tied to issues of diversity and inclusion, I think. I first started my career in nonprofit, and I did fundraising and special events and some advocacy around various populations. My first job was really focused on new Americans, right? First-generation Americans and immigrant populations that are predominantly black and brown. And then I worked in support of people with intellectual developmental disabilities. Then I got my MBA in organizational with a focus on strategy and organizational development, and so I started to think more critically about leadership and the connection between advocacy and leadership and inclusion in the workplace.

I worked for the Department of Defense for a little bit in an office of equal employment opportunity and diversity and then joined Franklin Covey, where we're really focused on behavior change and leadership development. And I think the reality is that if you don't have this lens, to your leadership, if you're not thinking about the impact of your decisions on various groups, on diversity, on equity, on inclusion, on belonging, then your leadership is missing something because people are being left out of that intentionally or unintentionally. So it was sort of the perfect storm, as you look at the beginning of my experience and then my education, to land at Franklin Covey, where I had the opportunity to really shape our perspective on inclusive leadership.

Andy:

Yeah. It sounds like the perfect background and the journey that led you right to where you are today, which is the perfect place. And you mentioned behavior change, which is so important, right? Because we can give people education all day long, every week, until the end of time. But unless people actually change behaviors, it's not going to make any kind of an impact, right?

Pamela:

Yeah. It is that Maya Angelou quote--I believe Maya Angelou--where to know and not to do is the same as not knowing. And it just doesn't mean anything if you're not actually applying that to your day-to-day leadership or your day-to-day perspective on talent development and how we identify talent and potential, and what support we give to some people and not others. And all of those decision points that end up forming a person's career.

Andy:

Well, I want to ask you, because that quote just spurred something in me and, thinking about how much things have changed over the last year, especially because of the death of George Floyd and the rise of the social justice movement. And I feel like before that I knew, right? I knew about a lot of the injustice and unconscious bias and systemic systemic racism and all the things that were going on in the world, and I felt like I was against it, but I don't know if I was really doing much on my own. And yet since then, I feel like I've been taking a lot more action, having a lot more conversations. And so that kind of hits to the core, thinking, you know, it's great to know about something, but if you don't do anything, then it's almost like you didn’t know. It's not really doing anything. Do you feel like there's been a major shift and that a lot more people who maybe had knowledge but weren't doing anything before, like me, are actually taking a lot more action?

Pamela:

I think that the short answer is yes. I certainly think that the murder of George Floyd this summer, and then the global protests on racial injustice, spurred action. For some people, they knew these things were happening, but they didn't necessarily think that they were happening within their own circle of influence. Or these things happen in some other place outside of me. And so it brought it a lot closer for folks. And I think there's still a question lingering about whether the events of the summer were a moment or a movement. So people initially had this interest in taking action and learning and having dialogue. And I think now what I'm hearing is some people are continuing that, and other people feel like, well, I did that, right? Like, I learned that thing, and I had that difficult conversation and now things will change.

And I think there's a real question for individual leaders around how willing are they to continue to act. The recognition that this is not a problem. It is a problem that is 400 years in the making, as you think about race specifically, but that ha--the United States is born of diversity. Diversity has existed since the country's inception, and so it's not going to be solved in a few months either. It is the micro action that leaders commit to every single day that is what's going to lead to the macro change. And we're going to see that change not in three months or six months, but in years ahead. Are we able to continue to act for that duration, I think, is an important question for leaders.

Andy:

Yeah. Micro actions lead to my macro change. I like that because we see these big goals, these insurmountable challenges, that we want to get past. We want to change the whole system, but it really starts with those small actions that we can take every day, much like the other way. Microaggressions, which has become a popular term, have led to a lot of the, I would guess, unconscious bias and racism and things that are going on out there. I want to get into that, but before I do, I just want to touch on your book. The book, again, is called The Leader's Guide to Unconscious Bias. You published it in November of 2020, actually, the same time that I published my book, Own Your Career, Own Your Life, which came out in November 2020 as well. And I was curious, was that shaped at all by the social justice movement? Or is it something that you were working on already and the timing just happened to work out quite well with all the momentum going on?

