DEI initiatives within the workplace are indisputably a good thing - beyond the moral imperative, studies have consistently shown businesses with women comprising more than 25% of their executive committees have a 10 times higher profit margin than those with no female board members (per a report by the World Economic Forum), and racially diverse teams outperform outstrip their competitors for profitability (as reported by McKinsey and Company). 

Nevertheless, there is a current widespread backlash against DEI, which has manifested as a high attrition rate for DE&I roles, (the most high-profile being the lay-off of whole DEI teams at Microsoft), cutting back funding, and pulling back on employee resource groups comprised of workers of various races, ethnicities or interests. Within the States, Axios has reported that attacks on DEI from lawmakers, the high-profile rich, and conservative activists are in part responsible for corporations spooking at the notion of further DEI development. 

The central tenet of this (politically motivated) backlash is the argument that DEI efforts can foster workplace shame, blame, guilt, and conflict. It’s not clearly substantiated with evidence. 

This makes it even more crucial to address DEI conflicts on an individual level, and be aware of one’s own biases, particularly if your role is within a diverse team. 

Fortunately, neuroscience studies have articulated simple, actionable steps everyone can take to challenge their own unconscious bias. Here is the toolkit. 

The Root Cause of DEI Challenges: Bias

Social science has proven that bias is not innate or inherent. We don’t naturally believe that women are bad drivers or tall white men are better leaders than people of colour. Our biases are learned habits. They come in two forms: conscious bias - learned false beliefs - and unconscious biases - learned false beliefs. Both require work to unknit, the latter is more difficult to challenge, as we don’t recognise when we are doing it. 

Conscious bias is challenged within the workplace by HR policies, training, and legal action. The unconscious bias is often the cause of more DEI challenges, as they can be responsible for providing an obstacle to diverse hiring, retention, advancement, and compensation. Microaggressions and inequities are often a result of unconscious bias and can lead to miscommunications between staff. 

This - and studies corroborate this - can lead to workplace conflicts, create a hostile psychological environment for staff, and result in poor-performing teams. A study by SHRM demonstrated that racial bias alone costs American businesses up to $54 billion annually. Beyond the moral imperative, it’s affecting businesses’ bottom line. 

More positively, though, there are scientifically proven tools that can help workers to unlearn their unconscious biases. 

Unlearning Unconscious Biases 

There are simple cognitive behavioral tools you can use to notice - and then mitigate - any unconscious bias, stereotyping, or false assumptions that affect your decision-making. The tools endeavour to replace bias with curiosity, collaboration, empathy, and skillful communication, making for a more rewarding workplace. 

Mindfulness

Don’t cringe - we’re not being trendy. Within the workplace, mindfulness is the act of noticing, labeling, and being conscious of the stereotypes that automatically arise in your mind based on another person’s identity. 

Rather than shame yourself, or judge yourself, for having such thoughts, noticing and acknowledging to yourself that you’re having them is crucial for weakening the hold of such assumptions. 

Once you’ve done so, you’re better positioned to label these assumptions as stereotypical or harmful and avoid allowing them to affect your judgment.  It has a sound basis in neurology: by identifying and labeling your biases, you can weaken the mental wiring of your false concepts associated with certain groups of people.

Stereotype Replacement

This is a visualisation technique, and the follow-up step to mindfulness. Once you’re aware of a stereotype as it arises in your mind, you work on replacing it with a fact-based positive counterexample. It works to further weaken the hold of stereotypes over time - and build new neural habits. 

You can help introduce this practice to a team by allowing diverse staff members to discuss their own experiences, providing evidence to combat people’s internal stereotypes. 

Individuation

This is the process of dissociating an individual from any group-based stereotypes, by exercising curiosity and interest. Knowing the unique qualities of a team member helps combat any fixed ideas you may have connected to their identities, behaviours, or beliefs. 

Most stereotypes are underpinned by fear: individuation helps combat that.

The most straightforward way of practicing individuation within the workplace comes from using the phrase ‘tell me more.’ The non-judgemental phrasing is encouraging and non-confrontational. Individuation is great for developing empathy within your team, as context is often key to understanding why people behave the way they do. 

Prosocial Behaviour 

These are a set of tools that encourage people to practice compassion towards others, and in doing so combat unconscious bias. In broadest terms, prosocial behaviours are actions that are positive and intended to benefit someone else. Within the workplace, it connotes any positive workforce deeds that improve social and psychological relations between team members: comforting a co-worker, sharing tasks, providing information, etc.

Practicing prosocial behaviours at work weakens and transforms fear or aversion caused by bias by counterbalancing them with positive emotional and mental states, and associations. 

Regularly practicing pro-social activities is proven to build resilience and a sense of closeness within work teams.

Perspective-Taking
This refers to the ability to put yourself into another person’s shoes, and imagine situations from their perspective - it’s a fantastic tool for building empathy and unlearning unconscious biases. Seeing and feeling the world from different viewpoints, and considering the lived experiences of your colleagues, is crucial for humanising them. 

Perspective-taking can be easily integrated into team meetings by routinely inviting colleagues to share their perspectives when brainstorming or discussing ideas. This helps teams generate more innovative ideas, learn from each other, develop new skills, and unlearn their unconscious bias. 

Conclusion
Incorporating these psychological tools into workplace practice is good for team building and developing empathy within your team, while combatting internal biases. They’re great for strengthening trust, understanding, creativity, and safety. 

Best yet? It’s been proven by behavioural scientists that it only takes 18 days of practicing a new habit for it to change your mental wiring.