Connecting the Dots: A bias aware blueprint

Remarks prepared for Connecting the Dots

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/connecting-the-dots-tickets-107764873638?aff=ebdsoporgprofile

Reflection question before you begin:

What’s one thing that’s always easy to say yes to? Why?
What’s one thing that always easy to say no to? Why?
Reflect: Given our limited time, A yes is a no to 1000 other things.

Ways to open a meeting that are bias aware:
Land Acknowledgement
Visual Descriptions (for visual impairments)
Gender and pronoun disclosures

What is the most dangerous cognitive bias?

Hello all, it is lovely to be with you today to share about building bias aware blueprints. Thanks for that introduction and I’ll invite everyone to just call me Ethan. No formalities needed here. 

The idea for this talk come from a speech given my Rev Dr King called ‘what’s in your life’s blueprint.’ Which I highly recommend.  mine features three sections. 

Section 1. The danger of needing to be right. 

Section 2. Trust and psychological safety in groups of humans. 

Section 3. Disruptive Actions Ive taken where I definitely wasn’t right and I learned a lot. 

*Bonus if there’s time, why diverse representation really really matters. 

I’d welcome you all to allow yourself to adjust and welcome yourself to this space. To arrive. If it is helpful, you can read this set of principles for DEI - as a set of ground rules. This example I wrote for my introducing DEI through invention curriculum with the Henry Ford Museum.

Statement on DEI: https://docs.google.com/document/d/10Zba5umHu3eMUXOWep8SGL3ABSRsZKHxYglziVYYmmo/edit?usp=sharing

Practitioner Reflections:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1L9WMrctt8XK7TakbvWlFVpkiI2a0hhdsEY-Plw9swKo/edit

Also as a forewarning, I will use provocative language and also will say things that undoubtedly are wrong from your perspective. My hope is that when I say something like that, and your first visceral reaction is ‘that’s the stupidest shit I’ve ever heard.’ That you give me a moment of grace and reply to me with ‘I never would have thought of that.’ 

Anyways we just met so let me walk back a bit to establish a bit of rapport with you all and among us. Again the title of this section is ‘The Danger of Needing to be Right.” Which has a corollary with ‘The danger of needing to be good.’ (always)

To do that, I’m going to invite you to not just listen but also contribute for a second. If we were in person I’d ask you to practice this with a Neighboor, but I’ll trust that a handful of you will be interested in participating. If you want to play that game please raise your hand. I need six volunteers.  

Let’s play a quick game as a whole group. It’s an example I learned from the internet. 

I’m going to give you a pattern of numbers, Derek says, which conforms to a rule that I am following. Your goal will be to give me a sequence of numbers back, and I’ll tell you if it conforms to my rule (yes or no) and then you tell me what you think the rule is.  Everyone is welcome to guess and there is no intrinsic penalty for (no) and no reward for (yes). 

Derek’s sequence is 2,4,6.  What’s his rule?

[Audience members will play a game for about 90 seconds.]

Let’s reflect on that experience now with a framework for establishing or diagnosing psychological safety. 

Stage 1 is inclusion safety.

Does it feel like a threat to be in the space? I had a powerful experience reading kendi’s work ‘how to be an anti-racist’ that was a recognition that to be inclusive, I also have to invite into the conversation the racist attitudes that I have, but did not ask to have. Naming myself ‘racist’ AND anti-racist provides me with the provocation that I am welcome here. Navigating ‘safe spaces’ and what I’ve heard now called ‘brave spaces’ are important concepts to differentiate. Safe spaces are, in my view places of healing, rest and restoration. Like a welcome calm vacation spot. Brave spaces (if you have a better word, I’m open to learning!) are those places of turbulence where we are inviting others to forge the future together.  Likely there is also a spectrum of hateful or unsafe spaces where diplomacy has failed and people are at war. I admit that i am not a fighter by nature but would invite everyone to reflect on the question ‘what are the hills I am willing to die on?’ 

The tactic I used to demonstrate inclusion was to ask for more volunteers than I would need, and then to deliberately seek inclusivity among that in how I sequenced contributions. 

Stage 2 is educator or learner safety

Who likes to learn in public? Anyone? So immediately there is a challenge for some of the active participants. Though this is an environment that welcomes all, even here it can be uncomfortable to jump in. 

I just mentioned this as a barrier to even inclusion. What are the environments that it is safe to learn? And if you are in the anti-bias space, are you providing that safety, or are you demanding or upholding ‘safe spaces’ - those that are only available to people who have learned through the curriculum of racism how to spot agressive behavior and therefor do not tolerate it. 