Pamela:

It's something that we'd been working on, and we were planning to publish in the fall. It is interesting that the day we submitted the manuscript to Simon and Schuster, it was like a Wednesday or something, and that weekend was Memorial Day when George Floyd was murdered and protests kicked off. So our manuscript is sitting with the publisher, and the world has exploded around racial injustice. We decided to add a foreword to the book that really addressed the moment and also put the book in context, that the book is not a book about racial injustice specifically, and it's not a book about social justice more broadly. It is instead a book about bias, really focused on the workplace, and acknowledges the reality that bias and how we define talent and potential and how we define possibilities and outcomes and opportunities creates systemic challenges in one way or the other. So we made that connection in the foreword because it was important to acknowledge the moment and also recognize that we weren't going to rewrite the book because the focus of it and the need for it was clear before the events of the summer.

Andy:

That's good. You were able to go in there and at least put out a forward or intro to address what was going on. Kind of like with my book, I was halfway through writing it when, uh, the COVID hit. And in my book, I'm talking about owning your career. And I was writing chapters on networking and how you need to go out to conferences and networking events. And I was like, Oh, that's not really possible anymore. So maybe we should make some adjustments to this and talk about how to do things virtually like you and I are doing right now, speaking virtually. Okay. So let's focus in on this--this idea of bias, which is a big part of everything we're talking about. What is unconscious bias, and how does it affect everybody, especially in the workplace?

Pamela:

Yeah. So for our purposes, we define bias as a preference in favor of or against a thing, person, or group compared to something else. And these preferences can be held by an individual, by a group, by an institution, by the larger society. We know that societal bias exists. We know that organizations and teams have biases and preferences and that these preferences can have negative or positive impacts. When we think about unconscious bias, it is just simply preference, and it is a natural part of the human condition and how the brain works. Our goal in the conversation is to actually think more about impact, that our biases don't necessarily have value on their face, but they do impact our behavior. And that behavior has a consequence. So as a leader, as a talent development professional, the way that you look at a slate of candidates, the way that you advertise a role, the way that you interview, the way that you give promotions and development opportunities, all of that can be influenced by your biases, and unconscious or cognitive or implicit biases are things that we're not necessarily aware of. Our goal is to bring those things to the forefront, to bring the unconscious to consciousness, because once we're aware of this preference, this lens, this bias in our thinking, we can do something about it. We can evaluate what the impact might be, and is it inhibiting of possibility and potential, or is it expanding of possibility and opportunity? And if it's inhibiting, how do we change that? It is, sort of, the first step is admitting you have a problem, and then you can do something about it.

Andy:

Yeah, absolutely. So a lot of these things are unconscious, which means we are not really thinking about it. They're just happening. And we want to bring those to the forefront so that we are more conscious and aware, and that way, we can make changes. I'm curious about some of the different types. Or could you share a couple examples that you think are pretty common inside organizations that are happening quite often, and we don't even realize that we're doing them or that our colleagues are doing them, that is, unconsciously?

Pamela:

I think that one of the things, I mean, there's terms that we're probably all familiar with that are different kinds of biases, right? There is affinity bias, that we feel strongly when we see ourselves reflected in other people. You sort of open this conversation, talking about the protests of the summer, and one of the consequences of the protests this summer is people looked more critically at the executive boards and executive teams of the organizations, whether they were making a decision around whether to work there or whether they were looking at where to do business and recognizing that many executive teams are predominantly white, predominantly white male, predominantly white men of privilege, of a certain age, right? And that is in-group bias and affinity bias in action. It is that we promote talent and potential that looks like us, that does things the way that we do them, that makes decisions the way that we do, has the same educational background or the same sort of standing in society.

