Are They Underperforming or Are We Being Unfair?

‘I’m not sure we can promote her to be a managing director.  Do you remember a couple of years back she cut down that poor woman in front of all of us for disagreeing with her? That was unduly harsh and frankly, embarrassing to watch.  We can’t promote a person like that.’

I imagine many of you reading the above are nodding in agreement.  After all, we shouldn’t promote bullies to senior management positions, right?

What if I told you that, whilst the sentiment is correct, the decision not to promote on the basis of a mistake like that – one that happened several years in the past – is in fact a common bias towards women and others from underrepresented backgrounds?  And yet, this isn’t the kind of behaviour that you would want to encourage in senior leadership.  So, how can you tell whether the decision not to promote in this case is based on bias or clear-cut behaviour criteria applied to candidates across the board?

Am I being biased or are they underperforming? 

Determining whether someone is genuinely underperforming or if unconscious bias is influencing your judgment can be tricky.  There are several common biases that affect how we evaluate employees, often in subtle and unconscious ways.  So, the first step to fairer assessments is to become well-versed in the language of bias.

Here are 7 common biases that often get in the way of judging people fairly:

1. Confirmation Bias.  

This well-known bias describes our tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms our pre-existing beliefs or expectations.  For instance, if we believe that someone is disorganised, we might pay extra attention to instances when they’re late or miss details, while overlooking moments when they perform well or meet deadlines.  This can distort our perception of a person’s performance because we’re more attuned to the errors that we’re expecting of them.

2. Affinity Bias. 

Birds of a feather flock together.  Yes, indeed we do. We tend to favour people who are similar to us in terms of background, personality, or interests.  In fact, we thrive on it.  Equally, therefore, our brain creates a subconscious disfavour towards those who are different.  We might therefore view employees who share our hobbies, went to the same or similar school, or have similar life experiences as more capable or relatable, potentially overlooking their actual performance gaps.  So when the person you’re judging is very different from you, there is a decent chance that a degree of affinity bias will be involved.

3. Halo Effect. 

Similar to the affinity bias, the halo effect occurs when one positive quality or accomplishment of a person colours our perception of all their other qualities.  We tend to apply a broad-brush approach to a person who has done something we really like.  So, for instance, if an employee excelled on a big project in the past, we might assume they’re excelling in other areas as well, even if their current performance is average.  The opposite is also true., with the horns effect.

4. Horns Effect 

The opposite of the halo effect, this bias occurs when one negative aspect of a person affects our perception of all their qualities.    Like the example at the beginning of this blog, if an employee made a significant mistake or missed a key deadline, we may judge all of their work more harshly, even if they’ve since improved or that mistake was a one-time occurrence.  The horns effect can even cause one misstep to negatively affect a person’s entire career.

5. Recency Bias 

This bias describes our tendency to give undue weight to recent events, disregarding an employee’s overall performance across a longer period.  So if, for instance, an employee performed exceptionally well in the past quarter but had a bad month, recency bias might lead us to focus on that one month, affecting their overall evaluation.  

6. Contrast Effect 

We often expect people to adhere to the same standards as we hold for ourselves.  This often evidences itself in evaluating someone by comparing them to ourselves or another employee, rather than looking at objective standards.   A common way in which this can manifest itself is if, for instance, we review a strong performer immediately before a good but not exceptional employee.  In this situation, the contrast effect may cause us to view the second employee as underperforming, even if they’re meeting expectations.

7. Attribution Bias 

This bias creates a double standard between our expectations of ourselves and our expectations of others.   When it comes to judging our own performance, we commonly attribute successes to internal factors and failures to external factors.  When it comes to others, we do the opposite.    An example of this is when an employee misses a deadline, we might assume it’s due to their lack of time management, whereas if we miss a deadline, we’re more likely to blame external factors.

 Minimising Bias in Evaluations 

We may never be able to answer the question with precision as to whether the person is truly underperforming or whether there is a bias involved, but by being aware of our biases, we can at the very least put our judgment to the test.

There are also many ways in which we can minimise bias from creeping into career-related process like hiring or assessments, by using structured, objective evaluation tools and relying on specific performance criteria rather than general impressions.   And when a situation arises in which we’re wondering ‘bias or underperformance?’, we can remind ourselves of our biases, look for external input and review past performance records to obtain a more considered outcome.

This blog was first published on the Voice At The Table website  

Sign up to our weekly newsletter here 

If you liked this blog, you can read more here