unconscious biases: addressing stealth barriers to ...unconscious biases employees unconscious bias...

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Dr. Catherine Ashcraft, NCWIT Senior Research Scientist!

Unconscious Biases: Addressing Stealth Barriers to Innovation &

Productivity!!

Women in Tech: The Facts!

Women In Tech: The Facts!

We’re Losing The Women Who Are Already There: An Unnecessary Corporate Brain Drain!

Sources: Capturing Turnover Costs, Joins, 2000; TalentKeepers, 2010; Athena Factor, 2008!

74% love work

56% leave

75% stay in workforce

Why Women Matter!

Scott Page, The difference: How the power of diversity creates better groups, firms, schools, and societies, Princeton University Press, 2009.!

Groups with greater diversity solve complex problems better and faster than homogenous groups.!

Diversity Enhances Teams !

A group’s collective intelligence is not predicted by the IQs of its individual

members. But if a group includes more women, its collective intelligence rises.

“Evidence for a Collective Intelligence Factor in the Performance of Human Groups,” Science October 2010, Woolley, Chabris, Pentland, Hashmi and Malone.!

Women Improve Innovation!

Analysis of more than 20,000 venture-backed companies

showed that successful startups have twice as many women in senior

positions as unsuccessful companies.!

Women Correlate with Success !

Dow Jones VentureSource, 2011.!

Analysis of more than 20,000 venture-backed companies showed that

successful startups have twice as many women in

senior positions as unsuccessful companies.

Tech  companies  led  by  women  delivered  higher  revenues  using  less  capital  and  were  more  likely  to  survive  the  transi8on  from  startup  to  established  company  

Cindy Padnos, Illuminate Ventures: "High Performance Entrepreneurs: Women in High-Tech," 2010.

Women Help Companies Grow!

Why the Problem Persists: Understanding and addressing unconscious biases

What the Research Says!

Let’s Cut to the Chase !

Technical Women Aren’t Broken!

Technical Men Aren’t The Enemy!

Culprit = Societal Biases We All Share!

We Can Take Action Together!

And EARLY ON is a particularly good time to start!!

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Culture By Design or By Default

Society is Biased About Gender and Technology!

We all have shortcuts, “schemas” that help us

make sense of the world. But our shortcuts

sometimes make us misinterpret or miss things.!That’s unconscious bias. !

What Causes Societal Bias?!

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What do you see?!

Count How Many Passes!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkn3wRyb9Bk!

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Notice anything odd about this lung scan?!

Photo: www.npr.org

More on Societal Bias – !Howard vs. Heidi!

Howard vs. Heidi!

Howard vs. Heidi!

Howard vs. Heidi!

Society Organizational Culture

Subtle Dynamics

Institutional Barriers Schemas/

Unconscious Biases

Employees

Unconscious Bias Is More Salient in Homogenous Organizations!

Example: White male engineering students

score lower when told in advance that Asians

typically score higher on math tests!

Source: Aronson, et al., 1999; Steele & Aronson, 1998!

Subtle Dynamics Example: Stereotype Threat!

Not speak up in meetings!

Be reluctant to take leadership positions !

Be overly harsh about their own work!Discount their performance!

How Stereotype Threat Shows Up in Technical Environments !

Slights: “Actually, Susan has a good idea.”!

Exclusion: “Oops, I !forgot to cc her on the !email about the !architecture review.”!

Recognition: “No, I’m !pretty sure Jane would !not have had the !idea to use a link algorithm.”!

Isolation: “Dude, let’s talk about it over a beer!”!

Subtle Dynamics Example: Micro-inequities !

Hiring!Selecting people “like me”!!Task Assignment!Women find themselves in “low status” jobs!!Performance Appraisal !Men appraised for effort, skill; women for collaboration, luck!!Promotion!Criteria modeled implicitly on existing senior male leaders!

Institutional Barriers!

Institutional Barriers Example: Bias in Hiring !“Blind” orchestra auditions, with musicians behind a

curtain, increased the number of female musicians hired by 25% to 46% percent. !

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Goldin & Rouse (2000) The American Economic Review, 90(4), 715-741.!

Invite Diversity & Actively Recruit!

Evaluate Interview Questions and Include a Woman in the Interview!

!(Cheryan, S., Plaut, V., Davies, P., & Steele, C. (2009). Ambient belonging: How stereotypical cues impact gender participation in computer science. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 97(6), 1045-1060; http://www.ncwit.org/physicalspaceuw !

Photo: www.psfk.com

Audit Your Physical Space for Gendered Vibes

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!!!Assure inclusive team meetings and social events.!!

Provide Recognition, Credit, Encouragement!

Audit Performance Review & Advancement Processes !Examine performance reviews

for unconscious biases Build accountability metrics into managers’ performance reviews Clarify paths to promotion

Consciously Develop Talent! Watch for biases in task assignment/leadership opportunities Watch for biases in career path advice

Be a Male Advocate; Inspire More Male Advocates !

!“Every person that becomes an advocate had to go through that door where they take the first risk and realize, ‘Oh, that wasn’t so bad.’!!So I would talk about the risk-taking that you take the first or second time and how, all of a sudden, it is no longer risk-taking.” !!!! !

Enable & Empathize!

!“When it finally started to hit me about gender diversity…We were in a big meeting and…she made a comment about how difficult it was for her to be a leader in the organization as a woman. And so, here is someone who I literally was putting on a pedestal saying this…And I…was like, “Wow!” So I asked her after the meeting… “Hey I want to go to lunch with you, I want to understand this!”!!

Listening to Women’s Stories

“It’s like if I work on me, I can call people in my immediate peer group when they do something… call them on it and make sure they’re aware of what they’re doing.…I guess my strategy is increasing awareness.”!!

Talk to Other Men

ASSUME BEST INTENTIONS

“A lot of times, the women’s voice kind of gets drowned; it’s left out in a sense. I tend to play that role of connector in group settings. So, I…say, “Wait a minute — [woman’s name] has something to say....Or, you know, “[woman’s name] looks like she wants to get in here, but [man’s name], you just keep talking and we can’t hear over you.” !!

Correct Biases & Microinequities

Don’t give up: this is a long distance race and not a sprint!

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Supervisory Program-in-a-Box Series!

Women & IT – The Facts!

Top Ten Ways to Be a Male Advocate for Technical Women!

Top 10 Ways Managers Can Increase the Visibility of Technical Women!

Keep Going with Research-Backed Resources!

Questions?!

How do we surface unspoken gender issues in the workplace?!

!How is our organization laid out – in what ways

might it subtly disadvantage women or other groups?!

!What do men most worry about when it comes to

getting involved or being a male advocate?!

Small Group Questions