So we see often, as we look at opportunity up in an organization, that many organizations have much more diversity at the front line. And as you move up through the organization, you see that diversity thin out because so much of talent development is informal in terms of who is sponsored and who is made aware of new opportunities before they're formally advertised and who's groomed for a position versus someone applying cold to a position. So we see that quite a bit in organizations.

Negativity bias is the idea that we are more strongly impacted or influenced or strongly remember negative experiences than positive ones. So you look at sales, you might be a sales person and you have 10 phenomenal quarters, but the 11th quarter, you miss your goal, and all of a sudden ,you are tagged as a poor performer, right? Or you're your boss brings you in to have a difficult performance conversation and really gives more weight to this one negative quarter, when looking back over the course of your career, you are a high performer. And we give more weight to that negative than positive. We see it in performance evaluations or 360 evaluations that we might have a glowing evaluation that gives us a lot of constructive and positive things. But we'll focus on that one negative comment. And we'll say, I bet I can figure out who said this about me, trying to find it and figure it out. I think it's our biases turn up in all these different decisions about opportunity, but also in how we engage with one another at work.

Andy:

Yeah. And going back to that affinity bias, people were becoming much more aware of that, and I think there was a lot of awareness or where this had been growing already at the hiring level. And so many organizations were striving for more diversity in their hiring, but that doesn't necessarily change who's moving up the chain. For instance, I've heard that women are graduating from college at a higher rate than men and therefore probably more women entering the corporate workforce than men at the lowest levels. But then when you move up to the top, it's still predominantly men because of the way people are developed and promoted and performance reviews have been run. Would you say that's fair to say?

Pamela:

Yeah. And there's really interesting research on even the language that's used in a performance review that the same behavior from a man and a woman is tagged differently--that women are tagged as aggressive, whereas--and it's negative--men are tagged as assertive, and that's really positive that they have command, that they have leadership potential. And you see that in terms of extroversion and introversion and that men are more likely to be more vocal. They've been cultivated over their lives and careers to be more vocal, and that's rewarded, whereas when a woman is that vocal, it's potentially seen as negative.

Andy:

Yeah. Not to mention, I think the studies have shown men are more likely to apply for a job that, even if they're not qualified, they think that I'll give it a shot versus women, in general. You know, I hate to generalize. But the research shows women are more likely to wait until they feel like they're fully qualified.

Pamela:

Yeah. And even as you look at networks across a person's career, women and people of color, they're over-mentored, under-sponsored. So people are happy to give women and people of colors their two cents in terms of mentorship. And here's some thoughts to do with it what you will, but they're not necessarily pulling them up into rooms that they have access to as much as they are for men.

Andy:

I’m furiously typing over here. So women and people of color, you said, are over-mentored and under-sponsored. So there's no shortage of advice on like, hey, if you want to go move up, here's some things you can do, but the mentors or the sponsors are not necessarily taking action to say, hey, we need to reach down and give Pamela a chance and promote her into this role, help her get into this promoted role, or something to that effect.

Pamela:

Sponsorship really takes some additional risk. It is me endorsing you. I'm tying my professional reputation to yours. It's, you know, I have said, I will vouch for you at this leadership table, that Andy can, in fact, do this difficult thing. Or Andy can, in fact, step into this more senior role. And then if you don't do it right, if you don't do it well, then my professional reputation is tied to that. And what we find is that leaders are less likely to take that risk when with women and people of color.

Andy:

Yeah. It almost makes me wonder if people in general are more likely to take that risk, and it is based on trust. And if they, at a deeper biological level, trust people that look or sound more like them than people who are different and therefore, maybe they have less trust for lack of a better word, or faith and less likely to put their reputation on the line.

