How to Outsmart Your Own Unconscious Bias | Valerie Alexander | TEDxPasadena

let's start with a brain exercise I'm

going to ask you to visualize three

scenarios the visualization part is very

important so please close your eyes take

a deep breath and imagine you're late to

catch a flight you rush through the

airport you make it through security you

run to the gate you make it down the

jetway you step on the plane just as

they close the door behind you and the

pilot steps out of a cockpit to say hi

you get to your destination you go to a

local restaurant and you have the best

meal of your life and really enjoy this

there's no calories and visualization

and at the table next to you is a couple

happily celebrating their anniversary

the next morning you go to the biggest

technology conference in the world and

the CEO of this year's hot hottest tech

startup just took the stage to speak now

you should have a solid picture of all

of that so open your eyes because I have

some questions for you in your mental

image was the pilot black was the

married couple

two men did the tech CEO on stage look

like me it's okay if one or all of your

answers is no your brain creates images

of what's familiar it's less of a fan of

what's not familiar the things I

mentioned are generally less familiar

the black pilot the same-sex married

couple

the female tech CEO no matter how much

you might love the idea of those things

when immediately confronted with them

the amygdala that's the most ancient

part of your brain signals the

hypothalamus to fire up the hypothalamic

pituitary axis which is where the brain

and the endocrine system intersect so at

this point your adrenal glands release

cortisol into your bloodstream which

triggers your stress response this is

the physiology of stress

according to the Dartmouth undergraduate

Journal of science and it happens in a

matter of milliseconds long before you

have the chance to consciously think I'm

so happy these two men have the freedom

to marry who they love as dr. Susan

Fiske explains when it comes to

unfamiliar social situations there is

ample evidence that encountering

something fundamentally different from

what we expect elicits a stronger

activation in the amygdala and

encountering something or someone we

proceed as the norm this is what kept

our species alive for millions of years

this instantaneous instinctive response

triggers fight-or-flight which is what

kept us from being eaten by

saber-toothed Tigers or killed by a

member of a foreign tribe but in modern

society our brains still do this when we

encounter the unexpected our heart races

slightly our blood pressure goes up we

sweat a little and for no discernable

reason we just feel stressed out there's

a Chinese blessing that doubles as a

curse may you live in interesting times

I am the CEO of a tech company right now

which makes these some very interesting

times I recently had a call with a

potential investor in which everything

clicked he got the concept he loved what

we were building he had key insight

about our tech and so we agreed on a day

to speak again and he said great

why don't you ping me then and I said

you got it and then he said oh wait is

that one of those phrases I'm not

supposed to use with you because he's a

man and I'm a woman and in the tech

world right now

careers are being destroyed and entire

venture funds collapsing because some

men have behaved incredibly

inappropriately towards women he was

afraid of using the phrase ping me now

that might seem ridiculous but we now

live in a world where words and phrases

rapidly take on new meaning if you need

proof just look at the Facebook post of

any guy who got a text from his mom that

says hi honey if you want to come over

tonight we can Netflix and chill

if you don't understand why that's funny

google netflix and chill' he asked is

that one of those phrases I'm not

supposed to use with you and there it

was I could practically hear the

cortisol coursing through his

bloodstream no matter how well we

clicked or what he thought of my company

it was still in his brain that I'm not

just a CEO I'm a female CEO and working

with me might be a minefield of

dangerous he has to think about not

because of anything he would ever do or

anything I would ever do but because men

neither of us had ever met couldn't

control their bro havior

and women we both respect bravely chose

not to remain silent

because speaking up is the only way

we're going to make progress so in

addition to all the risks inherent in

investing in an early-stage startup

company there's an added layer of much

scarier risks that come from working

with me the irony is that while some

investors might feel that way for

another cohort because I'm over 40 they

don't even see me

I am simultaneously both highly

dangerous and invisible

[Laughter]