As someone who grew up with the fledgling internet I have had my fair share of SJW epithets hurled at me on the internet. Very few conversations there seem to be built to produce dialog and discourse. The irony to me that a wildly popular chat platform called itself ‘discord’ is I think a sign of our times. 

Unfortunately there is a sense I get in politics as well that rather than being open to learning things, we reward dogmatism and ideology over openness to learning. 

I want to know if what I am doing is right and leads to better outcomes. I don’t want to be afraid.

Stage 3 is contributor safety

To get contributions, educators, and really ANY facilitators of group conversations, need to be aware of the hesitance of groups to ‘think themselves special’ or to understand the framework that the facilitator is building and how to contribute to it. I could go off on a tangent about 4MAT and the why, what, how, what if model for engaging presentations… But really what this means is you need a knowable, or preferably known procedure for interaction that all are encouraged to follow, that is upheld and reinforced in behaviors within the group.

Things like ‘step up step back’ come to mind as such ‘simple rules’ - you probably have experienced a well facilitated event at some point. Part of what makes for great user interaction / interface / experience design is that there are clear boxes for engagement and the method of engagement (e.g. Sticky notes) are (for the most part) egalitarian.

My favorite toolkit in this space is the ‘microstructures’ in the open source toolbox, Liberating Structures, https://www.liberatingstructures.com/design-elements/ first introduced to me by the USAF design group Agitare, and it’s founder Daniel Hulter.

In our simple example, the stakes to ‘contribute’ that is, to try your three digit format were pretty straightforward, but it does involve taking a risk. I had the pleasure of attending the Defense Entrepreneurs forum recently and listened to a panel on humanitarian and disaster relief where this ‘contributor safety’ was brought up in the context of disaster assessment and relief. In this case, the question to the panel was about establishing trust, in the awareness and acknowledgment of being an ‘outsider.’ The response was that there is always a sense of appreciation upon hearing, the ‘song of the chainsaw’ - that is - in jumping in to actually do something, not just ‘hold a clipboard.’

This sense of the desire to act is something that i also heard from the connect the dots organizer, Nalini (na-lin-ee, think melanie, but with an N) that the response to Amy Cooper NY birdwatching (vs Christian Cooper) and George Floyd, and Briana Taylor, #saytheirNames.

https://sayevery.name/

But contributor safety is also complex, particularly in disaster scenarios, and I think racism is a slow moving diaster that we’re still not really contending with for reasons that I think are well articulated by Derek Bell, in what he terms ‘interest convergence.’

Another rabbit hole, a former partner of mine introduced me to many beautiful things, but the two that speak clearly here are William Wordsworth’s Tintern Abbey and a Salon advice section titled “what do lovers talk about when they talk about philosophy.”

First an excerpt from Wordsworth (without the poetic form, please don’t shoot me…)

These beauteous forms through a long absence, have not been to me As is a landscape to a blind man's eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and 'mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart;
And passing even into my purer mind With tranquil restoration:—feelings too Of unremembered pleasure: such, perhaps, As have no slight or trivial influence On that best portion of a good man's life, His little, nameless, unremembered, acts Of kindness and of love. Nor less, I trust, To them I may have owed another gift, Of aspect more sublime; that blessed mood, In which the burthen of the mystery, In which the heavy and the weary weight Of all this unintelligible world, Is lightened:
—that serene and blessed mood, In which the affections gently lead us on,— Until, the breath of this corporeal frame And even the motion of our human blood Almost suspended, we are laid asleep In body, and become a living soul: While with an eye made quiet by the power Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, We see into the life of things.

                                                        If this Be but a vain belief, yet, oh! how oft— In darkness and amid the many shapes Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir Unprofitable, and the fever of the world, Have hung upon the beatings of my heart— How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee, O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer thro' the woods,

         How often has my spirit turned to thee!   And now, with gleams of half-extinguished thought, With many recognitions dim and faint, And somewhat of a sad perplexity, The picture of the mind revives again: While here I stand, not only with the sense Of present pleasure, but with pleasing thoughts That in this moment there is life and food For future years. And so I dare to hope,

And second from “The Rambler” (blessings to you and your boyfriend, wherever you are)

I have a lot of thoughts about this. I have a lot of thoughts in general. But the reason I am a person who has a lot of thoughts is that I am a person who has a lot of feelings. I have intense feelings about things that other people seem to not even see, and I have to think about them in order to keep them from taking over. Like homeless people. I walk to work every day and see at least four homeless men on the way. I can give them a little money or buy them some breakfast, and then I know I have to keep going, and I do have a job that lets me work against systemic injustices, but every morning part of me wants to hit pause and yell around to the crowd: "Wait! Wait a minute everybody! There are people sleeping on the sidewalk in pools of urine! Not just one person, but one person every other block! What the heck?! What are we going to do about this? Someone sleeping on the street is an emergency! What is going on? Why are you just walking by? Are you all CRAZY?" And I know that it is not that they are individually crazy, it is that we are living in a sort of insane society, and that ignoring that insanity has become necessary in order to put one foot in front of the other every day. Every day can't be a revolution. Except that secretly I think it can. Secretly I want it to be. Secretly I am trying to have my days be little revolutions.

https://www.salon.com/2011/06/28/philosophy_and_lovers/

Ok, what’s the point Ethan?