Pamela:

Yeah. In the book, we talk about what is happening in the brain that makes us more susceptible to bias and, in a very simplified image of the brain, there's three core parts of the brain. There's your prefrontal cortex, where you can make all of your critical thinking, high-level thinking decisions. There's the emotional part of your brain, which is really borne from memory. It's where dreams live, right? And then there is the primitive, instinctual, reptilian part of your brain, right? The amygdala. And there are many ways in which that primitive part of your brain is still very immature, and it is very simple and binary in how it looks at the world--that things that are like me and people who are like me are good, and things that are different from me and people who are different from me are bad.

That is what affinity bias is born from. It is this idea that you just feel naturally more comfortable with those who are like us. Now, when you think about talent and development, and you think about the importance of performance reviews or the importance of coaching and feedback, it also means that it's really difficult for people to give clear feedback across difference, right? Because there's this primitive part of your brain that thinks, well, this is going to start conflict. This is going to start a fight. And so it's easier for me as a black woman to give critical feedback or very clear feedback to other black women or even other women than it is for me to do that to men and particularly white men, and the opposite is also true. Think about your own career and the progress was made and how much of that is because somebody had the courage to give you feedback that would impact how you show up and how you come across. If you're not getting that feedback, then you never have an opportunity to get better, and that can be really limiting and inhibiting it.

Speaker 2 (19:11):

Yeah, that's very true. And so I'm glad you brought that up because feedback is so important. And I've always said the higher you go in an organization, the harder it is to get feedback. But also, if you're with a diverse population, maybe you're not getting as much feedback from people that look differently from you because of the affinity bias, things like that. Interesting. So we talked about the different bias that is that exists and how this has may be holding people back. So how do we identify this unconscious bias? How would we identify it?How do you identify it in yourself or your team, and then how do you deal with it? What do you do about it?

Pamela:

Yeah. So I think the thing about unconscious bias is it's not that you just think really hard and come up with a list and put it in your pocket, right? You have to build this muscle of introspection and self-awareness, and we talk about some different ideas for how to do that in the book. So first, we've mentioned the neuroscience, and it's important to be aware of the circumstances that push you into those emotional and primitive parts of your brain, that when you are overwhelmed with information, that when you have high emotion in a circumstance or when you feel under duress--like you need to act quickly--then you're more likely to lean into bias thinking or these cognitive shortcuts, that sort of oversimplify decision-making and how we engage with one another. We move into the primitive part of our brain that focuses on binary and category.

It’simportant to recognize when you're in those moments and create space between those feelings and the decisions that you need to make. There's interesting data around parole hearings, that the number one indicator of whether a prisoner will be granted parole is the time of day at which their parole hearing occurs. And if it's the first hearing of the morning, they're more likely to be granted parole, right? Because the parole judge is well rested. They're well fed. They're not tired. They're not in that primitive part of our brain. So we talk a lot in the book about mindfulness and thinking as a leader or as a professional about the decisions that you need to make and creating space between stimulus and response stimulus and those actual decisions. We also talk a lot about identity. So people ask where do my biases come from?

Pamela:

They come from everything that's been poured into you over your lifetime. I have two boys, and I think about things. I often think of superheroes as metaphors, and superheroes all have an origin story, right? We all know that Spiderman got bit by the radioactive spider in the lab. And we all know that Superman's parents sent him in a shuttle to save him from a dying planet. We all know this, and our biases also have origin stories.

So I work with a colleague who every time she describes someone as ambitious, particularly women, she whispers it like it's a four-letter word, like so-and-so is very ambitious, whereas I very proudly identify as ambitious. And I think it's good for me and Franklin Covey and hopefully all of you listening to the podcast that I'm ambitious. The way in which the two of us define ambition comes from somewhere, and for her, it comes from a background that was really grounded in humility and the idea that you never want to be too big for your boots and you want to know your place. And you're grateful for everything that you have, and ambitious people are not grateful. They'll undercut other people to get to what they're trying to achieve. Whereas I was raised with my parents are first-generation Americans, right? They came to this country in their twenties. They didn't speak any English. They didn’t have any money, and it was their ambition and this vision they had for their lives and the lives of their children that created the life that I live. And so I think ambition is really powerful, right? And it can really propel me and my family forward.

