diverseo - the leadership decoder – discovering your true leadership drivers

8/10/2019 Diverseo - The Leadership Decoder Discovering Your True Leadership Drivers

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The Leadership DecoderDiscovering your true leadership drivers

COPYRIGHT DIVERSEO SAS 2006-2014 - All rights reserved October, 2014


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The Leadership DecoderKey Findings and takeaways about leadership

To become more a e ective leader, know thyself.

Introspection is the best way to identify leadership drivers.

Men and women are intrinsically di erent : women lack self-con dence. care more about their families than about their careers. do not harbor ambitions of a position of power.

Gen Y put higher priorities on personal life vs. career thanolder generations.

Strong stereotypes among males are the primaryobstacles to womens empowerment.

Stereotypes about women are true 80% of the time.

Men tend to be career and power driven.

Knowing oneself is essential

but introspection does not work : it cannot access theunconscious leadership drivers, which impact behaviors asmuch as the conscious ones we know.

Our unconscious drivers can sometimes be malleable.

There is little di erence between men and women inleadership drivers at the unconscious level:

Women are generally as self-condent as men.Men & women have a stronger association with familythan with career.Most of us desire power, but unconsciously, warmthgenerally matters more.

Gen X and older generations are unconsciously more family-oriented than Gen Y. They just do not say it!

Many women are also their own enemy. Women can havestronger biases about their own gender than men both atconscious and unconscious level.

Stereotypes about women are wrong 80% of the time.

At the unconscious level, many men prefer family andwarmth.

Revisit leadership trainings introspection is not enough.Take advantage of scientically proven tools such asDiverseos Leadership Decoder to manage both consciousand unconscious drivers.

Do not praise general gender or social group differences.Focus on individual cognitive diversity. Chase down cuesreinforcing gender di erences.

Encourage collaborative leadership for all - to increaseengagement.

Reinforce commonalities among generations. Explain oldergenerations just learnt to balance aspirations with businessrequirements.

Identify organizations collective biases with data analytics and customized Implicit Association Tests.

Develop your leaders with tools to manage their true self-identity and to reduce unconscious bias.

Create decision-making processes fostering objectivedecision-making to reduce the impact of unconsciousbiases ... and do not fall into the unconscious bias pitfalls!

COMMON ASSUMPTIONS

There is a greater difference in leadership drivers among individuals of the same gender,than between men and women. We simply do not know or recognize it!

WHAT THE RESEARCH SHOWS PRACTICAL TAKEAWAYS

COPYRIGHT DIVERSEO SAS 2006-2014 - All rights reserved October, 2014 2

> More than 2500 scienti c tests completed> More than 70 nationalities> All industries, functions and levels


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The Leadership DecoderContent

To become a good leader, know thyself. Unconscious leadership drivers are often not aligned with conscious ones. Uncovering this gap isnecessary to progress on the leadership path

Men and women think they are di erent, but their unconscious leadership drivers are actually the same: warmth driven, family oriented, andself-con dent

Gen X and older generations are unconsciously more self con dent and family-oriented than Gen Y

The gender stereotype of a warmth driven woman favoring family over career is still highly ingrained, especially among women

Stereotypes about women leadership drivers are wrong 80% of the time

Most male respondents are in fact driven by family and warmth at the unconscious level, contrary to stereotypes

Generate large-scale mindset shift by identifying collective cultural biases to be tackled and focusing on developing individuals speci c traits

Develop true leaders by leveraging tools and techniques to manage their true self-identity and to reduce unconscious bias

Create decision-making processes fostering objective decision-making to reduce the impact of unconscious biases

Acting on unconscious bias requires carefully deploying scienti cally designed tools in order to e ectively access the unconscious to generateand sustain real behavioral change

Why this research?

Surfacing conscious and unconscious leadership drivers?

What does it change?Leverage individual di erences - cognitive diversity - by reducing gender based stereotypes.

Findings

How to act

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The Leadership DecoderWhy this research?

How to identify, attract, and develop the right leaders to ensure my companys success?

This question is now on the top of most CEOs agenda,and the answer is often leadership skills developmente orts. Many organizations have rightly focused theirprograms on developing leaders across a wider talentrange: di erent cultures, professional backgrounds,genders.

