4.1 Establish a Learning Community
It can be a challenge for boards to know where to start in the process of building a culture of inclusion. As you begin, it is important to establish ways that all board members can learn together. Inherent in our interactions with each other and in our decision-making is our unconscious bias. Unconscious bias is the result of information, attitudes and stereotypes that influence our thinking at a subconscious level of awareness. Unconscious bias helps us to create “mental shortcuts” to process the immense amount of information that we process every day. While such processing is a critical part of human functioning, the shortcuts we take and the biases that inform those shortcuts often introduce errors into our decision-making.[1] Each of us is subject to unconscious bias, and it is an area of shared experience.
Hosting professional development and training for your board on the topic of unconscious bias is an excellent way to start a conversation about how it can challenge efforts to build a culture of inclusion.
- ParadigmIQ (2016). Managing Unconscious Bias: Strategies to Manage Bias and Build More Diverse, Inclusive Organizations. Retrieved from Managing Unconscious Bias ↵