Both of those things--humility and generational growth--positive, but they can impact how the two of us, my colleague and I, engage with a third employee, who we both identify as ambitious, and whether we support that person or whether we create the conditions under which that person can perform at their best or how we both engage with an employee who we've identified as unambitious, and we tagged them as this and my case, I've tagged them as this. And so when there is opportunity, I don't bring it to them. Or when they come to me with new ideas, I dismiss them because they're not really an ambitious person. I shouldn't take them seriously. Or whatever it is. And we all have origin stories to perceptions and beliefs, and these formulate--these are values that we overlay on people, and so thinking critically about our own identity and the things that we value and how that plays out in our interactions with other people is an important and really critical way to identify the biases that you might have really thinking about the people that you work with.

Andy:

Yeah. I've looked at this. I think about this a lot, and I don't know if people think about it enough that our worldview, our perspective on things, our rules, how we operate our bias, of course, is heavily impacted by how we grew up, how our parents taught us and treated us, our peers, everything. So, yeah. I'm glad you brought that up. You know, that kind of idea of the origin story?

I have two kids as well. I have a daughter and a son, and I'm hyper aware of I want them to grow up with equal opportunities and fair treatment and hyper aware of how things are, they're perceiving things, how I talk to them, how other people are speaking to them and to make sure there's not some bias that says, oh, boys can do this. Girls can do that, that sort of thing. For a long time, that existed, right? But it was very prevalent. that bias was in marketing and everything. And you still see it in some things, so I’m always looking at that and making sure ... and the same thing with their approach to trying new things, with a growth mindset and trying to instill that within them, and I think that's going to have a big impact, and I love that you brought that up.

We can reflect on how we are interacting with people, how we are operating in the workplace, giving each other feedback, noticing what other people are doing. I guess the next question is, what do we do about that? We identify some of this stuff. How do we take action to reframe our thoughts, to make sure that we're treating people fairly and we're not using--it's not unconscious bias anymore. We are actually what would the opposite be? Equity fairness. You tell me, I guess.

Pamela:

Yeah. Once we've brought these things to consciousness and we recognize the lens through which we're looking at people and opportunity and possibility, in the book, we talk about a few strategies that I think that really help us take action as a result of that, once we sort of analyze what those biases are or lenses might be. One of them is really cultivating connection and really utilizing empathy and curiosity to better understand circumstances. So we come to many circumstances and the older you get, the more senior you are, the more intelligent you are, frankly, the more you lean into your assumptions about things. You sort of walk into a circumstance, and you're like, I've been here, I've done this, I understand this X, Y, and Z about this situation.

And so we are less curious over time. We don't ask critical questions. We make assumptions, or we make decisions based on the information in our head versus the actual facts of the circumstance. So really thinking about are we making decisions about people's careers without taking them into account? So I might say I might tag someone as unambitious. I have six people who report to me. There's a new opportunity. It's a team lead opportunity because our team is growing. It's a really exciting opportunity, and I've tagged these two people as unambitious. I don't even talk to them about it. And that's a mistake, right? So can I use curiosity to ensure that I'm not just presenting that opportunity to everyone who works for me, but also asking critical questions about where they see themselves in the future. And if the opportunity is intriguing versus coming into those decisions with my own assumptions about who it is that should get the opportunity.

Stephen R. Covey says with people fast =is slow and slow is fast, right? We often lean into efficiency, particularly as we get more senior in an organization, and we just feel like, well, we don't have time to ask all these questions or to figure it out. We're paid to make decisions, and so we just make decisions, but thinking about talent development, specifically in all the sort of processes of talent development, where can we cultivate more connection in those processes?