It is commonly believed that to achieve good results, it isnecessary to customize trainings or leadership seminarsto certain social groups, like women. For example, whendesigning a leadership program for women, it is commonly

assumed that women are less successful in the corporateworld because they have natural di culties in displayingtraditional command/control characteristics: self-con dence, assertiveness, ambition,

Thus, most leadership development approaches assumethat:

A. People can become more e ective leaders byworking on their internal le adership drivers consciously,with introspection

B. Women and men are di erent. Women tend to lackself-con dence, be more family oriented than men, andare more caring leaders who do not have the ambition ofholding a position of power. Generations are also di erent,with Gen Y less career and more warmth oriented.

Many corporations deploy their resources accordingly.

However, scienti c research suggests a completelydi erent picture:

A. Peoples behaviors and decisions result from bothconscious and unconscious leadership drivers. Thelatter cannot be identi ed by mere introspection.Deep and sustainable change requires accessing theunconscious, which is now possible thanks to recentlydeveloped speci c scienti c tools.

B. Women seem to adapt their leadership styles to job requirements. T here is no evidence that men and

women are born with di erent leadership traits.

If the science is right, it questions the approach toleadership development that most companies take.

Diverseo designed the Leadership Decoder to identify,in a fact-based manner, which of these two approachesshould be favored.

The Leadership Decoder is a groundbreaking,scienti cally grounded tools, used in more than 1,000scienti c publications, to surface both conscious andunconscious perceptions about oneself and genderstereotypes on three themes:

> Self-con dence;> Prioritization between family and career;> Ambition and identi cation with powerful positions.

Using scienti cally grounded tools,uncover conscious and unconsciousleadership drivers in order to:

Assess peoples ability to know themselvesand fully use introspection to become moree ective and authentic leaders

Identify di erences in conscious andunconscious leadership drivers acrossgenders, nationalities and generations

Measure both conscious and unconsciousgender and generational stereotypes alongthree core dimensions: self-con dence, sourceof individual energy between career vs. familyprioritization, and type of ambition.

This research was rstpresented at the 2014Womens Forum GlobalMeeting in partnership withthe Womens Forum for theEconomy and Society.



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How do youperceive yourself?

Am I self-con dent or insecure?

Where do I derive my energy fromand what is more important for me:career or family?

Am I more attracted to rolesassociated with power or withwarmth?

How do youperceive others,starting with a gender lens?

Are men generally more self-con dentthan women?

And vice-versa ?

Are men generally more career-driven than women?

And vice-versa ?

Are men generally more attracted toroles associated with power and womenwith roles associated with warmth?

The Leadership Decoder is uncovering conscious and unconscious self-perceptionsand gender-related perceptions for three leadership drivers

CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS PERCEPTIONS ARE ASSESSED

Self-con dence

Career vsfamily

Power vswarmth

Human beings process information with two di erentprocessors: conscious (also called explicit) andunconscious (implicit).

The unconscious processor is in uenced by a networkof associations between concepts such as Me andattributes such as Con dence.

Both processors impact behaviors.

Implicit drivers might be di erent from what we think webelieve at the conscious level. Traditional explicit testsor individual introspection cannot uncover this di erence.

Research has shown that children who do not

identify with school are not very likely to put alot of e ort in school work and are at a greaterrisk of dropping out.

The Leadership Decoder is a set of web based algorithmsleveraging the theory of implicit associations to allowparticipants to identify and measure the strength of theirunconscious leadership drivers.

The Leadership DecoderSurfacing conscious and unconscious leadership drivers


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FindingsTo become a good leader, know thyself. Unconscious leadership drivers are not alignedwith conscious ones. Uncovering them is necessary to become an effective leader

CLIENT CASEUncovering leadership drivers before it is too late

One senior executive in a Global Industrial Company believedhe was warmth-driven and was caring about his subordinatesperformance. Nevertheless, after 2 years in his position, his360 feedback revealed that his subordinates felt they had noresponsibilities because of his commanding leadership style. Thecompany suggested him to develop his collaborative skills andpostponed his promotion.

The Leadership Decoder revealed that he was actually unconsciouslypower-driven. As a result, in case of stressful situation, undertime-pressure, or when taking complex decisions, he was actingaccording to his unconscious, automatic, commanding style. Bytaking the Decoder, he was able to acknowledge his unconsciousdrivers, to act on it and improve his relationships with subordinatesand peers. He got a promotion.

Being an authentic leader often rests on aligningexpectations with internal drivers or priorities, learningnatural leadership strengths and how to stretch oneselfin order to be a more agile and e ective leader

But research shows no one can understand theircomplete self-identity by mere introspection. TheLeadership Decoder con rms that nding: a full 76% ofparticipants have a di erent unconscious self-identitythan what they express at the conscious level.

