Nareen young presentation

EXECUTING WOMEN’S INITIATIVES WITHIN FIRMS

Nareen Young, Chief

Executive Officer, DCA

31 January 2011

COLLABORATIVE LEARNING SESSION

–Busting myths around women in firms:

Unconscious bias: Why is this a danger to opportunities for women?

Driving an inclusive culture, regardless of stereotypes and negative attitudes

Demonstrating organisational value from overcoming stereotypes.

Copyright Diversity Council Australia 2011

DIVERSITY COUNCIL AUSTRALIA =BUSINESS BENEFITS

– Independent, not-for-profit diversity advisor to business in Australia

– In partnership with member organisations our mission is to:

Understand and achieve leadership in diversity thinking and practice in our Australian context

Implement highly effective diversity management in a changing community and legislative environment

Realise business improvement through successful diversity programs

Publicly demonstrate commitment to diversity.


DIVERSITY COUNCIL AUSTRALIASERVICES

– Members access range of free or discounted services:

Leading edge information – fortnightly email update, Australia’s only business diversity quarterly journal, quarterly research journal and members-only area of website

Events – diversity leadership briefings, teleconferences, webcasts, CEO roundtables

Research – groundbreaking projects such as Working for the future: A national survey of employees, Engaging Aboriginal Australians in the private sector and Understanding the economic implications of the gender pay gap

Advisory services – organisational development, diversity audits, high level strategies and ROI.


DIVERSITY COUNCIL AUSTRALIASERVICES CONT’D

– Members access range of free or discounted services:

Education – for boards, executives, executive management teams and on flexibility for managers, diversity awareness and first principles

Compliance – referral to high quality diversity providers

Member representation – submissions to government inquiries e.g. paid maternity leave, pay equity and EOWA inquiries

Speakers – for your diversity council or executive team and business events

Networking – with other business diversity leaders.


MYTH BUSTING &UNCONSCIOUS BIAS

–A new frontier: Unconscious bias and micro-inequities:

Our changing community and legislative environment has seen a shift from overt to subtle bias in Australian workplaces

–Unconscious bias:

Attitudinal biases about age, gender, race etc that we’re unaware we have, and unaware we act on.



Unconscious bias: Project Implicit (Yale & Harvard universities)

– On-line Implicit Association Test, used by 4.5 million people since 1998

– Age: Strong attitudinal preference for ‘youth’, as strong in over-60 age group as among 20 year olds

– Gender: 75% men and women have implicit stereotype in which they more strongly associate women with family than with career

– Race:

75% of Whites show automatic preference for Whites

Even proportion of Blacks show pro-White bias as pro-Black bias

Automatic racial bias occurs, regardless of age, gender or education.



Micro-inequities: Prof. Mary Rowe, MIT

– Unconscious biased attitudes lead to micro-inequities in the workplace

– Negative ‘micro-messages’

– Subtle workplace behaviours that devalue, de-motivate, exclude

– Directed at people perceived to be ‘different’

– Senders often unaware they’re doing it, but recipients feel/recognise behaviour as non-inclusive

– Cumulative pattern of behaviours vs. isolated ‘one-off’ behaviour.


MYTH BUSTING &UNCONSCIOUS BIAS Gender-based examples

– Actions, words, tone of voice, gestures

– Distracted glances, looking at watch, listening with your arms folded, losing eye contact, cuts off mid-sentence when a woman talks

– Ignoring a female colleague’s success while rewarding a male co-worker’s same accomplishments

– Female worker not copied in important policy memo, not invited to lunch with the rest of the group

– Not giving important client engagements to part-timers, women

– Holding work meetings, networking and social functions consistently on part-timers’ non-working days

Your experiences?



Why are micro-inequities problematic for organisations?

– Productivity issue

– Reduce recipient performance by slowly and methodically eroding their self-confidence, morale and engagement

– Not merit-based: Occur regardless of recipients’ performance or merit

– Discourage creativity and risk-taking

– Consume workplace time and energy and undermine interpersonal trust and relationships

– Recipients limited in what they can do about it:

They can’t prevent it

If they raise concerns, they’re often accused of being ‘over-sensitive’ or a ‘man-hater’ (vs. a target of habitual disrespect).


LEADING PRACTICE: CREATING INCLUSIVE CULTURES

Unconscious bias education initiatives

–Well-received in the U.S.

–Non-blaming diversity education intervention that provides people with language and vocabulary to discuss difficult subject:

Link to broader cultural change goals and productivity gains

Take ongoing capability development approach vs. ‘one-hit-wonder’ training

Expose participants to ‘science of bias’ (Project Implicit at Yale & Harvard)

Enable participants to explore own unconscious biases in ‘safe’ space (e.g. coaching) using valid tools (e.g. Implicit Association Test)

Make clear times when bias most likely to occur (i.e. stress, time constraints, multi-tasking, need for closure or decision-making)

Discuss micro-affirmations – constructive ways to address unconscious bias.

Diversity Council Australia 2011 Copyright Diversity Council Australia 2011


From micro-inequities to micro-affirmations: Replace tolerance behaviours with acceptance and appreciation behaviours

–Micro-affirmations:

Small consistent acts of affirming people, their work and accomplishments

Occur when people wish to ensure others succeed

Public recognition of person

‘Opening a door’

Referring positively to person’s work

Commending someone on the spot

Enthusiastic introduction.



Micro-affirmation benefits

– Addresses unconscious bias: It’s hard to ‘catch’ ourselves unconsciously behaving inequitably. But when we try to affirm others we can block inequitable unconscious behaviour

– Benefits all: Small consistent acts of affirming people and their work helps them do well, regardless of their diversity membership

– Contagion effect: Consistent, appropriate affirmation of others can spread from one person to another, potentially raising morale and productivity

– Attitudinal change: Attitudes follow behaviour, just as behaviour follows attitudes.



‘Unconscious bias’ is not a silver bullet…

– Conscious biases need to be challenged and dealt with first

– ‘Unconscious bias’ as problematic concept:

Is slowness or quickness of response times to word/image association tests really an indicator of bias?

Are people really unconscious about their bias?

Does this just give people a nice ‘out’ for exclusive behaviour?

What about addressing organisational cultural and structural barriers?


UNCONSCIOUS BIAS YOUR EXPERIENCES

–What are your experiences of unconscious bias, stereotypes and micro-inequities towards women in the workplace?

–How does your organisational culture promote or hinder unconscious bias towards women?

–What initiatives have you experienced/implemented that addressed unconscious bias?

Intentionally or otherwise

Successfully or otherwise.


Nareen young presentation

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