So there's an onboarding policy on paper, but there's a reality that Pamela and Andy joined a new team, and we might have very disparate experiences in onboarding based on the level of connection and curiosity and empathy in that process. Maybe I get taken out to lunch every day, or in our current virtual environment, maybe I have a morning coffee with our new manager every day to check in and you’re told, this is how you contact me. Call if you need me. And that's a very different experience, so as leaders, it's important to think about how we are cultivating connection and utilizing curiosity to better understand the experience and ambitions and interests and challenges of everyone who works for us, everyone whose career we might influence.

The second thing that we talk about quite a bit in the book is looking at our own network, that the reason having a daughter probably exponentially increased your proactivity around gender and thinking about language, that when we have an experience that is important to us, and for many people, the murder of George Floyd was that experience around race, but you have this experience that opens your aperture to an issue or the reality of someone outside of yourself. And so it's interesting to think about your own network and where there might be opportunity to expand that network that, when you look at who you go to for mentorship and coaching and who comes to you, or who you go to to solve really difficult problems and who comes to you, and look at similarity and difference across those sort of inner cadre of people that five, ten people, where is there opportunity for you to lean further into into difference? And it's not to say you throw out what you have. The network you have served a purpose, but opening your aperture to that opportunity will make you more receptive to biases that might exist in your lens and more empathetic towards that difference.

Andy:

Yeah, absolutely. And awareness changes so much. Education, awareness, and I can see how it has for me and how it has for others. That's why I love doing this interview and hearing from you because you're so knowledgeable on the subject, so we've got some thoughts on overcoming it. I think we were speaking a lot from a personal perspective, but how does unconscious bias affect our workplace performance? I know you wrote about that as well.

Pamela:

People who perceive themselves to be on the receiving end of bias are three times as likely to be disengaged, three times as likely to withhold ideas, and three times as likely to leave their job within a year. So what's interesting about that data point is this word “perceived,” that it's not for me to say that they are having an inclusive experience. It's for them to identify how they're feeling, and if they feel marginalized or limited in some way, that does real harm to their overall sense of wellbeing and to their performance in the organization. You can't even quantify the value of withheld ideas and all the things that are being sort of left on the floor, because this person feels like they're not a valued member of the team.

We see the same as we look at innovation and collaboration--that diverse teams are more likely to be innovative, and there was some research done around technology teams and logging patents and that diverse and inclusive teams logged more patents exponentially than homogenous teams, or even diverse teams that didn't behave inclusively, that diverse and inclusive teams are quicker to make decisions. They have fewer meetings, and it goes to what you mentioned earlier about trust, that if the team is inclusive, as an organization, if people feel that they are cared for and understood and valued, they don't have the meeting after the meeting. They don't undercut each other. They don't ask for additional evidence on people's expertise. It's all the things that can slow down decision-making are removed when we have this inclusive work environment, so we see this direct correlation between people's experience with bias and performance at the team and organizational level.

Andy:

I like that you mentioned the meeting after the meeting and the politics, and this all goes back to trust, right? And when there's more diversity, and especially in a more inclusive environment, people feel more comfortable. There's more trust. They're willing to try different things. Innovation goes up, and there's less of those unnecessary meetings, and people are able to get more stuff done. I wish more leaders realized that, and speaking of that, a lot of people listening to this podcast are probably passionate about this movement and want to, and are knowledgeable about, this and want to make a difference. What do we do if we recognize leaders acting with unconscious bias? How do we help them overcome that? Maybe give that gentle feedback or help them improve their own awareness and make changes.

Pamela:

Yeah. I get asked this all the time because it's so difficult, right? It's difficult to say. No one wants to be accused of anything. And when they feel accused, we're also pushing them into that defensive part of their brain, and if they're senior to us in particular, that can be a really gnarly place to be in terms of your own career and professional trajectory. My recommendation about things like this is to lead with questions. Fit is a bit of a four-letter word when it comes to bias.

