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

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)

I was driving down the
interstate the other day

when I came up behind a truck

and I saw a large sign
on the truck that said,

“If you cannot see my
mirrors I cannot see you”.

And we all know that when we
have a car in our blind spot

that that’s not a very good thing.
In fact, it could be dangerous

but it made me think

about our blind spots.

It made me think about what
our blind spots can do to us

as well-intentioned people

and that sometimes perhaps

we’re not as inclusive
as other think we are.

So I want to talk a little bit about inclusion
today and about the inclusion paradox

that it is true that we
are all human beings

and that we are all alike.

We share a human experience.

Paradoxically however we are
all uniquely different.

We all have different DNA,

different fingerprints,

different patterns in our eyes,

and we all have different stories
and different experiences

and different frames of
reference on the world.

But, I think the
issue of inclusion

is actually in this bullet point
is we are like some people

more than others.

That we have a propensity
for affinity bias.

We have a preference to surround
ourselves with people who are like us.

However, it is nevertheless

a part of the human experience

that we all have a deep need

to feel included,

so you would think that if we all
have a deep need to feel included

that the path to inclusion
would be smooth,

flat,

and completely
without obstacles.

And yet I’d like to
suggest to you today

that not only is it
flat and smooth,

it is actually filled with
visible and invisible obstacles

that stop us even when we think we’re being
inclusive from being fully inclusive.

It will not surprise you to know that our
in group is smaller than our out group

But it may surprise you that in recent
years in the field of neuropsychology

has been able to demonstrate

hat the neural
pathways that we use

when we think about ourselves

and the neural pathways that we use when
we think about members of our in group

are the same neural pathways,

causing us to be
much more empathetic

and much more sympathetic
to people in out in group.

We use different neural pathways
for people in our out group

causing us to be somewhat indifferent
to their success of failure.

I was in Dallas Fort Worth
Airport a few years ago

and it was pre 9/11

and I have an unconscious habit

that I didn’t realize I had
until that particular evening.

When I boarded the plane I
would always look to the left

and look into the cockpit

and on this particular evening there was
a woman sitting behind the pilot seat.

Now she smiled at me
and I smiled at her

and I sat down and my
stomach began to churn

and then my inner voice started to
run like a ticker tape that said

“Oh my goodness, perhaps I
need to change my flight.

Really? A woman
flying this plane

to Fort Lauderdale tonight?

A 757? A Woman pilot?”

Now I’m a diversity consultant

and I am not meant
to think like that.

So I then began to examine what is
happening. Why am I thinking like that?

And I realized that
I had a blind spot,

that for me the image of a competent
airline pilot looks like this:

he’s tall,

he’s male,

he’s white,

he preferably has
silver-grey hair,

and he looks like
he’s ex-military.

Now he could fly the plane,

I wasn’t sure that she could.

I’d like to share with
you some of the data

from cognizant my unconscious
bias assessment tool

this is aggregate data from

quite a large number of people
from different client systems

and what you’re looking at is
70% of this group were men

and 30% were women.

What you can see in these
results is that the men said

that men exhibit leadership
qualities greater than women do,

that men are more
assertive than women,

and that men are more serious
about their careers than women.

However, they also said that men
and woman were valued equally

for their revenue
generation skills

and were equally likely to
be allocated major projects.

But let’s look at what the woman said;
the 30% of the group that were woman.

It may surprise you to see
that the woman also said

that men exhibit greater
leadership skills.

The woman also said that men are slightly
more serious about their careers than men,

and the woman also said that men
are more assertive then woman.

They did however
disagree with the men

on the issue on being values for
their revenue generation skills

and being valued or likely to be
allocated major projects and clients.

Now how can this be?

Because consciously we
believe that we are actually

striving for equity that we have a
meritocracy in our organizations

and that we’re being fair and that we are
conscious of the gender differences.

And yet not just the men but the woman
were colluding in this process.

So implicit biases
are very pervasive,

in fact of the fifteen
million people

who have taken Harvard
University’s IAT test

80% of that group,

both men and women,

cannot resist the tendency

to associate men with careers

and woman with home.

Now I had a professor once that said
there’s no such thing as the innocent eye.

And that we really are not always
seeing as clearly as we think we are.

The brain distorts the message.

In fact, we actually
do physically

have a blind spot in the
retina of each eye.

And it wouldn’t stretch
the imagination to think

that perhaps this giraffe is
looking at himself and saying,

“Oh my, I look a little
bit small and fat today.”

