I coach A LOT of product leaders, and the competitiveness for product roles is intense. Therefore, the unconscious biases that creep into performance reviews can silently derail the careers of talented women in product management and design – and weaken your entire team's output.
The Bias Blind Spots
Think this isn't your team? Think again. Consider these scenarios:
You have a brilliant UX designer on your team, whose insights get categorized as nit-picky, yet another colleague gets praised for being "detail-oriented". She takes a hit in her review for not being "strategic enough".
A female product manager has to fight for buy-in, even though she has a solid proposal based on thoroughly vetted analytics, while others on the team seem to have an easy bar to hurdle.
The woman is penalized for being "too collaborative" when that's key to bridging the gap between organizations that traditionally haven't worked well together. She takes a hit for not being focused on her own work.
What is unconscious bias?
Implicit bias, also known as unconscious bias, refers to the subconscious associations we harbor beyond our conscious awareness and control. Its impact is universal, affecting everyone.
These biases arise from our brain's rapid, automatic judgments, influenced by our individual backgrounds, rational thought processes, life experiences, societal norms, and cultural milieu. They extend beyond obvious factors like gender or ethnicity to include elements like height, body weight, names, and various other traits.
Implicit bias wields substantial sway over our attitudes and actions, particularly in our interactions with others. It can significantly shape crucial decisions within workplaces, contributing to disparities in areas such as hiring, performance evaluations, and advancement opportunities.
Contradictions? We don’t need no stinkin’ contradictions.
When bias slips into the performance review process, it can be a death knell in competitive markets. When bias goes unchecked in your product teams, you will experience:
Stunted Innovation: Diverse perspectives are the lifeblood of great products. If women on your team don't feel heard, their ideas are less likely to be shared.
Top Talent Leaving: Frustrated women seek out companies where their contributions are recognized, leaving you scrambling to fill key roles.
Missed Market Opportunities: Without women's voices balancing a diverse range of input, you may unconsciously develop a product that doesn't serve large customer segments.
Imagine a Different Reality.
What if you could root out those hidden biases? Women would feel empowered to do their best work, you'd attract and retain the talent that drives innovation, and ultimately, you'd build products that resonate with more users.
Group training is a highly effective means of sensitizing individuals to the biases they bring to the workplace and to remediate those biases. Teams need to implement Bias Audits; a forthright and candid assessment of where bias exists with the team - performance reviews, promotion calibration, who speaks in meetings, who gets the choice projects etc. It needs to be documented and studied as a whole. The team then needs to put actions and trining in place to deal with eachj of the identified bias areas.
Teams also need to put in place a Bias Barometer - a method for continual evaluation and detection of biases as they arise.
Be on the lookout
There are other types of biases that teams need to be sensitive to. Ingroup Favoritism is a particularly common bias.
Wow, you’re not as popular as the kids I hang out with so you can’t hang out with me.
Not only is it foolish to reject outside opinion, which brings new perspectives but it’s downright evil, condescending and discriminatory. It’s also incredibly juvenile. It amazes me how cliquish organizations can be.
Are they favoring their team because they want to work secretly? Is it because they don’t want to share the glory with others? Or perhaps they don’t believe in collaboration — they already know everything and can’t learn from anyone else. I think, and this is all too common — they don’t want anyone to find out just how little they produce and contribute to the health of the firm.
And of course, the perennial favorite... Ageism.
Chip Conley, the founder of the Modern Elder Academy (If you are over 40, you should check out the Academy), wrote a piece on Ageism in the workplace. It’s ironic that this exists because it’s something that we will all suffer from. To paraphrase Chip...
The problem is … young leaders are being thrust into positions of power long before they are ready — often tasked with running companies or departments that are scaling quickly with little experience or guidance. As a young tech leader asked me the other day, “How can I microwave my leadership skills?” The answer: there is a generation of older workers with wisdom and experience, specialized knowledge, and unparalleled ability to teach, coach, and counsel, who could pair with these ambitious millennials to create businesses that are built to endure.
Instead of waiting for someone younger to practice ageism, you should pursue your second act. Maybe then, younger generations will access the accumulated wisdom, leadership and competencies of a more mature worker. Do you want to accelerate your young startup? Hire an older group of employees.
The question isn't "where will you begin to address these various biases" but "when will you address them. In this case "better late than never" is the wrong answer.
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