It’s very easy to rush to judgement without looking at all of the facts if it confirms our world view. Expedience bias leads us to believe that if it cements, or is cemented in, what we know already, then it must be true. The fix is to make more time to gather a wider array of information.

✋ Expedience Bias Blockers

👉 Slow down. Take a whiteboard (or draft a Miro board) and list the pros and cons of any decision.

👉 Always get a second pair of eyes to review the information alongside you. And make sure not to rush them either - ask for their input, but delay the decision or feedback session to a later date to allow the information to really sink in.

👉 Delay the decision until tomorrow if you feel it’s necessary. Go for a walk! Or otherwise ask yourself ‘how can I slow down my thinking?

👉 Be wary of the ‘Halo Effect’: a positive overall impression of a person (“They dress really well...”) can impact your evaluations of their other traits (“...so they must be great at presenting too”). In our Conscious Inclusion workshop we reference the movie Moneyball, and the steps baseball exec Billy Beane used to counter this kind of bias, observing that players were being selected based on the strength of their jawline or how attractive their wives were perceived to be. And watch out too for its counter, the ‘Horns Effect’: when a perceived past negative behaviour clouds our view of future suitability.

Occurs anytime we fail to see anyone else’s perspective. It’s also called the ‘false consensus.’ We assume that most people think and feel the way that we do, and will continue to do so. To escape the bias, we need to introduce systems for others to check our thinking, share their perspectives, and help us reframe the situation at hand.

✋ Experience Bias Blockers

👉 Seek perspectives outside of your own, even beyond the team that’s making the decision.

👉 Use Miro boards, or good old fashioned post-it notes, as a collaborative tool to visualise each voice, and provide each perspective with an equal standing.

👉 Tools like the Six Thinking Hats, and Round Robin brainstorming are excellent for ensuring diverse perspectives are being pulled in. Experiment with them around the decisions that matter the most to you.

👉 Keep a beginners mindset, don’t be afraid to ask seemingly stupid questions if it expands your view of the world. Watch Simon Sinek describe how he likes to be the most stupid person in the room. And channel the spirit of these bewildered children in the superb film project Niños vs. Moda (Kids Vs Fashion).

👉 Try a bias free brainstorm with the Candor app.

Humans have an inherent bias against the ideas of those that are further away. If one member of a meeting, for example, is sharing their opinions over zoom, we often give less stake to their input. Out of sight, out of mind?

✋ Distance Bias Blockers

👉 Take distance out of the equation. In a meeting, actively seek the input of your remote colleagues before moving on to people who are present in the room.

👉 Level the virtual playing field. If one or more members of your team must attend a meeting online, then have everyone do the same. The same goes for recruiting and hiring; if a candidate must be interviewed remotely, then reduce the impact of bias by conducting all the interviews over zoom.

👉 If you’re a manager, purposefully foster relationships with remote members of the team, and prove to yourself that you're equally considering remote working colleagues alongside those who may be physically closer to you in the office.

👉 Visual collaboration tools like Miro can be very helpful here. A participant in a recent Conscious Inclusion workshop shared how they plotted out photos of their team of eight on a Miro board as a visual reference point when deciding where to allocate projects, a rather brilliant method of making sure everyone had been considered.

👉 Share the pain of time zones. If some members of your team work from overseas, adjust the time of your meetings to ensure the burden of early mornings and late nights is shared among remote and local colleagues alike.

‘Loss aversion,’ as it’s also known, is the bias that the pain from a loss is worse than the pleasure from a gain, resulting in chickening out at the prospect of a calculated risk. We are hardwired to hold onto the things we already have, which can prevent us from embracing the new and the different.

✋ Safety Bias Blockers

👉 Engage in what psychologist Ethan Kross calls ‘Mental Time Travel’. Remind yourself of the impermanence of your current mental state by visualising how you’ll feel about it in a week, a month, or a year from now. If you’re still anxious about the idea, imagine that you made the decision a year ago, or that you are making the decision for somebody else. You'll find a wealth of science backed tools for this 'mental distancing' from Ethan here.

👉 Practise ‘yellow hat thinking,’ as referenced above in the Six Thinking Hats resource, and brainstorm best case scenarios. You'll develop what is known as ‘value sensitivity:’ a learnable skill that teaches you to see the positive value of new ideas, and stop ruminating on any potential negatives (or at least to intentionally park your concerns for a period).

👉 If worries about potential losses are still getting the better of you, turn to the facts. Are there any figures or data that can shed some light on the decision? Be sure to not just look for facts and figures that prove your argument, look for the data that proves you wrong as well.