Because the brain
distorts the reflection,

and if its distorting the
reflection of ourselves

what is it doing in terms of your
reflection or patters for other people.

Deepak Chopra said that

“Our ideal body weight is hiding
inside us waiting to be discovered.”

Just like Michelangelo discovered
David in that piece of rock.

But what I’d like to suggest to
us today is there’s a better self

hiding inside each of us.

There’s a better self who’s capable of
being more inclusive than we really are.

Because despite the fact
that we’re well intentioned

we’re not always as inclusive
of other human beings,

particularly if
they’re not like us.

Now David’s face is carved
in marble in perpetuity

however as part of our
human experience,

we have many faces.

I’d like to talk about
a couple of the today.

First of we have what I
call our professional face,

that’s the face that we take out of the
car in the morning as we go to work,

that’s the face we use when we’re
doing business with other people.

But we also have our
politically correct face,

that’s the face you use when you’re
saying one thing and thinking another.

But then I believe we have what I
call your curious tourist face.

Your curious tourist face
is when you go overseas

and you visit another country and you
meet the people and you love the locals

and you love the food and their
music and their tradition,

and maybe you even buy some touristy
things to take home to remind of the trip,

but just as long as they don’t
all move into your neighborhood.

We also have what I call an
irritated customer face,

and I’m sure you can relate to the
idea of being in a taxi somewhere

and the taxi driver doesn’t
speak your language

and perhaps he gets you lost

and you get a little irritated.

One of the blind spots
that I’ve noticed

is that we are willing to
express more irritation

towards people from
a different culture

than we are towards people
from our own culture.

And so that’s something I’d
like to pay attention to,

is when I’m dealing with people
who are different from me.

So in terms of language,

language is one of the
areas that I do think

language, accent, pace
of speech, tone of voice

are all areas that
we can actually

imperceptibly cause us
to have blind spots

and to treat people differently.

I was in Publix once and I
asked the woman for six bagels

“Oh my, you sound
so intelligent.”

And I said, well the fact that she’s
right isn’t really the issue.

The issue is what she
was projecting onto me,

and what she was projecting
was intelligence.

Whereas it made me question what
does she project onto other people.

I’d like to share with you also some
data from my unconscious bias tool

and this time comparing Anglo to
non-English speaking background

where you can see that
in every instance

people from non-English
speaking backgrounds were rated

lower than people
of Anglo descent.

And what this is suggesting
is that there is a real issue

around the talent pipeline

and around how people’s
careers can progress

when we have these blind spots
and these unconscious biases

that are impacting our decisions
about people’s competence.

So I’d like to ask you to choose two
colors that you really like the most,

just shout out a
couple of colors.

I heard blue and yellow, OK,

so now I’d like you to choose two
colors that you like the least.

So what happened because
what I noticed there

is you were very quick when
I asked you the first time,

but the second time there was a
silence that fell over the room.

Let me tell you what happened:

it’s called the stroop effect.

It was developed by a man called
John Riddley Stroop in 1935,

an English man, and
what he discovered

was that the brain
seeks congruency.

The brain is lazy, the brain is
habitual, it seeks congruency.

The first slides were easy
because there were congruent,

the color matched the swatch.

The second slides, the color
and the words do not match,

so it causes us to have and
imperceptible hesitation.

It is in that hesitation
that we can exclude people.

So this time I’d like to
ask you to pick two people

that you would least like
to have on your team.

I hear one and four, OK.

Interestingly one and four on every
single time I do this exercise

either one and four or
three and four are picked

as the people that would be least
welcome on someone’s team.

The ensuing discussion is always
about the issue of appearance

and height and weight.

And so these are also issues in
which we can exclude others.

I was on a flight from Canberra
to Sydney just last year

and it was a 30 seater
commuter flight

when the female flight
attendant was in the isle

serving orange juice when I hear a
female voice come over the intercom.

And she said, “Ladies and
gentlemen, we’re at 27,000 feet.

We’ll be landing in Sydney shortly.
I hope you’ve enjoyed your flight.”

I looked at the flight
attendant and I thought,

“Her mouth isn’t moving,
how can this be?”

And then I realized,

“Oh my goodness, there’s a female
pilot and I forgot to check.”

And at 27,000 feet I was
not exercising the option

to get off the plane.

Socrates said that

“the unexamined life
is not worth living”.

But I would like to
suggest to you today

that the unchallenged brain
is not worth trusting.

And I would like to invite you
to think about what it is you do

to exclude others.

What is it you do that might
be a blind spot for you

that may cause you, if you
paid attention to it,

to widen the size
of your in group.

Thank you.