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Inclusion, Exclusion, Illusion and Collusion : Helen Turnbull at TEDxDelrayBeach

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    I was driving down the
    interstate the other day
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    when I came up behind a truck
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    and I saw a large sign
    on the truck that said,
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    “If you cannot see my
    mirrors I cannot see you”.
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    And we all know that when we
    have a car in our blind spot
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    that that’s not a very good thing.
    In fact, it could be dangerous
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    but it made me think
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    about our blind spots.
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    It made me think about what
    our blind spots can do to us
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    as well-intentioned people
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    and that sometimes perhaps
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    we’re not as inclusive
    as other think we are.
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    So I want to talk a little bit about inclusion
    today and about the inclusion paradox
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    that it is true that we
    are all human beings
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    and that we are all alike.
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    We share a human experience.
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    Paradoxically however we are
    all uniquely different.
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    We all have different DNA,
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    different fingerprints,
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    different patterns in our eyes,
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    and we all have different stories
    and different experiences
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    and different frames of
    reference on the world.
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    But, I think the
    issue of inclusion
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    is actually in this bullet point
    is we are like some people
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    more than others.
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    That we have a propensity
    for affinity bias.
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    We have a preference to surround
    ourselves with people who are like us.
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    However, it is nevertheless
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    a part of the human experience
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    that we all have a deep need
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    to feel included,
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    so you would think that if we all
    have a deep need to feel included
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    that the path to inclusion
    would be smooth,
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    flat,
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    and completely
    without obstacles.
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    And yet I’d like to
    suggest to you today
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    that not only is it
    flat and smooth,
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    it is actually filled with
    visible and invisible obstacles
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    that stop us even when we think we’re being
    inclusive from being fully inclusive.
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    It will not surprise you to know that our
    in group is smaller than our out group
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    But it may surprise you that in recent
    years in the field of neuropsychology
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    has been able to demonstrate
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    hat the neural
    pathways that we use
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    when we think about ourselves
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    and the neural pathways that we use when
    we think about members of our in group
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    are the same neural pathways,
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    causing us to be
    much more empathetic
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    and much more sympathetic
    to people in out in group.
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    We use different neural pathways
    for people in our out group
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    causing us to be somewhat indifferent
    to their success of failure.
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    I was in Dallas Fort Worth
    Airport a few years ago
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    and it was pre 9/11
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    and I have an unconscious habit
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    that I didn’t realize I had
    until that particular evening.
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    When I boarded the plane I
    would always look to the left
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    and look into the cockpit
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    and on this particular evening there was
    a woman sitting behind the pilot seat.
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    Now she smiled at me
    and I smiled at her
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    and I sat down and my
    stomach began to churn
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    and then my inner voice started to
    run like a ticker tape that said
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    “Oh my goodness, perhaps I
    need to change my flight.
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    Really? A woman
    flying this plane
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    to Fort Lauderdale tonight?
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    A 757? A Woman pilot?”
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    Now I’m a diversity consultant
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    and I am not meant
    to think like that.
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    So I then began to examine what is
    happening. Why am I thinking like that?
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    And I realized that
    I had a blind spot,
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    that for me the image of a competent
    airline pilot looks like this:
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    he’s tall,
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    he’s male,
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    he’s white,
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    he preferably has
    silver-grey hair,
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    and he looks like
    he’s ex-military.
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    Now he could fly the plane,
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    I wasn’t sure that she could.
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    I’d like to share with
    you some of the data
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    from cognizant my unconscious
    bias assessment tool
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    this is aggregate data from
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    quite a large number of people
    from different client systems
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    and what you’re looking at is
    70% of this group were men
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    and 30% were women.
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    What you can see in these
    results is that the men said
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    that men exhibit leadership
    qualities greater than women do,
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    that men are more
    assertive than women,
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    and that men are more serious
    about their careers than women.
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    However, they also said that men
    and woman were valued equally
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    for their revenue
    generation skills
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    and were equally likely to
    be allocated major projects.
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    But let’s look at what the woman said;
    the 30% of the group that were woman.
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    It may surprise you to see
    that the woman also said
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    that men exhibit greater
    leadership skills.
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    The woman also said that men are slightly
    more serious about their careers than men,
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    and the woman also said that men
    are more assertive then woman.
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    They did however
    disagree with the men
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    on the issue on being values for
    their revenue generation skills
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    and being valued or likely to be
    allocated major projects and clients.
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    Now how can this be?
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    Because consciously we
    believe that we are actually
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    striving for equity that we have a
    meritocracy in our organizations
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    and that we’re being fair and that we are
    conscious of the gender differences.
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    And yet not just the men but the woman
    were colluding in this process.
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    So implicit biases
    are very pervasive,
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    in fact of the fifteen
    million people
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    who have taken Harvard
    University’s IAT test
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    80% of that group,
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    both men and women,
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    cannot resist the tendency
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    to associate men with careers
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    and woman with home.
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    Now I had a professor once that said
    there’s no such thing as the innocent eye.
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    And that we really are not always
    seeing as clearly as we think we are.
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    The brain distorts the message.
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    In fact, we actually
    do physically
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    have a blind spot in the
    retina of each eye.
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    And it wouldn’t stretch
    the imagination to think
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    that perhaps this giraffe is
    looking at himself and saying,
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    “Oh my, I look a little
    bit small and fat today.”
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    Because the brain
    distorts the reflection,
