How to Mitigate the Effects of Implicit Bias

The Delaware State Police recently sent all of their troopers through a day long implicit bias course and as you can imagine, most of them did not want to be there. When you are volun-told to come to an implicit bias course, you, like the troopers, will arrive with an incredible amount of dread as well as......misplaced expectations. When you get into the course, however, things start to change. Within the first few minutes, you learn there are over 100 different biases that affect your decision-making. In addition, within the first hour, you also fall victim to these various implicit biases to include:

Outcome Bias - When errors are made evaluating the quality of a decision when the outcome is already known.

False Consensus Bias - When we mistakenly believe that our judgments and decisions are more common and expected than they actually are.

Age Bias - Stereotyping or discriminating against people based on their age.

Confirmation Bias - The tendency to search for, interpret, and rember information in ways and manners that tend to confirm and verify your original opinion and values.

As the Delaware State Police learned, there are things you can do to assist you in potentially mitigating some of the natural biases that we all possess. Here are a few tips for you:

• Get someone to purposely be your devil's advocate - Inasmuch as implicit biases occur in the unconscious brain, getting someone to continually provide the opposite perspective as yours can open up possibilities to consider different perspectives. President Kennedy employed this technique after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion by making his brother, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, his personal devil's advocate. President Kennedy instructed Robert to determine the President's opinion on issues and then argue against the position even if he disagreed with the counter-argument.
• Dr. Jennifer Eberhardt, an implicit bias expert from Stanford University, espouses using the Pause concept in her book, Biased. If we take the time to pause and consciously reflect on our decisions instead of succumbing to those impulsive decisions, we stand a better chance of mitigating our biases.
• Your language and thoughts can be an indicator of when you are uncomfortable with a decision. How many times have you said or did something you regretted. If you recall that time, you probably felt like you shouldn't have said or done whatever you did, but as you contemplate that, you add the word "but". What comes after is a rationalization and justification for your behavior. If you recognize when that happens, then maybe you can better parse apart the reasoning behind your actions and discover whether a bias played a role in the decision.

While bias has a negative connotation, there are times when it can save your life. The difficulty is finding the sweet spot where implicit bias is an asset instead of a liability.

At the end of each course, people are surprised by what they have learned. In Delaware, we made an impact on multiple levels of the Delaware State Patrol as individuals with 30 years of experience said this course was one of the best they had ever taken. In another heartfelt note, a 21 year veteran responded by saying that this course had an impact that will reverberate throughout the rest of his life.

In this course, we mention leadership by saying, "Every interaction you have with someone leaves a fingerprint. What kind of fingerprint are you leaving behind with your interactions?"

Since retiring from the FBI as a leadership and ethics instructor at the FBI National Academy, Bret has won numerous speaker of the year awards . What separates Bret's classes from other instructors is how Bret integrates the participant's experiences with dynamic learning that is completely interactive. Bret follows the "show and don't tell" teaching style so that participants can not only learn new concepts, but also mold the learning into actionable changes that improve their ability to interact with internal and external stakeholders. Here is what one person had to say about Bret's implicit bias class, "This was a class that I dreaded attending. No one wants to hear they are biased, but from the start of the course, Bret was able to make everyone comfortable by getting people to engage in difficult conversations without feeling guilty about expressing their views and opinions. By the time I left the course, I had learned so much different things about how I view myself and others. It was one of the best courses I have ever taken."

With a number of public and private sector entities already booking this course, contact Bret before his schedule fills up so that you, your colleagues, and your followers can benefit from better understanding yourself as well as the people around you!