Why does it matter?

Unconscious leadership drivers in uence behaviors andmotivation. Often, people consciously desire certainleadership characteristics. But if their unconsciousdrivers are not aligned, this can hamper their ability tobe e ective leaders, which could lead to loss of self-con dence and motivation.

For example, as mentioned earlier, research has shownthat children who do not identify with school are notvery likely to put a lot of e ort in school work and are at

greater risk of dropping out.

More generally, research shows that both unconsciousand conscious drivers impact our behaviors. However,correlation between the two is quite low, suggestingthat they could trigger di erent mechanisms that drivebehaviors

A crucial consequence is that a misalignment betweenconscious and unconscious drivers can hamper onesability to succeed.

Thus people who genuinely aim to base their le adershipon warmth, but whose unconscious leadership pro leis geared towards power, will likely struggle to achievetheir goals.

In fact, we observed in clients organizations thatuncovering unconscious drivers allows managers and

executives to better understand their behaviors, wheretheir energy comes from, and how to be more engagedand productive.


OPPOSITE31%

ALIGNED24%

DIFFERENT45%

ALIGNMENT OF LEADERSHIP DRIVERS AT THE CONSCIOUSAND UNCONSCIOUS LEVELS (% OF PEOPLE TESTED)

Unconscious

Implicit self

Conscious

Explicit self


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FindingsMen and women think they are different, but their unconscious leadership drivers areactually the same: warmth driven, family oriented, and self-condent

When asked for their conscious leadershipdrivers, men and women seem to be di erent:

Men express on average more self-con dencethan women

Men put on average a greater emphasis on familyas a priority than on career. This is counterintuitive,but we have observed that professional womenoften emphasize their commitment to their careerin order to counterbalance the women prefer

family stereotype. It is easier for men to alignwith their unconscious self-identity.

At the unconscious level, most menand women have similar drivers; bothgenders are generally self con dent,have the same preference for beingwarm and not power driven, and have astronger association with their family.

We nd that di erences between individuals of

the same gender are larger than between genders.

The study also reveals a striking di erence between theconscious and unconscious drivers when it comes to power:most men and women declare themselves attracted to power atthe conscious level, while they both have a stronger unconsciousidenti cation with warmth than with power.


CONFIDENT

CONFIDENT

CONFIDENT

CONFIDENT

POWER

slight

slight slight

slight

WHAT THEY SAY:MEN ARE MORE CONFIDENT AND FAMILY ORIENTED

WHAT THEY REALLY ARE:MEN AND WOMEN ARE SIMILAR

slight

slight slight

neutral

moderate

moderate moderate

slight

WARMTH

POWER

WARMTH

FAMILY

FAMILY

FAMILY=

CAREER

FAMILY

ME

ME

ME

ME


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FindingsGen X and older generations are unconsciously more self condent and family-orientedthan Gen Y

While all generations are rather self con dent onaverage, self con dence tends to increase over time.However, the younger generations tend to express theirself con dence slightly less. The widest gap betweenconscious and unconscious self con dence appearswithin the 30 to 40 years age group.

All generations tend to put a higher priority on theirfamily than on their career. However, the more peoplegrow older, the higher the family priority. Interestingly,Generation Y tends to have a smaller gap between theirconscious and unconscious priorities. Future researchcould assess the impact of this smaller gap on behaviors.


CONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS SELF-PERCEPTIONS BY AGE Unconscious a ssoc ia tion C ons ci ou s as soci at ion

20-30

30-40

40-50

50-60

N =134

N = 285

N = 317

N = 223

DOUBTFUL FAMILYCONFIDENT CAREER



DOUBTFUL

Neutral Neutral

Age

FAMILYCONFIDENT CAREER


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What they say

Male = CondentWomen = Doubtful

Male = CareerWomen = Family

Male = PowerWomen = Warmth

Male = DoubtfulWomen = Condent

Male = FamilyWomen = Career

Male = WarmthWomen = Power

Neutral

Neutral

Neutral

Their unconscious thought

IN THEIR HEADS: HOW DO MEN AND WOMEN PERCEIVE THEIR, AND THE OTHER GENDERS, LEADERSHIP DRIVERSPercentage of test results N = 2519

Priorities

Self-Con dence

Ambition

Research has gathered evidence for years that almosteveryone has strong unconscious associations whenin comes to gender, and that these associations driveour judgment and behavior. For example, most peopleunconsciously associate women with Liberal Arts andmen with Science.