I think the point I’m trying to make here, is that like a humanitarian in the ‘song of the chainsaw.’ and just like the reflection question ‘what is it easy to say no to?’ - we have to be willing to do the un-equitable thing. We have to, on occasion, to steal a phrase from start-up coach Paul Grahm, ‘do things that don’t scale’ - help one person, often the one right in front of us. Not because ‘they deserve it’ - but because asking ‘who deserves my help’ means that you stand around with a clipboard, not actually helping anybody. We need a mental model that includes ‘good samaritan’ policies (

Contributors more than anything need to believe that THERE IS STILL TIME. the 1976 ‘Good Samaritan’ study at princeton seminary. What you have to be willing to do at any time, even when it feels like it’s not absolutely productive is what I call a ‘During action review.’ There is (of course?) a liberating structure for this that I find particularly compelling, called “heard seen respected”

But I think there are profound implications for this when it comes to ‘hitting productive milestones.’ - ‘stopping to help’ doesn’t just mean individuals, it also means stopping to address larger systemic issues. And our ‘go-go-go’ culture makes it hard, if not impossible to tell your boss, “I didn’t complete the report in time because I went to the public speak out on anti-racism to help my community.”

This challenge, to not just ‘yes, and’ your way to equity leads us to the final stage of psychological safety…

Stage 4 is Challenger Safety

Being in solidarity isn’t just a performance. It isn’t a slogan or a tag line, it means subjugating to a constraint outside yourself and attached to a civic good (or a just cause). It’s not just measuring an attitude, but behaviors and actions and the measurements are what you attend to and where you are contributing regularly. To semi-regularly re-prioritizing and being clear about those efforts.

Unquestioned adherence to ‘what we did last year’ defeats this, and the final form of psychological safety, challenger safety, gets at the idea that we must be continually open to change in order to be ready.

Neri oxman’s “Kreb Cycle” for creativity provides a useful conception here of ‘art’ not just as a thing, but as a process, that transforms perception into culture, design’s

Here, art challenges the ‘utility’ needed from engineering and science, instead offering fresh perspectives.

what do you do when

Shift happens…

A helpful question stem to introduce challenging topics is “Would you consider…”

The most important, and under-appreciated team dynamic is token-ism and a lack of representation at a function that I’ll unapologetically refer to as ‘the designated asshole’ or “TDA” so we can keep our decorum.
The value of waste as PART of the process is under appreciated. So too is the person who at regular intervals, clears away the waste so the system can continue to function. Don’t make this person the ‘janitor’ - maintenance is as important as creativity in this role.

There are several stages that can be helpful to use if you identify a shitty situation in your organization and you want to deal with it.

Communicate, Participate, Facilitate, Negotiate, Manipulate, Coerce.

(Choosing strategies for change, Kotter and Schlessinger)

Part 3: Disruptive actions I’ve taken where I’ve learned a lot a definitely not been ‘Right’ - and invoked challenger safety (and privilege!)

1. Took my problem with insomnia and solved it by getting rid of my alarm clock.

2. Didn’t have a partner at age 30 so gave up my television to prevent my coach-potato ‘easy to stay in’

3. Engage in diversity groups to ‘Consider your ideal wedding Party Photo’ - who is your chosen family?

4. Given students an assignment (that I knew) violated the university honor code, and then asked them about trusting authority, personal accountability,

Remember the grace we gave each-other during the pandemic? Keep that alive!?

Pulling it all together.

Answers don’t invite all aspects of psychological safety. Questions get closer. The design movement has ‘appreciative inqury’ that can help. But I prefer the ‘wicked questions’ of Liberating structures. I’ll leave you with a few examples of wicked questions as a way to inform ‘bias awareness’

Wicked questions highlight the inherent tensions and paradoxes of life. They show us that we can’t just ‘optimize’ for something, but to do so is always as the expense of something else. Safety for freedom, sustainability for speed. The best questions call out the steward ethic. That these are systems that need to be managed and cared for by the participants.

Homework time (I’m a professor, right… can’t help it!)

