You can’t train bias out of people, and that’s not the goal.

In the past decade, collective conversations about equity and systemic bias have gained momentum.

Many organizations have turned to anti-bias training which aims to make people aware of their unconscious biases.

→ The unspoken assumption – when someone is aware of their bias, that bias has less influence over their behaviour. (see Schmader, Dennehy, & Baron, 2022)

→ The problem – awareness isn’t the same as action. Sometimes, awareness can be a first step but, more often, it is mistaken as the main event, and people leave training with a big “So what?” feeling – or worse, with a sense of shame because they haven’t learned that inclusion is possible or how to get there.

→ The real goal – is not to eradicate unconscious bias, but to notice it, name it, and to actively choose to act fairly. Inclusion begins when awareness turns into action.

Effective inclusion training does more than familiarize people with concepts or help them understand ideas.

It equips them to act differently than they did before the training.