The Leadership Decoder results corroborate thesendings. On average, respondents unconsciously

associate male with traditional leadership drivers career oriented and power driven and females withless command and control drivers, such as family and

warmth. Three results are particularly interesting: At the conscious level, women have rmer perceptionsthan men: the di erence between the majority and theminority is larger by on average 27 points.Womens perceptions are much stronger at theconscious than at the unconscious level.Women strongly associate men with traditionalleadership at the unconscious level, even though atthe unconscious level, they nd themselves more self-con dent.

Overall, it appears that women actually have strongergender bias than men along the selected leadershipdrivers. One could surmise that female professionals aremore exposed to stereotyped messages about their owngender. For example, they are targeted by gender speci cleadership and development trainings which imply thatwomen need to do more to become e ective leaders. Asa result, they develop stereotypical associations; eventhough this does not t with their own drivers.

FindingsThe gender stereotype of a warmth driven woman favoring family over career is highlyingrained, especially among women

71% 40% 42%21%

58% 44%38%

40%

61%

71%

78% 50%

59%78%

24%

20% 43% 28%

18%35%20%

5% 2% 13%

3% 8% 11%

10%5%3%

43%

49%

35%

38%

23%

14%


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FindingsStereotypes about women leadership driversare wrong 80% of the time

BeliefsWomen are commonly perceived as having low self-con dence, being family oriented and caring and warmleaders. People generally believe they are not so wellequipped for power positions.

It is also often assumed that while each and every individualis unique gender stereotypes generally correspond to thereality.

What the research showsOur research shows that reality is much more complex:stereotypes are actually strongly misleading.

UNCONSCIOUS SELF-PERCEPTION OF WOMEN FOR PRIORITIES AND AMBITION COMPARED TO GENERAL

PERCEPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONSImplicit association score

AVERAGE SELF-CONFIDENCE BY GENDER ATCONSCIOUS AND UNCONSCIOUS LEVELConscious and unconscious association scores N = 598

Conscious Unconscious

0,420,45

0,35

0,28

At the unconscious level, mostwomen are in fact not drivenby warmth and family

In our perceptions, we generallyassume that women areattracted by roles where a warmleadership style is required to

succeed and that they favorfamily over career.

Women are self-con dentBoth at the conscious and unconscious levels, threeout of four women are self-con dent. Moreover,self-con dence is the most consistent trait. Fewerthan 11% of respondents displayed an oppositionbetween what they think at the conscious level andtheir results at the unconscious level.

POWER DRIVEN Stereotype

WARMTH DRIVEN

FAMILY ORIENTATED CAREER ORIENTATED

73%of women are self-con dentboth at unconscious & conscious level


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FindingsMost male respondents are in fact driven by family and warmth at the unconsciouslevel, contrary to stereotypes

Beliefs

Men are commonly perceived as self-con dent, career-oriented, and more closely attracted to powerfulleadership positions.It is also often assumed that, while each individual isunique, perceptions in gender di erences generallycorrespond to the reality.

What the research shows

MEN ARE SELF-CONFIDENT AS EXPECTEDLike women, men are indeed self-con dent.

More than 80% of the men are self-con dent. Moreover,as evidenced earlier, self-con dence is the mostconsistent trait between the conscious and unconsciouslevels.

MEN ARE FAMILY AND WARMTH-DRIVEN CONTRARYTO STEREOTYPE

Stereotypes would assume that male drivers are careerand power, not family and warmth.The Diverseo study, however, reveals that a large majorityof male respondents are actually family oriented andhave an unconscious identi cation with warmth, not withpower.

UNCONSCIOUS SELF-PERCEPTION OF WOMEN FOR PRIORITIES AND AMBITION COMPARED TO GENERALPERCEPTIONS AND EXPECTATIONSImplicit association score

CONFIDENCE

DOUBT

CAREER

Expectedstereotypezone

Neutral

Slightassociation

Slightassociation

Mean = -0,16Mean = -0,17

Mean = -0,42

FAMILY

POWER

WARMTH


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What does it change?Leverage individual differences - cognitive diversity - by reducing gender basedstereotypes

that Anglo-Saxons were rejected by theorganization as they did not belong to thecultural inner-group, whereas its growthstrategy relied heavily on developingcapital intensive plants in mature markets,which required such pro les. Thisorganizations limited ability to acceptdi erences jeopardized its prospects.

