8 November 2017, 4 pm
On I go to the IP Inclusive workshop on unconscious bias. Of course, as I have mentioned a few times before, we do not have unconscious bias in the IP professions. However, a few people have nevertheless turned up to learn about it. For a friend. All I have to do at the workshop is welcome everyone at the beginning and say goodbye at the end. In between these dazzling displays of expertise, some very compelling speakers and facilitators ensure that the delegates undergo a bit of useful training. First up, an exercise about stereotyping and implicit assumptions. “Here is Dominic,” says Ben, “He works with me at the IPO. Now you have to guess some things about him, just by looking at him.” Dominic squares his shoulders bravely. Says Ben: “What car does Dominic drive?” There is unanimous agreement that Dominic drives a Mondeo®. Dominic does not look happy about this. Next: “What newspaper does Dominic read?” Again unanimous: Dominic reads The Guardian®. Then: “What is his favourite food?” Fish and chips. It is an odd kind of picture we are building of Dominic. Later, Dominic puts us all right about his reading habits, his holiday destinations and his culinary preferences. But most of all, he puts us right about his car. And at ten-minute intervals during the remainder of the event, he continues to remind us that he is not really Mondeo Man. He is clearly pretty cut-up about this. The irony is, I think to myself, that Dominic would not mind being labelled a Mondeo driver, were it not for the assumptions and stereotypes he associates with owning this particular form of transport. So we have revealed not only our own biases in categorising Dominic, but also Dominic’s biases in responding thereto. After the talks, we split the delegates into groups and facilitate them into discussing things. Then we facilitate the bringing together of the results of the facilitated discussions, which is called a Plenary Session. Dominic says he will write up the Key Outcomes of the Plenary Session, to create an unconscious bias Toolkit for us. We will share this Toolkit with everyone else in IP Inclusive. Because everybody loves a good Toolkit. “But I will not include the bits about the Mondeo,” Dominic points out. He is still smarting. The facilitated Plenary Session is followed by some facilitated standing around chatting, which is called a Networking Opportunity. There is far more food and drink than any of us can eat, particularly since we are talking too much – which I take to be a good sign. Some of the food is extremely fancy, and apparently designed to test our unconscious biases to the limit, for instance the bias about not eating strawberries that are bright green in colour: it turns out that our biases were misplaced, because the bright green strawberries are pickled strawberries (of course! Dur!) and perfectly edible if you close your eyes and think of gherkins. Who knew?
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