Practicing inclusion is a life and leadership skill.  The same area of the brain that signals physical pain, feels exclusion.  Exclusion causes pain.  All of us have felt the feeling of exclusion.  All of us want to feel we belong; feel we are seen, and heard.

 

This curriculum is designed to help learners build self-awareness, self-management, community, and compassion to act inclusively and lead courageously. The skills needed to intentionally include others.  The science shows we are wired to detect threat; real or imagined.  Useful automatic reactions when dinosaurs roamed but often detrimental in today's society when we are seldom in direct threat of bodily harm.  Inclusion must be conscious.  We either consciously include or unconsciously exclude.  

 

Implicit bias lives in our unconscious.   Our brains are meaning making machines. Evolution, social influence, societal, organizational, and intergroup patterns of contact and norms for intergroup relations teach our brains what associations to make,  Evolved from survival mechanisms, these default networks can be harmful in our relationships, businesses, and organizations.  The great news is we can change associations that are not helpful.  The brain is malleable. Learned biases can be unlearned.

 

Mindfulness and implicit bias awareness creates a moment of choice, when automatic stereotype activation surfaces. Research shows it takes a combination of motivation and cognitive resources for people to identify when implicit bias is activated, intervene when negative micro-aggressions occur, and consciously act in an inclusive manner.

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Implicit bias is just part of human nature.  Our brain structure evolved from our survival instinct when we walked amongst the dinosaurs.  Our old brain or limbic system is wired to perceive threat quickly and respond with fight, flight, or freeze  responses.  Useful then, however, today we are normally not in life or death situations and these primitive or "lizard" brain responses are detrimental in our relationships, teams, or social environments.  Trust, empathy, respect, compassion, and emotional intelligences are the new brain currencies and competencies in the diversity of the 21st century.

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As with any challenge the first step is awareness.   Click below to hear my mega-moment of face to face confrontation with my own implicit bias. 

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I am not unlike you.  We can learn how to retrain our brains and develop the cognitive competencies to intentionally include or continue to disconnect, exclude, and cause harm with unconscious bias.