4. Accelerate the shift towardscollaborative authentic leadership. The traditional top-down commanding

leadership style is still very much ingrainedin some corporate cultures. One simplymust seek power to succeed. Is it thensurprising that both men and womendeclare themselves more attracted to rolesassociated with power than with warmth?Furthermore, men are typically perceivedas being more associated with powerthan women. But many organizations aretrying to move away from the top-down,command-and-control model. Some areeven arguing that men should learn fromwomen leadership style. The good newsis: men and women have on averagea stronger unconscious identi cationwith warmth than with power. Therefore,reducing the general stereotype anduncovering an individuals unconsciousidenti cation will boost their ability tobehave as a collaborative leader.

Surfacing cognitive diversit y and focusingthe e orts on reducing gender basedassociations should allow to:

1. Enable individuals to reach their fullpotential. General gender stereotypeshamper development at the individual levelfor both genders. In fact, the majority ofmen and women have a di erent self-imagethan the one generally associated with theirgender. As a result, most people cannotact according to their internal, authentic

leadership drivers.

2. Get access to a wider range of talents.Reducing stereotypes allows organizationsto assess job applicants more objectively.Organizati ons that who embarked one ective unconscious bias reduction plansalso found that they became more attractiveto a wider talent pool. In fact, sought-aftertalents perceive the open-mindedness ofthe culture and generally nd it attractive.

3. Be more innovative and agile.

Non inclusive organizations have moredi culty adapting to changing businessenvironments. For example, one of ourclients based in an emerging marketeconomy had a very strong and exclusivemale engineer Latin culture. Diverseosdiversity cultural assessment revealed

Condence

Condence

Doubt

Doubt

Career

Career

Family

Family

Power

Power

Warmth

Warmth

FROM A SIMPLIFIED, GENDER-BASED, DEEPLY FLAWED VIEW OF THE WORLD

TO A MORE COMPLEX BUT RICHER INDIVIDUAL COGNITIVE DIVERSITY


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How to actGenerate large-scale mindset shift by identifying collective cultural biases and focusingon developing individuals specic traits

Develop inclusive leadership skills to focus on individual di erences beyondgender, race, ethnicity

As evidenced by the Leader ship Decode r, there are much more di erences amongindividuals than generally between genders.

Focusing on di erences, generalizing some attributes and traits tend to reinforceunconscious social biases. It also makes it harder for the social groups targeted bythe stereotypes to succeed. For example, presenting women as having a di erentleadership style tends to activate the stereotype that women are poorer leaders thanmen. Women need to be presented mainly as equally competent leaders as men

Unconscious biases also reduce peoples ability to be e ective managers and getthe best from their teams. Research

shows that the unconscious biasesof a manager reduce a subordinateperformance by an average of 20%.

Small stereotypical cues portrayed ineveryday life also play an importantrole. They need to be identi ed andaddressed. For example, in advertising,women often wash the laundry, cookand serve men and children at thefamily table.

Therefore, generating and sustaining

a large-scale mindset shift requires atwo-fold approach:

Address the small cues priming ge nd er st er eo ty pe s in th eorganization;

Provide large-scale training toenable employees to shift theirunconscious assuptions.

IDENTIFY UNCONSCIOUS CORPORATE ASSUMPTIONSCorporations, like humans, have an unconscious mind: each organization generates andcarries its own unconscious assumptions. Like those of a human being, these cannot beuncovered with introspection. At Diverseo, we identify such assumptions by conductinginterviews with proprietary methodologies.We then use advanced quantitative methods,complemented by implicit associationtests, to uncover speci c culturally relatedassociations:

Advanced quantitative analyticsWe download client HR data from multiplesources and systematically identify di erencesin career development across di erent socialgroups within the company. For example, quiteoften, our analysis demonstrates that, whilemost people believe women cease workingin order to have children, in reality women arepromoted less frequently than men and tend togive up their jobs as a result,

Implicit Association Tests (IATs)Customize d IATs allow to quantif y the automaticassociations prevailing in the organization. Such

quanti cation is highly useful. We have noticedthat organizations generally tend to focus onareas where their unconscious associations arelowest and miss altogether those that should beaddressed as a priority. For example, one of ourclients, a professional services rm, intendedto invest massively to change the perception ofwomen as leaders while in fact the organizationsmain bias related to women and family.