And so say you hold panel interviews, and at the end of the interview, someone says, well, you know, so-and-so, Pamela wouldn't be a good fit in the position. And you feel like the only distinction between me and the other candidates is my race or my gender, then instead of just saying, well, is that because she's black, which is an accusation, to ask a question. What do you mean by fit? And give them some time to really think about what they mean by fit and have to articulate that. Okay, so fit means someone who's a team player. Fit is someone who has some grit and some scrappiness because we're a fairly entrepreneurial organization. Fit is really someone who's leaning into innovation, is going to push on the status quo. What did you see from Pamela that said she didn't have those things? Really leading with questions so that what you're doing is sort of pulling the thread on the person's thinking and pushing them to really articulate what the challenge is, and what you'll find is, at the end of that, as long as you ask those questions with some sincerity--this is not like a gotcha moment--but if you really ask those questions with some sincerity, and listen to what said and ask more questions, it's like, why and why and why and why, then you'll see the person's gears turning and, and they will either be able to articulate an appropriate, appropriate, and meaningful reason why the person is not the best candidate, or they will come to the conclusion that the person might in fact be the best candidate. But it's really creating a space where they can continue to think and articulate, because if they in that moment are working off of their instinct, you telling them their instinct is wrong is not necessarily a way to make progress, but creating the space between stimulus and their ultimate conclusion by asking questions and having a meaningful dialogue can actually get them to recognize what might've been limiting about their view.

Andy:

Yeah. I love that. It's such a big flip, right? When people are accused of something, even if they're in the wrong, they're immediately going to become defensive. So if they say it's a white hiring manager saying this very qualified black person is not a good fit, and you just say, well, you're being racist, then they're immediately going to get defensive, no matter what's going on. But if you just lead with curiosity and ask that question, well, why don't you think they're a good fit? What goes into that decision? And it leads into, I was going to ask you, we're running out of time here, but I was going to ask you, is I know in your book, you wrote about the importance of leading with curiosity and empathy, which I'm a big fan of, can often be disarming and help you understand where other people are coming from. Maybe you can just speak to the importance of that and helping us with all of these situations.

Pamela:

Yeah, I think it is this idea that we would assume good intent, that we create space to get to know people and that we always lead with questions to really build more meaningful connection. I think that curiosity and empathy help us have difficult conversations. In this dialogue, I heard Howard Ross--and he's a pioneer around bias and research and has published some books--and he says, when I entered the diversity and inclusion space, diversity training was beating people over the head with a two by four and telling them all the ways that they were bad people. And I think there's still a set of leaders who believe that that's what this conversation is, and I think leading with empathy and curiosity, always asking questions, always making time and space for people to share a bit more personally about themselves, and ensuring that they feel respected, included, and valued, and really a true sense of belonging and like they can be their authentic selves and they won't be penalized for that. It really highlights the value of this conversation. It enhances performance because when people feel cared for in that way, when they feel acknowledged and seen completely as whole people, they're more likely to give their discretionary effort, and that's what we need. We know that if not, they're doing the bare minimum, and we've all worked with those people who are just sort of checking the box, clocking in and out every day. And we see the impact that that can have on the team, especially over time.

Andy:

Yeah. I've been that person myself, and I've definitely worked with those people, so I know exactly what you're talking about. Are there any other trends that you're following in the DEI space or the talent development space that you feel like are worth mentioning as well?

Pamela:

I think it is interesting to see the evolution of how does bias diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, bias conversations. How does that tie to corporate social responsibility and how we're engaging with customers and stakeholders and communities in which we operate? And I think that will continue to evolve and be really interesting. I also think many organizations have no problem recruiting diverse talent. Recruiting diverse talent is “easy.” Any little bit of intentional effort will see improvement in that space. The real challenge is retaining and promoting diverse talent, and that really pushes us to think more critically about our leaders and how they decide to delegate work, to promote, to provide training. How they have, one-on-ones, how they ask people about their career opportunity, because over and over again, that's what the data shows is that recruiting diverse talent isn't challenging, but retaining and promoting that talent is hard.