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    and if its distorting the
    reflection of ourselves
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    what is it doing in terms of your
    reflection or patters for other people.
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    Deepak Chopra said that
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    “Our ideal body weight is hiding
    inside us waiting to be discovered.”
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    Just like Michelangelo discovered
    David in that piece of rock.
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    But what I’d like to suggest to
    us today is there’s a better self
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    hiding inside each of us.
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    There’s a better self who’s capable of
    being more inclusive than we really are.
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    Because despite the fact
    that we’re well intentioned
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    we’re not always as inclusive
    of other human beings,
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    particularly if
    they’re not like us.
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    Now David’s face is carved
    in marble in perpetuity
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    however as part of our
    human experience,
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    we have many faces.
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    I’d like to talk about
    a couple of the today.
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    First of we have what I
    call our professional face,
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    that’s the face that we take out of the
    car in the morning as we go to work,
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    that’s the face we use when we’re
    doing business with other people.
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    But we also have our
    politically correct face,
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    that’s the face you use when you’re
    saying one thing and thinking another.
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    But then I believe we have what I
    call your curious tourist face.
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    Your curious tourist face
    is when you go overseas
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    and you visit another country and you
    meet the people and you love the locals
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    and you love the food and their
    music and their tradition,
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    and maybe you even buy some touristy
    things to take home to remind of the trip,
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    but just as long as they don’t
    all move into your neighborhood.
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    We also have what I call an
    irritated customer face,
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    and I’m sure you can relate to the
    idea of being in a taxi somewhere
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    and the taxi driver doesn’t
    speak your language
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    and perhaps he gets you lost
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    and you get a little irritated.
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    One of the blind spots
    that I’ve noticed
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    is that we are willing to
    express more irritation
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    towards people from
    a different culture
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    than we are towards people
    from our own culture.
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    And so that’s something I’d
    like to pay attention to,
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    is when I’m dealing with people
    who are different from me.
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    So in terms of language,
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    language is one of the
    areas that I do think
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    language, accent, pace
    of speech, tone of voice
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    are all areas that
    we can actually
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    imperceptibly cause us
    to have blind spots
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    and to treat people differently.
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    I was in Publix once and I
    asked the woman for six bagels
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    “Oh my, you sound
    so intelligent.”
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    And I said, well the fact that she’s
    right isn’t really the issue.
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    The issue is what she
    was projecting onto me,
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    and what she was projecting
    was intelligence.
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    Whereas it made me question what
    does she project onto other people.
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    I’d like to share with you also some
    data from my unconscious bias tool
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    and this time comparing Anglo to
    non-English speaking background
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    where you can see that
    in every instance
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    people from non-English
    speaking backgrounds were rated
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    lower than people
    of Anglo descent.
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    And what this is suggesting
    is that there is a real issue
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    around the talent pipeline
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    and around how people’s
    careers can progress
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    when we have these blind spots
    and these unconscious biases
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    that are impacting our decisions
    about people’s competence.
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    So I’d like to ask you to choose two
    colors that you really like the most,
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    just shout out a
    couple of colors.
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    I heard blue and yellow, OK,
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    so now I’d like you to choose two
    colors that you like the least.
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    So what happened because
    what I noticed there
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    is you were very quick when
    I asked you the first time,
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    but the second time there was a
    silence that fell over the room.
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    Let me tell you what happened:
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    it’s called the stroop effect.
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    It was developed by a man called
    John Riddley Stroop in 1935,
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    an English man, and
    what he discovered
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    was that the brain
    seeks congruency.
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    The brain is lazy, the brain is
    habitual, it seeks congruency.
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    The first slides were easy
    because there were congruent,
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    the color matched the swatch.
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    The second slides, the color
    and the words do not match,
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    so it causes us to have and
    imperceptible hesitation.
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    It is in that hesitation
    that we can exclude people.
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    So this time I’d like to
    ask you to pick two people
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    that you would least like
    to have on your team.
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    I hear one and four, OK.
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    Interestingly one and four on every
    single time I do this exercise
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    either one and four or
    three and four are picked
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    as the people that would be least
    welcome on someone’s team.
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    The ensuing discussion is always
    about the issue of appearance
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    and height and weight.
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    And so these are also issues in
    which we can exclude others.
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    I was on a flight from Canberra
    to Sydney just last year
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    and it was a 30 seater
    commuter flight
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    when the female flight
    attendant was in the isle
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    serving orange juice when I hear a
    female voice come over the intercom.
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    And she said, “Ladies and
    gentlemen, we’re at 27,000 feet.
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    We’ll be landing in Sydney shortly.
    I hope you’ve enjoyed your flight.”
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    I looked at the flight
    attendant and I thought,
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    “Her mouth isn’t moving,
    how can this be?”
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    And then I realized,
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    “Oh my goodness, there’s a female
    pilot and I forgot to check.”
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    And at 27,000 feet I was
    not exercising the option
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    to get off the plane.
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    Socrates said that
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    “the unexamined life
    is not worth living”.
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    But I would like to
    suggest to you today
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    that the unchallenged brain
    is not worth trusting.
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    And I would like to invite you
    to think about what it is you do
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    to exclude others.
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    What is it you do that might
    be a blind spot for you
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    that may cause you, if you
    paid attention to it,
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    to widen the size
    of your in group.
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    Thank you.
Title:
Inclusion, Exclusion, Illusion and Collusion : Helen Turnbull at TEDxDelrayBeach
Description:

CEO of Human Facets, Helen has a 25+ year successful track record in the field of Global Inclusion. She is an internationally recognized Thought Leader on Unconscious Bias, global inclusion and diversity. As creator of "Cognizant" -- Unconscious Bias assessment tool and the "ISM Profile" for measuring Inclusion Skills gaps, her work has contributed to clients winning the Catalyst Award for Gender improvements. Helen is passionate about Inclusion work and relaxes by watching and playing golf.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

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Video Language:
English
Duration:
13:16

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