Unconscious Bias: Brian Duggan Challenges Us To Be Open

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In This Episode

Unconscious Bias can affect how we interact with everyone around us and judge others based on our own lived experiences or perceptions of who they are. Brian Duggan leads us in a conversation to challenge us to accept our own unconscious biases to be more open and create stronger connections and understanding while working in the global world. Brian said we need to “be open to the fact that my experience is my experience, and to wonder about other’s experiences.” as a way of improving our cultural intelligence.

Episode Highlights

3:15 Dave asks Greg what do you know about unconscious bias

3:30 Greg speaks to his own realization of when he realized he was privileged

4:40 Dave speaks to how Brian Duggan’s workshop on Unconscious Bias sparks his interest to understand the concept more

6:38 Brian introduces himself and explains his background and connection to the concept of unconscious bias.

9:47 Brian speaks to why self-awareness and accepting our backgrounds and experiences is important in our lives.

11:15 Dave asks why it’s important to Brian to be sharing this message and story about unconscious bias to people who are leaders in the world.

11:50 Brian explains how we live in a global economy and the more we can understand each other, the better life will be.

12:24 Developing cultural intelligence to relate to and adapt to culturally diverse situations is important to working in the global world we are part of.

13:26 The more leaders can understand and recognize that people are not all the same the more we can lead life changing events.

13:56 Dave asks the question of how do we understand and discover the biases that we have?

14:10 Dave speaks about Greg’s recent travels and stories from northern Canada and his own knowledge of those experiences from his father’s work he was exposed to as a child.

15:00 Dave references another example of becoming aware of the massive poverty that exists in Saint John and not previously being aware of it.

15:48 Brian talks about the approaches of how we start to understand our own biases.

16:55 Brains says is that “be open to the fact that my experience is my experience, and to wonder about other experiences.” and that differences we experience impact us.

17:17 It’s about being curious and respectfully sharing experiences.

17:41 We need to get rid of the assumption that everyone is just like us.

18:14 Brian encourages people to do little exercises, like Project Implicit (https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/) to find out where they might have biases

18:46 Research continues to consistent show that one biases is that females should have careers in the Arts and males should have careers in the Sciences. We wouldn’t want to say that out loud to anyone, but it does show in assessments.

19:15 Sometimes we are not aware of the things we think unconsciously

19:30 We need to make a commitment to change and continue to work to change

19:53 Greg mentions how this conversation makes him think about the true definition of ignorance when you aren’t exposed to different situations and can have a negative affect when we become aware and don’t change based on the knowledge.

22:15 Greg asks how he can take his experiences and what’s he witnessed in his personal experiences and make sure he’s using them appropriately in different situations he experiences in future.

22:20 Brian mentions how important historical background can impact a culture and that we need acknowledge and integrate that knowledge into our thinking.

23:47 What do we do with this information after we’ve identified our biases? We need to use it and turn it into new learning

24:30 Dave admits that for him it wasn’t about being ignorant, but it was more that he just wasn’t being open to want to see what was happening around him.

26:30 Dave asks what causes us not to be open?

26:45 Brian thinks that sometimes we feel completely powerless with what to do with the information we learn and other times it could be that we feel that it wasn’t our choice and people choose to live a certain way. One view is very limiting and doesn’t acknowledge how sometimes people don’t have choices to determine their full situations.

28:34 It goes back to our world view. Is it open spaces or locked in?

28:58 It takes forgiveness and humiliated to realize we are limited and we need to break down our limitations to connect with folks.

30:03 Dave connects back to the conversation had with Alice Loy and the creative economy and how being open ties into that conversation.

31:00 Brian explains how people can get in touch about his work.

Brian Duggan

Brian Duggan

A seasoned Coach, Brian brings a high level of focus, curiosity and compassion to supporting leaders at all levels to find solutions to management and leadership issues.

Brian’s approach is person centered, strategic, solution focused and respectful of cultures, diversity and both organization and employee objectives.

His extensive experience coaching executives and other leaders in the private and public sectors has resulted in leadership and career development for emerging leaders and with those who desire to achieve greater career growth.

Brian focuses on helping organizations to thrive in the changing world of work by building great leaders and workplace cultures.

Brian is a life-long learner, a member of the International Coaches Federation, the Human Resources Association of Nova Scotia and the Canadian Institute of Management.

https://www.brianduggancoach.com/

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