IMPORTANCE OF FAMILYBY SECTOR AS OPPOSED TO CAREER

Association scores with family

SELF-CONFIDENCE BY CITIZENSHIPCOUNTRY

Association scores

BankingFinancial serv.

ConsultingBusiness Serv.

GovernmentPublic Serv.

NGO

0,17

0,61

0,33

0,42

0,13

0,27

0,23

0,40

0,48

0,35

0,10

0,08

0,22

0,39

Non inclusive leaders reduce theirteams performance by ~20%

100

80

60

40

20

0

N E U T R A L

N O N -

I N C L U

S I V E

B E H A V I O U R

CONSCIOUS

CONSCIOUS

UNCONSCIOUS

UNCONSCIOUS


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How to actDevelop true leaders by leveraging tools and techniques to manage their true self-identityand to reduce unconscious bias about others

Help your leaders uncover and manage their true self-identity Unconscious self leadership attributes, which are drivingour authentic leadership style, cannot be surfaced withintrospec tion. Moreover, we general ly have a di erent percep tionof ourselves at the conscious and unconscious level.

At Diverse o, we develop cognitive science tools to uncover ourunconscious selves.

Why not use them?

Become an inclusive leader: unlearn unconscious biasesThe understanding of the unconscious workings of the mind and of the malleabilityof unconscious biases has made very signi cant progress over the last few years.Research has produced evidence that some individual brain training techniquesare e ective. Such techniques, which we recommend a nd customize for our clientsinclude :

> Taking a relevant Implicit Association Test. At Diverseo, we design c ustomizedtests speci cally to accelerate behavioral change. Some examples can be found at

www.diverseo.com/test

> Techniques to improve decision-making, like i dentifyi ng and thinking about a role model or a counter-stere otypica l individual before making a key decision.

> Systematical ly counte rbalan cing da ily behaviors that hamper our e ectiveness as inclusive leaders.

Learn to make more objective decisions

Conscious deductive techniques can foster fact-based reasoning.

Examples of such techniques are to:

> Create a decision-making context fosteringobjectivity by consciously concentrating andengaging in a deliberative process

> Use individual fact-based deductive techniques

USE SCIENTIFICALLY GROUNDED TESTSTO UNCOVER IMPLICIT SELF-PERCEPTIONS

Example of leadership decoder tests

At Diverseo we have encapsulated this knowledge by creating the rst digitalinclusive leadership coaching program for large-scale, e ective roll-out.


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How to actCreate processes that foster objective decision-making and reduce the impactof unconscious biases

Make it simple.Simplify as much as possible the information used in the process so that decision makers do not get lost.

Otherwise, they will unconsciously pick the information that best corresponds to their unconscious biases or assumptions.

Ensure that access to information i s easy by reducing as much a s possible administrative tasks to administer process.

Have the right decision-makers.Involve the right individuals who have the right knowledge and the right level to adequately calibrate decisions.

Involve the right number of individuals, typically from 2 to 4 individuals.

Have the right facts.The overall structure of the decision-making process should provide decision-makers with key facts to support their decisions. Quite often,

some people possess relevant information that is not communicated to other key decision-makers. In such instances, people then make upfor the missing information and use biased assumptions to make decisions.

Be descriptive and practical.Make sure everyone has the same interpretation of key facts.

For example, at one of our clients, the Americans had the image of a tall, powerful, assertive, and charismatic leader,while for the Chinese the concept itself was not as relevant as they were searching for harmony and collective thinking.Standing out of the group was perceived by the Chinese as inappropriate.

Reduce mental inferences.Make sure the rst information people see is the most relevant for objective decision-making.

Make it easy to read. With too many documents and information to process, decision-makers end up picking unconsciously.

Make it easy to access. IT systems often do not help as decision-makers allocate more cognitive resources on how to operatethe software than on how to assess the performance.

Reduce the impact of self-stereotyping in self-evaluations when self-evaluations are involved.Focus self-evaluations on key facts and guide evaluees accordingly.

Encourage people to know more about themselves and to know how they might unconsciously limit themselves.

We cannot stop theautomatic workingsof our minds.

But organizationscan develop processstructures andcontents that bestfoster objectivedecision-making byadapting them to theautomatic workings ofthe mind.

