After I left the Marine Corps, I grew a beard. My partner loves it. The board that awarded me a major scholarship loved it. It turns out that they could all be biased. “Men with beards are seen as more trustworthy.” This is a fun thread about a serious topic. Bias.

- "Bias is a natural tendency to favor one thing over another."

- Bias is natural & normal.

- "Most bias is harmless." (No one cares if you're biased towards a food flavor, a genre of books, or a clothing line.)

- But bias for/against individuals or groups of people is bad.

"It is really hard to acknowledge personal bias...so don't feel bad when you discover your own biases... ACKNOWLEDGING IT IS THE FIRST STEP!"

The quotes, and this thread derive from one of my readings for the @altMBA - Tiffany Jana & Michael Freeman's "Overcoming Bias" #mustread

- "Positive bias can be just as harmful as negative bias."

- "Believing you have no bias is worse than knowing you do."

One way of detecting bias is to consider what your "hot-button" issues are - what gets you immediately defensive? This indicates a bias for/against something.

You can also check your OWN biases using the Harvard Implicit Association Test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/selectatest.html - the tests take about 15 minutes to complete, and there are a wide range of tests that will allow you to gauge your personal level of bias in matters of gender, race, etc.

Why is this all important? “Because you can’t build authentic relationships across differences if you never interact with people who are different from you.”

This means you need to engage with “out-groups”, and Jana/Freeman say that “The lack of trust in out-groups is one of the reasons we should look for similarities even in the face of obvious differences.”

They recommend we “Get out of the Zone”, saying “Find a place where you will be in the minority, the more extreme, the better… It can be very eye-opening, sometimes for the better and sometimes for the worse.”

So, that’s the first of a few short threads that I’ll be doing based on this book – the next will address privilege. Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your thoughts – was this a useful thread, and what do you think about the topic of bias?