Beyond Bias Move From Awareness To Action

Understanding and working toward eliminating bias is an admirable goal for anyone, but especially for leaders. Leaders make decisions that change lives. They decide who is hired, promoted, or dismissed. They decide where to invest funds, when to bet on new ideas, and what the future of their organizations will be. Because of this, bias is a leadership liability.

Understanding and working toward eliminating bias is an admirable goal for anyone, but especially for leaders. Leaders make decisions that change lives. They decide who is hired, promoted, or dismissed. They decide where to invest funds, when to bet on new ideas, and what the future of their organizations will be. Because of this, bias is a leadership liability.

As a leader, it's easy to push yourself to the brink of exhaustion. Responding to challenges with brute force may be effective for a brief time, but this approach eventually wears you down and compromises your ability to function. Drawing on scientific research and practical experience at the Center for Creative Leadership, Resilience That Works: Eight Practices for Leadership and Lifeoffers an alternative-a portfolio of eight resilience practices to keep you healthy, focused, and functioning effectively long before crisis arises. Filled with concrete and actionable advice, Resilience That Works guides you through personalized strategies for developing lasting resilience.

Despite extensive and costly diversity initiatives, little progress has been made in recent years in ending workplace gender inequality. Beyond Bias presents a compelling explanation of the reasons for this failure. Current diversity initiatives focus primarily on “teaching” people to be less biased and more inclusive. But this is the wrong focus. As Beyond Bias make clear, workplace gender inequality is a systemic problem caused largely by the (unintended) discriminatory operation of personnel systems, policies, and practices. Beyond Bias presents the four-prong PATH program for directly attacking this structural discrimination—and with it, individuals’ discriminatory conduct: Prioritize Elimination of Exclusionary Behavior Adopt Bias-free Methods of Decision-Making Treat Inequality in the Home as a Workplace Problem Halt Unequal Performance Evaluations and Leadership Development Opportunities In the authors’ characteristically clear and engaging style, Beyond Bias lays out a comprehensive set of actions that organizations can take to ensure women no longer encounter gendered obstacles to their career advancement and find their workplaces engaging, supportive places where they—and everyone—can thrive. Advance Praise for Beyond Bias: “Beyond Bias offers a curated introduction to the literature on workplace gender bias, and many concrete steps organizations can take to interrupt bias by providing more structure in their business systems.” --Joan C. Williams, Author of Bias Interrupted: Creating Inclusion for Real and for Good, Harvard Business Review Press, 2021 “Beyond Bias’s actionable best practices equip leaders with the tools to create an equitable and more productive workplace that allows everyone to thrive. The “must read” for every leader who is serious about positioning their organization for success in the 21st century!” --David G. Smith, PhD, Johns Hopkins University & W. Brad Johnson, PhD, U.S. Naval Academy, authors of Good Guys and Athena Rising “Finally, a book that tackles workplace gender inequality at the root of the problem. Grounded in solid research, this book is a must for leaders determined to improve business results by fostering deeper engagement from both men and women.” --Carol Frohlinger, President, Negotiating Women, Inc. “Beyond Bias is a timely, powerful, and compelling book. In it, Kramer and Harris provide a clear and do-able PATH to create a business climate where people feel trusted and appreciated; one where DE&I is more than hope—it becomes a reality.” --Andi Simon, Ph.D. Corporate Anthropologist and CEO Simon Associates Management Consultants “Here it is! We’ve long been in pursuit of creating a bias-free workplace—what is needed to unlock so much potential and profit for our businesses. Yet so many companies have put in place huge efforts that have failed. Through their PATH program, Andie and Al show us how big goals are met through small wins. Focus on the seemingly small practices they outline that compound over time, and you and your organization will reach the goal we all seek.” --Lee Caraher, CEO, Double Forte, Author of Millennials & Management and The Boomerang Principle, and host of Everything Speaks

The ugly truth about diversity is that some people worry they must give up their power for others to have a chance. La'Wana Harris's Inclusion Coaching method helps people realize that sharing power isn't the same as losing it. The elephant in the room with diversity work is that people with privilege must use it to allow others equal access to power. This is often why diversity efforts falter—people believe in diversity until they feel that they have to give something up. How do we talk them through this shift? La'Wana Harris introduces Inclusion Coaching, a new tool based on cutting-edge research that identifies the stages of preparation, implementation, and “self-work” necessary to help individuals, teams, and organizations build a sustainable culture of inclusion. Harris's six-stage COMMIT model—Commit to courageous action, Open your eyes and ears, Move beyond lip service, Make room for controversy and conflict, Invite new perspectives, and Tell the truth even when it hurts—provides a proven process for making people aware of their own conscious and unconscious biases and concrete steps to make inclusion an embedded reality. Harris offers managers and diversity coaches new models to empower everyone from employees to CEOs to “do” inclusion and address deep-rooted biases that are often invisible. She addresses the growing need to challenge bias and build authentic cultures where everyone can feel a sense of belonging.

Let the CEO of Rework Work help you understand diversity, equity, and inclusion concepts to actively remove bias from the workplace Dismantling unhealthy workplaces involves much more than talking about it, and more than charts, graphs, and statistics—it requires action. Although it’s increasingly common for businesses of all shapes and sizes to appreciate the importance of diversity and inclusion in the workplace, many are often unaware of bias in the cultures they’ve created. Others might know there’s a problem, but don’t know how to properly address it. UNBIAS: Addressing Unconscious Bias At Work helps you understand concepts of workplace diversity, equity, and inclusion, shows you how to identify bias, and provides you with the tools for actively removing barriers and ensuring equity throughout your organization. Written by Stacey Gordon—CEO of Rework Work, a company on a mission to reduce bias in global talent acquisition and management—this real-world handbook offers step-by-step guidance on creating workplace cultures where employees feel they belong. UNBIAS teaches you to: Identify and address bias in the workplace Understand what you can do to be more inclusive Handle potentially uncomfortable conversations Discuss race in an authentic and meaningful way Use workplace-proven tools that make concepts of diversity and equity actionable Help your employee resource groups without giving them extra work Place accountability on organizational policies that allow biased behavior UNBIAS is a must-have resource for all employers, managers, and HR professionals seeking to create and sustain healthy, inclusive, and equitable workplace environments.

We can see evidence of injustice all around us, whether in continuing incidents of racial inequality or in the systemic forces that disenfranchise people and perpetuate poverty. It's important to learn about the world's inequities and to be a voice for the voiceless any way we can. But in an age of hashtag and armchair activism, merely raising awareness about injustice is not enough. Michelle Warren knows what is needed. She and her family have chosen to live in communities where they are "proximate to the pain of the poor." This makes all the difference in facing and overcoming injustice. When we build relationships where we live, we discover the complexities of standing with the vulnerable and the commitment needed for long-term change. Proximity changes our perspective, compels our response, and keeps us committed to the journey of pursuing justice for all. Move beyond awareness and experience the power of proximity.

Sliver award winner in Women/Minorities in Business category, 2020 Axiom Business Book Awards It's not you, It's the Workplace offers a fresh approach to understanding why women's relationships with other women at work are often fraught and when they are, have the potential to completely derail women's careers. It's a pervasive and complicated issue which, until now, has been falsely represented by books that paint women as inherently bitchy back-stabbers who cannot help but have challenging relationships with other women. As the authors prove, this is patently untrue! Immensely practical, the book features real-world advice and tactics to overcome and avoid workplace conflict, and most-importantly, build on the positive aspects of women to women relationships, developing stronger networks that foster women's career success and creating a more supportive and satisfying work environment.