Here’s the scene: You’re hiking in a lush jungle in Ecuador’s rain forest when you look down and realize you’re about to step on a large snake. Before you even think, you step back quickly and get away from the snake.
Now, you could have taken the time to look in your field guide-book to see if the snake was in fact poisonous, but your brain decided for you automatically that it was safer to just assume danger and get away. Isn’t it great we can depend on our brains for quickly judging situations based on very little information, and acting accordingly?
The only problem is, we aren’t always in the jungle and in imminent danger. Yet our brains come to the same snap judgments, even when the creature we are encountering is simply another human being, and the jungle we are walking in is the parking lot at work. That’s when the usefulness of our brain’s instant judgments can be problematic.
Maybe it’s a job candidate, maybe it’s a new boss, or maybe it’s the new intern—most likely none of them impose a threat. Yet your brain can size these people up faster than you can intentionally comprehend, and leave you with all kinds of ideas about who they are and who they are not. Then suddenly you’ve got a job candidate that has to prove herself more than another because of your automatic first impression, which is based on very little, if any, fact. This is the essence of bias.
For organizations, bias is a huge barrier to recruiting and retaining the best talent. When individuals aren’t given the chance to even get in the door for an interview based on momentary assumptions about them, organizations miss out on their potential. And if they do make it through the interview, bias can creep into performance reviews, prevent them from promotions, and even affect how much they are paid.
Facebook is known to have an excellent diversity and inclusion program, and gladly shares their training* with the public. One of four types of bias that they focus on in the workplace is called performance bias. Let’s take a look at what performance bias is, talk about the impact it has on individuals and organizations, and review three simple ways to start counteracting performance bias at your organization.
What is Performance Bias?
Performance bias refers to when it is assumed that some people are much better at certain tasks than others, based on stereotypes. This leads to people in more powerful dominant groups of people being judged on their potential, while those in less dominate groups are judged on their accomplishments. When it’s already assumed that an individual is good at something, they don’t actually have to do that thing to get your vote of confidence—they already have it. And when it’s assumed that an individual might not be good at something, then they need to prove themselves by doing a good job.
Performance Bias and Gender
What does this look like in the real world? For one, male performance is often overestimated when compared to females. This is especially true in traditionally male domains, like technology, politics, and finance. Let’s look at a few examples:
Orchestras in the U.S. are very male dominated. American Economic Review published a study about an orchestra who started auditioning players from behind a curtain so that their gender was not apparent. This increased the odds of women making it past the first round of auditions by 50%.
In a study by R.E. Steinpreis, K.A. Anders, and D. Ritzke, resumes were sent out that were identical aside from one version having a woman’s name, and the other having a man’s name. The results showed the 79% of applicants with the men’s name versus only 49% of those with a woman’s name were deemed “worthy of hire”.
It’s not just men who are guilty of gender-based performance bias. The Journal of Experimental Psychology published a study showing that mothers overestimate their sons’ crawling abilities, while underestimating their daughters’.
Performance Bias and Race
Just like gender, race impacts our perception about a person’s abilities. As uncomfortable as it is to talk about, when analyzing data from the Implicit Association Test (IAT) test, results show that 75% of participants have an implicit preference for white people over black people. That is a striking number.
Here are a few examples of performance bias relating to race, in action:
- The American Economic Review published a study showing that resumes with white-sounding names received 50% more calls for interviews than identical resumes with black-sounding names.
- That same study found that a “white” name is equivalent to about eight more years of experience.
- In a study by A.N. Reeves, law partners were given a memo filled with intentional mistakes and asked to give it a grade. When a partner thought the author was white, they were described as “having potential”, and when they thought the author was black, comments such as “I can’t believe he went to NYU” were made. The memo perceived to be written by a white person scored 4.1, and the same memo when perceived to be written by a black person scored 3.2.
The studies and statistics are difficult to comprehend, especially if you don’t see yourself as biased and consider your company to be a meritocracy. The fact is we all have biases, even when we aren’t aware of it, and even the most well-meaning meritocracies suffer the consequences.
The Impact of Performance Bias
What impact do these biases have? If we look at the studies above, we can see that those who are on the receiving end of performance bias are not given the same opportunities, and if they are, they are not given the same amount. They are held to higher standards, which itself can be prohibitive to advancement. And without the benefit of the doubt, they are only hired and promoted based on what they’ve achieved, whereas whites and men are hired and promoted based on what they have the potential to achieve.
The impact isn’t only on the women and people of color who are struggling against performance bias. Organizations are also impacted in that they inevitably have a lack of diversity in leadership and on their teams. Why does that matter? It matters because diverse teams perform better.
How Diversity and Inclusion Benefit an Organization
Let’s look at some statistics from the Corporate Executive Board:
Diverse and inclusive workforces demonstrate:
- 2x more discretionary effort
- 9x greater intent to stay
- 57x more collaboration among teams
- 42x greater team commitment
So diversity isn’t just something that’s “nice to have” and “the right thing to do”; it’s actually a strategic business move.
The first step to improving the prevalence of performance bias in your organization is happening as you read this. Talk about it. Get it out in the open. Acknowledge the reality that performance bias is happening in your organization. This doesn’t mean you are a bad person, or that your organization is bad; it just means you are human, and you have work to do. Here are three fundamental steps to counteracting performance bias in your organization:
Three Fundamental Steps to Counteracting Performance Bias
1. Set Objective Standards in Advance
To counteract bias, set objective standards for hiring, evaluating performance, assigning opportunities and advancement. These standards need to be set in advance and communicated to all leadership and management. One example is basing promotions on tangible employee advancement, such as taking certain CEUs, etc.
2. Institute Gender and Race Blinding Practices
When possible, obscure gender and race when evaluating and hiring. This can mean removing names from resumes, or having a third party, who is unaware of the gender or race of an employee, review evaluations.
3. Promote and Practice Accountability
We’ve already established that many biases are hidden, so we need others to point out any of behaviors that display bias. Yes, this can be uncomfortable, but it is absolutely necessary. Besides observing, one way to hold someone accountable is to have him or her explain their decisions when hiring and evaluating. With an eye on performance bias, inconsistent standards should be recognizable.
A focus on bias in your organization does not mean taking anyone away from the table. There is room for everyone, and for now we need to shine the light on detrimental discrepancies. The work of eliminating bias is important. It’s important for you, your team, and your organization. So I challenge you to take one step today to eliminate it.
In what ways have you encountered bias in your organization?