who knows that at this stage in my

career I'd become a ninja is that one of

those phrases I'm not supposed to use

with you I am so grateful that he asked

I'm happy that he felt safe enough to

ask and know that I wouldn't pummel him

for it

if we're going to get anywhere close to

equality

let's stop attacking our allies when

someone is willing to admit and discuss

that there might be a problem with their

own behavior

we can't penalize them for that how

would any of us feel to be excluded from

the Equality conversation because of

what we visualized at the start of this

talk by asking the question I knew this

man was willing to examine his own

behavior and I believe that the biggest

stumbling block to achieving true

equality is unexamined behavior when men

in the startup world start to wonder if

I work with women am I going to someday

be the subject of an incendiary blog

post the answer is no just continue to

examine your behavior when working with

female founders and colleagues and

executives ask yourself if this was a

man would I gently stroked his shoulder

as I suggest we meet again

what I comment on how well his t-shirt

flatters his figure would I place a

higher value on his appearance and his

experience in determining his

probability of success if not don't do

it to her it's that simple

sadly the much simpler response to the

female threat is no you will not be the

subject of an angry blogpost just don't

work with women of course no one would

ever say that out loud but somewhere in

that amygdala a synapse fires towards

flight in the face of an unnamed

potential danger and stress hormones

flood the bloodstream can't explain it

don't know why but whatever makes you

feel happy and comfortable around people

who look and act like you is the same

thing that makes you come up with

logical explicable totally defensible

reasons not to work with someone you

just don't click with and when it comes

to equality examining our own behavior

applies to women too I started my career

as a securities lawyer in the Silicon

Valley at the dawn of the Internet era

it was an insane time to be there as a

first-year associate I build twenty

eight hundred hours one night I left the

office around 2 a.m. which was typical

and so I left my timesheets for my

assistant to process because she got in

in the mornings before I did so the next

day when I got to my desk about five

minutes later and my assistant walks in

holding my timesheets and she said would

you like me to show you how to enter

these into the billing system I mean

sweet as pie and I sat stunned for a

moment then politely declined her kind

offer but that question really started

to bother me why would my assistant ask

the attorney she works for if I want to

learn how to do her job so I started

asking around of the 14 male attorneys

in our group none had ever been asked if

he wanted to learn how to use the

billing system

we had a partner who didn't know there

was a billing system but of the six

female attorneys I was the only one who

had never entered her own timesheets

some of them did it regularly in some

just once or twice but they all knew how

so again I asked why why would you spend

a resource as precious as your time on

work someone else is already getting

paid to do one answer was oh it's not

that hard

women do this to ourselves a lot we do

work that someone else's job because

we're capable and we just want it to get

done if a task is on someone else's

to-do list please don't be the first

person in line to do it for them not

only does that hurt you it sets an

expectation that hurts all other women

the other answer to my question was it's

just easier the knowing laugh

translation it's just easier to do my

assistants work than to make my

assistant do it when we talk about

gender disparity in the workplace we

discuss the different treatment women

receive in performance reviews and

promotions

or in hiring and salary negotiations but

we rarely discuss the treatment women

receive from subordinates we fail to

acknowledge how exhausting it is to not

get the basic level of support needed to

do our jobs and that our male colleagues

enjoy without even thinking twice about

it or to get it but only because we

demanded it and risk being labeled a

certain word or two so we give in we

pile more on our own plates because in

the short term it's just easier and in

the long term we burnout and leave and

in hindsight everyone wonders why there

aren't more women in higher ranking

positions because no one ever examined

the behavior

the funny thing about my situation is

that if you asked the assistants in that

group if they treated male attorneys and

female attorneys differently I'm pretty

sure every one of them would have said

no way and yet no male attorney had ever

been asked if you wanted to learn how to

do administrative work and every female

attorney had that's the real danger of

unexamined behavior the beliefs that

we're treating everyone equally when in

reality were not when we stop and

examine our own behavior we can catch

ourselves having different reactions to

and expectations of people simply

because they don't look like us or worse

because they do the human brain is a

remarkable achievement in evolution the

prefrontal cortex evolved itself into

existence when we needed more processing

capacity how amazing is that

but the amygdala that's been there since

the earliest records of human existence

when an encounter is the unexpected it

floods your system with stress stress

hormones fight-or-flight is what kept

our species alive for millions of years

none of us in 100 lifetimes will ever be

able to change that trigger inside our

brains so our only solution is to change

what's outside our brains to consciously

turn the unexpected into the expected so

that we don't have unconscious hormonal

reactions that keep our society from

moving forward how do you do that how do

you change the unexpected to the

expected well there are three things you

can try one as you go about your day

visualize situations before they happen

the meeting you're about to walk into

the new doctor you're seeing the driver

you just pulled over for having a broken

taillight and whatever mental picture

you get change it open yourself to

different possibilities

the second thing when we do encounter

the unexpected have the courage to

examine your own behavior ask yourself

is this how I would handle this

interaction if this person looked like

me or if this person didn't look like me

third make a conscious effort to expose

yourself and your children and others to

that which is currently unexpected and

doesn't need to be higher the employees

patronize the businesses vote for the

candidates who have earned the position

and are also challenging the norms there

are enormous and long ranging

consequences when we can change the

unexpected to the expected consider this

we have two entire generations in the

world whose first visual image of a

United States president is black it

doesn't matter what kind of hate or

ugliness might have been spoken in their

homes that picture is always within the

realm of the expected for them we

normalize things by making them expected

that is the first step towards keeping

all women from being seen as higher risk

investments and women of a certain age

from becoming ninjas

let's do another visualization once

again please close your eyes and take a

deep breath now imagine you're sitting

in a college class on computer

programming and the professor just

walked in picture the Facebook post of a

friend congratulating a couple who just

adopted a baby visualize your state

swearing-in a new governor now open your

eyes and raise your hand if your mental

image differs substantially now than it

did at the beginning of this talk that

earlier brain exercise we did is

something I do at the start of most

investor meetings it's my way of

tricking them into examining their own

behavior but it's also how I consciously

turn the unexpected into the expected

before we get to the point in my pitch

where I share with them that when we

complete a series a round of venture

financing the chief financial officer

we're bringing on board is black and the

story of my company starts with two

happily married men and the CEO of this

year's hottest tech startup looks

exactly like me

you