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How to act Acting on unconscious bias requires carefully deploying scientically designed tools in orderto effectively access the unconscious to generate and sustain real behavioral change

Do not fall into the unconscious bias pitfall. Act directly on the unconscious mind for impact

Consciously, we are able to reduce only partially theimpact of unconscious bias, and we are unable toact on the bias itself. To begin reducing unconsciousbiases we must act on the unconscious mind.

Unconscious biases areautomatic and result from theautomatic workings of themind. Conscious e orts at

reducing unconscious biasesactivate the conscious mind,leaving the unconscious largely

untouched. Introspection simplydoes not access most biases.

Moreover, conscious e orts to reduce unconsciousbias entail the use of cognitive resources, which resultsin what researchers term cognitive overload. Youbecome unable to control the automatic activation ofunconscious biases and your biases actually have amuch stronger impact.

Compiling a list of standard biases and systematicallychecking for their presence results in incompletelyaddressing the issue and may even reinforce biases.

Encourage decision-makers to be open minded andcurious. Be careful when asking for objectiveness

Some people believe they have successfully reduced theirunconscious biases merely because they consciouslyattempted to do so before taking a decision. In fact, they oftentend to make more biased decisions. They then tend to tweaksupporting facts in a very subtle way.

Furthermore, research on accountability in decision-makinghas yielded evidence that those who have been primed to bemore objective will, in fact, be less objective as a result. For

example, when someone has been primed to be objectivebefore meeting a candidate, the unconscious workings ofthe persons mind will capture unconscious attributes of thecandidate during the rst few milliseconds of their interaction.

When primed to be objective, decision-makers willunconsciously retain an even tighter grasp on those initialattributes. They will then invest signi cant cognitive resourcesto gather information to support their initial, unconsciousassessment of the candidate. Few resources will be left toenable the recruiter to discover more about the candidate.

The best approach, therefore, is to encourage people to takeresponsibility for being fair, and touncover their biases with cognitivetools; to foster decision-makerscuriosity and openness; andto encourage them to candidlydiscover more about the individualthey are assessing.

Experience with our clients demonstratesthat biases can be surprisingly numerousand diverse.

A standard list cannot enable us to determine a llthe biases prevailing in an organization. We can,however, identify prevailing biases that make themost impact on the organization by leveragingadvanced data analytics.

For example, at one of our clients, people generallybelieved there was a strong bias in favor of MBArecipients from several speci c universities.

Analysis proved that such a bias, in fact, wasnot present. Proof of attendance at one of theuniversities in question actually had no bearing onperformance assessment or career development.In fact, in this particular organization, a muchdi erent and unexpected bias had a statisticallysigni cant impact on performance assessment:people unconsciously associated taking time owith a low level of engagement and performance.This led to biased decisions.

C L I E N T C A S E


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Some key scientic references

Banaji, M. R., Bazerman, M. H., & Chugh, D. (2003)How unethical are you? Harvard Business Review, 81(12): 56-64

Devos, T., Huynh QL., Banaji MR. (2012)Implicit Self and Identity. Handbook Of Self and Identity The Guilford Press

Diverseo (2014)Reduce your unconscious bias: a highly e ective toolbox and how to avoid theunconscious bias pitfalls, under press

Diverseo (2012)The Unconscious Sealing Women in Leadership, www.diverseo.com

Dunham, Y., Baron, A.S., & Banaji, M. R. (2005)

From American city to Japanese village: The omnipresence of implicit raceattitudes. Unpublished masters thesis, Harvard Graduate School of Education,Cambridge, MA.

Eagly, A.H., Carli, L.L. (2007)Through the Labyrinth: The Truth about How Women Become Leaders. HarvardUniversity Press, Boston, MA.

Jones, JM. Dovidio, JF, Vietze, DL. (2013)The Psychology of Diversity: Beyond Prejudice and Racism, Wiley-Blackwell

Kahneman, D. (2011)Thinking, Fast and Slow. Straus and Giroux

Uhlmann, E., & Cohen, G.L. (2005a)Constructed criteria: rede ning merit to justify discrimination.Psychological Scienc e, 16, 474-480



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The rst scienti cally proven, online braintraining program designed to identify andcontrol automatic leadership drivers for amore inclusive leadership

The Leadership Recoder TM is the rst cognitive trainingprogram designed to enhance your e ectiveness as aleader with activities targeting your unconscious selfperceptions and your perceptions of others. Since Diverseo

rst developed the Leadership Recoder TM in 2006, we have consistently incorporated thelatest scienti c ndings to improve the programs e ectiveness to change behavior on asustainable basis.