And it's interesting because when you ask leaders about those things, they often shift the blame to the people. They're like, oh, well, we lose women at this point because that's when they leave to have babies or that person couldn't hack it. We have a pretty intense environment and they just weren't interested in working those hours. And then you ask the people, and you look at the research around those people, and that's just simply not true. It's not true that women leave the workforce to have babies. So I think it's important to think about if we are in an organization and having those retention and promotion challenges, to look internally at why that might be versus shifting blame to the population.

Andy:

Yeah. And even that phrase of like, well, we have a strong culture and intense, up or out and they just couldn't cut it and asking, well, why? Was it really them? Or was it the culture? Was it a non-inclusive culture where they felt like they weren't really being appreciated or listened to or valued and they decided to check out or go somewhere else? It makes a big difference when you're looking at how people are moving up in an organization.

Last question for you, Pamela. For anyone listening and talent development, especially those who are really passionate about this subject and helping organizations improve DEI and belonging, what's one piece of career advice you would give for people that want to accelerate their careers and also feel like they're making an impact in this world and especially in this area of DEI?

Pamela:

It is really important to think about that micro effort. I think it'd be two pieces of career advice. The first would be, what are you doing every day to get smarter on this? If you care about making an impact on diversity, equity, and inclusion or inclusion and bias … we all have competence in our area of expertise, right? We are, I'm a recruiter, I'm a, I'm an HR business partner. I'm a leader of a business unit. We have expertise in that because we have education and years of experience in that space. Society and our organizations are pushing us to have expertise in diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, and we have to pay the price for that expertise. And so that means what are you reading? Who are you listening to? Who are you talking with on a day-to-day basis? Does who you're reading and listening to and talking with reflect this need to build that expertise?

I think the second thing is about action, right? Each of us has privilege and power to some degree, and we have access to rooms that other people might not have access to, and so thinking of opportunity through that abundance mindset that it's not pie--it's not going to run out--and so who are you pulling forward with you because I think that rising tide lifts all ships. You become someone who's exponentially increasing your influence and impact in an organization when you're pulling people forward into rooms you have access to that they might not.

Andy:

I love that, and I love the idea of operating with a growth and abundant mindset. So important when you realize there's no shortage of success out there, and when you're willing to help everyone around you and not lead with fear, then every rising tide raises all boats and we all become more successful, and people really appreciate who you are and what you do as well. I really appreciate you, Pamela, for coming on and sharing all your knowledge with us today. The book again is called The Leader's Guide to Unconscious Bias. Pamela, for anybody who wants to reach out to you to get in touch or find out more about what you do, where should they go?

Pamela:

You can visit FranklinCovey.com to learn more about me and the book and our firm's work on inclusion and bias. You can also follow me on LinkedIn, where I post thoughts and interviews and all kinds of things, so looking forward to connecting with you all there.

Andy:

Fantastic, and you and I just connected on LinkedIn today, and I'm looking forward to following you and seeing some of your content on there. And I really appreciate you coming on and sharing today. I'm looking forward to more conversations in the future, so thank you again for coming on the show, Pamela.

Pamela:

Thanks so much for having me, Andy.

Andy:

All right. Take care.

Pamela:

You too.

Andy:

Thanks again for listening to the talent development, hot seat. If you haven't already, we'd love for you to leave us a rating and review on iTunes to help other people find the show. And as always, you can find all of our episodes and tons of free resources on our website, talentdevelopmenthotseat.com. Thank you again, and take care.

Connect with Andy Storch here:

https://andystorch.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/andystorch/

https://tdtt.us/

Connect with Pamela Fuller:

https://www.franklincovey.com/speakers-bureau/pamela-fuller/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/pamela-fuller-mba-she-her-08ab379/

https://www.franklincovey.com/unconscious-bias-book/