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On a brisk winter evening, PMI Rochester hosted Will Wallace, founder of Braveheart Consultants, to help our community better understand unconscious bias.

In the cozy special events room at Nox Cocktail Lounge, on December 5 attendees shared dinner and drinks together ahead of Will’s presentation. The room was buzzing with anticipation of further exploring diversity and inclusion, and Will delivered an exceptional expose of his own upbringing and struggles with unconscious bias. He recalled humanity, and experience, is a powerful driver in building biases.

We all have biases – in fact, on average, an individual will have perceived you, biases and all, within a few seconds of your first encounter. However, we have important work to do in pausing and understanding our biases. Where do they come from? Why do we have them? How can we be accepting, and understanding that there isn’t an ‘other’ – but simply people who may seem different than ourselves on the surface?

Will reminded attendees to be brave. When uncovering unconscious bias, we may sometimes feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, or unsure of ourselves. That’s okay. The ability to ask questions, voice concerns, and to consciously consider the perspective of one another is the first step.

Will guided attendees through several exercises throughout the evening. One of the most poignant was an individual activity to identify the people we we consider trusted advisors. Next, we categorized the people according to age, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, education level, disability status, and so forth. My own findings were such that I realized the people in my inner circle is very similar to me and each other.

Saabirah Khan, human capital recruiter at TEKSystems, stated after the event, “I loved Will’s presentation. There is a growing need for bias training across all professional fields. I enjoyed the exercises and activities as they created opportunities for self-reflection and created stimulating conversations.”

Joyce Ellis, Special Projects Manager, said of the event, "Will Wallace was very thought-provoking and forced you to stop and think differently about your unconscious bias. He made you realize that although you can’t control your initial unconscious thoughts, you can control how you behave and respond."

After pondering in self-reflection, I shared my findings with the peers at my table. When I realized I didn’t have anyone listed with a disability, a fellow attendee reminded me that many people may have invisible disabilities or secret struggles, such as mental illness. My perspective changed. Rather than to react by solely befriending people unlike the categorized list of trusted advisors, Will encouraged us all to think about ‘why’ our lists may have been homogenous.

This evening honed in on understanding unconscious biases, its normalcy in our lives, and considering our own inner circles. Will is hosting part two of discovering our unconscious biases next month. Stay tuned for registration information!

Reminder, last March we posted a tool by Harvard that you can use to test your unconscious bias:  https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatest.html.