Whats in it for you?

The Leadership Recoder TM enables participants to uncover unconscious actual leadershipdrivers and learn simple and e cient techniques to become more inclusive leaders.

The programs step-by-step approach and user-friendly interface delivers a positivelearning experience for lasting results.

Some of the key features: Brain-training: The Leadership Recoder TM progressively exercises your brain to enable you to

manage your automatic mind.

Personalized: The program features a series of exercises and Tests, allowing you to customizethe programs contents to match your own particular leadership drivers and developmental needs.You may assess your progress and adjust the contents accordingly at any time during the program..

Scienti c: The Leadership Recoder TM incorporates years of research from Harvard,the University of Michigan, the University of San D iego and others in the scienti c communitywho have helped deepen our understanding of the malleability of bias..

E ective: The Leadership Recoder TM features tasks whose e cacy has been scienti cally assessed.

Self-paced: At the beginning of the program you are invited to set your personalized program: you indicate at which time and on which day you would like to meet with your digital mind coach.

The program is self-paced and typically takes place over the span of nine weeks.

Educational: Youll notice some repetition in the tasks youre undertaking. This is not accidental.Repetition is key to educating yourself and unlearning highly ingrained, automatic mental processes.

The Leadership Recoder TM can be a valuable tool for reinforcingmanagerial, collaborative and inclusive leadership skills.

Innovative tools and methodology Big Data for fact-based identi cation of barriers to diversity to setyour diversity policyWe conduct face-to-face interviews and perform statistical analysis of unstructured HR data toidentify systematically barriers to diversity and to uncover corporate biases. By challenging beliefswith hard facts, we can measure e ectiveness as well as ROI of actions and set fact-based targets.

HR ProcessScan TM for more objective HR processesOur proprietary methodology adapts HR processes to human cognitive abilities. Wesigni cantly improve e ciency and objectiveness in recruitment, performance evaluation,identi cation of high potentials

Customized IAT websites for deep mindset shiftWe surface and prioritize unconscious associations prevailing in organizations, we designand deliver customized IAT websites to instigate behavioral change, and we monitorcorporate culture using tools deployed consistently across the organi zation.

Web-based supported train-the-trainer program for coste ective global changeOur training p rograms, deployed by Diverseo or by dedicated in-company trainers, o er

access to IAT websites and regular updates on the latest innovations for greater impact andmore e ective roll-out.

The Leadership Decoder: Uncovering hidden leadership driversUncover your unconscious traits as a leader to help yourself become a more inclusive andauthentic leader.

The Leadership Recoder TM : : The rst brain-training digital coach to bringabout sustainable change on your true leadership skills

Diverseo improves objectiveness ofdecision-making and sustainably shifts mindsetsby managing the impact of unconscious attitudes

Diverseo presents

The Leadership Recoder TM



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Martin Schoeller - COOMartin is in charge of new application development leveragingcognitive science and advanced analytics. He also serves ourglobal clients on large scale change management projects. He has astrong experience in consulting and project management. He joinedDiverseo from McKinsey where he served global industrial companies

in organization transformation projects aiming at changing executivemindsets to improve performance. Martin holds two master degreesin engineering from Ecole Polytechnique (FR) and Ecole des PontsParis and an MBA from INSEAD (FR).

Nathalie Malige - CEONathalie focuses on counseling senior executives, often CEOs andsenior executives of Fortune 500, to enhance quality of decision-making and change behaviours. She combines expertise in strategy,unconscious bias and diversity management. A sought after speaker,she delivers seminars to executive committees across the globe. More

recently, she was invited to speak at the UN Global Compact WEPannual day in New York on global best practices to achieve large-scale unconscious bias reduction. A graduate from ESCP-Europe,she held international roles in marketing and strategy at P&G, Diageoand McKinsey prior to founding Diverseo.

Diverseo also serves its global clients on:

The Authors

Diverseo was founded as the exclusive business partner of Project Implicit

MarketingUncover and quantify consumers

unconscious attitudes to grow your brand

Risk management and nanceMeasure and overcome unconscious biasesin risk management and nancial decisionsto increase performance

Test your own unconscious attitudes at

diverseo.com/testCOPYRIGHT DIVERSEO SAS 2006-2014 - All rights reserved October, 2014 20

diverseo - the leadership decoder – discovering your true leadership drivers

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