One of the main HR trends this year is fighting our own “Unconscious Bias” at the selection phase - Selection means both external recruitment, and internal horizontal or vertical movements. Humans, by nature, have a variety of innate biases specifically when evaluating people. Over the years, we have developed an additional “Corporate Bias” on who “looks” the part with less regard to real capabilities. We have slowly turned colorful individuals into corporate clones that look, dress, and talk the same way. We have basically created a “corporate” mold and forced our paradigms into it. Despite all the “diversity” talk in the past couple of decades - which has been focused mainly on gender and race diversity - we still haven’t really embraced the real diversity of human being.
As I continue learning about this “Unconscious Bias” trend and how much its changing even the recruitment laws now a days, I can’t help wonder how it might impact our corporate cultures in Kuwait! Where gender diversity is still an issue especially in leadership roles. Not only is the percentage of women in leadership roles is still very small; they are categorized according to their leadership style to two categories: When authoritative, she’s a “B” but a man is “A General”, and when she’s “nice” she’s weak or easy but a man is “Consultative Leader”! We still struggle with the Middle Eastern mentality when it comes to gender equality. But that’s not all I’m afraid.
There is a deliberate and conscious bias when it comes to recruiting people of a certain religious background, color, hair style, orientation, family: origin, status, or relations, and even interests or hobbies. It’s no wonder that our young talents have gone all out in their startup cultures. When you walk into an incubator today in Kuwait, you see the young crowd in their statement T-shirt and jeans or sweats, along with their statement hair, jewellery, and anything else that make them stand out as real unique individuals. You don’t see that in a corporation! In fact, I was once told by a very talented hard working intelligent employee, that he delibertly hid his interest in car racing to avoid being judged by the people around him. He was worried he’d miss out on promotion opportunities if he was found “outside the mold”.
As with lots of times in our culture, we don’t talk about these things hoping no one will notice and force us to change anything. I, on the other hand, believe that we need to talk this out and maybe just maybe if we’re conscious about these things, we can work hard to stop them. The way I see it, all these corporations now a days say they’re striving for innovation, and I can’t see that happening if we keep people from being their real selves. There’s no innovation without passion and genuinity. So where’s the harm in opening ourselves up to the possibilities of real diversity?