1. Balancing Global and Local Perspectives: "In our organization's pursuit of global diversity, how can we ensure we are embracing and respecting local cultural uniqueness and traditions while also promoting a unified global corporate culture?"
   Is it all relative, or do you have moral absolutes?

2. Inclusivity in Leadership: "How can we structure our leadership to be both representative of diverse groups and ensure that the most qualified individuals are in decision-making positions, irrespective of their background?"

   What set of ‘qualifications’ are we using and why are we using them? Do we have evidence of their efficacy or are the just ‘how we’ve always done it.”

3. Equity in Opportunity: "How is it that we are creating equitable opportunities for all employees while also recognizing and rewarding individual performance and merit?"
   Is GPA a good predictor of success? Do we always succumb to Goldhart’s law?

4. Diverse Recruitment and Meritocracy: "How can we reconcile the goal of increasing diversity in our hiring practices with the principle of selecting the best candidate based solely on merit?"

   What has been learned through cases of success and failure in legally defensible affirmative action?

5. Cultural Sensitivity and Freedom of Expression: "How do we foster an environment where all cultures are respected and celebrated, yet maintain the freedom of expression without causing unintentional offense?"
   The complex morality of evaluating ‘goodness’ via input, intention, integration, impact - where is the opening for Free will ? (ala Sapolsky)

6. Inclusion and Specialization: "In our efforts to include a wide variety of perspectives, how do we balance the need for specialized skills and knowledge that might be concentrated in certain self-perpetuating demographic or professional groups?"
   Never forget that Beyonce was able to source her entire ‘homecoming’ instrumentalists from black artist professionals. It’s all about ‘expect what you inspect''

7. Equitable Representation and Tokenism: "How can we ensure our company's efforts towards diversity and inclusion are genuinely equitable and effective, and not merely symbolic gestures or tokenism?"

8. Addressing Unconscious Bias: "How do we cultivate an organizational culture that's deeply aware of and actively counters unconscious biases, while ensuring that this vigilance doesn't lead to a culture of suspicion or over-correction?"

9. Adapting DEI Initiatives Across Borders: "How can our DEI initiatives be both globally consistent in their core values and flexible enough to adapt to the diverse legal, cultural, and social landscapes in which we operate?"

10. Intersecting Identities and DEI Policies: "How do we develop DEI policies that acknowledge and support the complex, intersecting identities of our employees, without oversimplifying or neglecting any particular aspect of their identity?"

11. Sustaining Energy and Avoiding Burnout: "How can we maintain continuous vigilance and proactive action in reinforcing our new culture, while also ensuring our team members have enough downtime and mental space to rejuvenate and avoid burnout?"

12. Empowering and Overburdening: "How do we empower every employee to be a constant upstander and advocate for our new culture, without making them feel overburdened with the responsibility or like they are constantly policing their peers?"

13. Consistency vs. Flexibility: "In our commitment to consistently uphold our new cultural values, how do we balance the need for firm guidelines with the flexibility to adapt to individual circumstances without causing stress or fatigue?"

    What if you trusted your people instead of measuring them?

14. Role of Leadership in Cultural Vigilance: "How can leadership be intensely involved in promoting and monitoring the new culture without creating an atmosphere of micromanagement or excessive scrutiny that could lead to employee discomfort or burnout?"

15. Encouraging Passion without Obsession: "How do we encourage our team members to be passionately involved in advocating and upholding our new culture, without them becoming overly obsessed to the point of ignoring their own well-being or other work responsibilities?"

16. Balancing Positive Reinforcement and Critical Awareness: "How can we foster an environment that continuously rewards and recognizes positive cultural behaviors, while also being critically aware and vigilant of any negative patterns, without overwhelming the team?"

17. Integrating Vigilance into Daily Routines: "How do we integrate the practice of vigilance into our daily work routines in a way that it becomes a natural, unobtrusive part of our work life rather than an added, exhausting task?"

18. Cultural Change and Personal Boundaries: "How do we encourage individuals to actively participate in cultural vigilance and change, while respecting their personal boundaries and avoiding intrusion into their personal beliefs and values?"

19. Long-Term Persistence vs. Short-Term Intensity: "In our efforts to enforce new cultural norms, how do we find the balance between long-term, sustainable efforts and short-term, intensive campaigns to avoid overwhelming our team?"

20. Creating Safe Spaces for Rest and Reflection: "How can we create safe spaces within our organization for rest, reflection, and mental recuperation, while also maintaining a steady pace of cultural reinforcement and vigilance?"

Choose one of these wicked problems for the ‘mission model canvas’ and work to implement a solution:

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1aGooL8mvphNbzJsBTJyJHdmJEUVrYNOGZUSWTJpji4Q/edit#slide=id.gce0f6c0e67_0_0