How Come We Humans are Biased?

Bias has a negative connotation as if we should not have any. But what if there’s an upside? Has it helped to get us where we are? On the other hand, what do you do if a bias (that you are don’t know you have) is interfering with your relationships and your success at solving problems?

You and I are on this earth because our ancestors strategically adapted to changing circumstances in their lives and the surrounding environment in which they lived. They fought ferociously to survive. Along the way, they decided why certain events happened, whether true or not, based on the best available knowledge at the time.

It seems we humans have a natural tendency to create order out of chaos and in so doing attribute a cause to a happening. We are pattern-seekers and as many phenomena do have discernible, deterministic causes, the system we developed and encoded served us well most of the time. When there is not a clear cause we make up a reason anyway and hence little errors of judgment.

The birth of biases!! Our tightly interconnected brain, with no boss, many options and made up of thousands of specialized modules, spurs the biases along. Advances in neuroscience have helped us understand why - what fires together wires together because the architecture of our brains (a complex system like the weather or the Internet) enables the links. Emotions get mixed in. No five-star general is in control. In the absence of no team members or peers with whom to argue, our free-wheeling thoughts about an event (an interpretation) will be checked against what we know, fit in accordingly and put into our memories as connected. Under similar circumstances later, they will be retrieved automatically. Hence non-conscious biases!

Like our ancestors, we are still wrestling with what is real. We constantly update our perceived reality through a mixture of new evidence true or not, and a made-up former narrative that fits in with what we know and with which we feel comfortable. Like our ancestors, we are forced to adapt to current circumstances in order to survive and thrive. Climate change, the weather, new technologies, financial crises, gridlock, joblessness, pandemics and much more threaten our safety and security. The human spirit seldom gives up. We try to figure it out increasingly on a global, local and personal basis. Our brains (the conscious parts) decide. We believe.

Trial and error works more or less because we have to argue our beliefs (positive or negative biases) usually with others in a team or on a larger scale.  We challenge assumptions. We ask for and look for the evidence. We then may take a second look at our points-of-view. Eventually collective intelligence mitigates the errors. The mounting evidence on the reality of climate change is one example.

The culprit behind bias creation is primarily our left hemisphere, according to Daniel Kahneman, Iain McGilchrist, Michael S. Gazzaniga and many others who study and write about how we make decisions. It is the great interpreter. It does not like chaos. It tries to fit everything into a story – events with context. It dislikes and has little faith in randomness. The left hemisphere does not operate in real time but rather in post-hoc- time (explanations and observations) trying to make sense out of scattered “facts”.  A little bit of fudging here and there arises to create a story that makes sense. It is a slow thinking process, but one that is essential to our growing understanding of how the world works and how we can make it a better place for all.

Our left hemisphere, while having a module or more specializing in interpretation, is hindered. The quality of its thinking is only as good as the information it accesses. It engages with the information to sift and sort things out. This is where the right hemisphere comes in.

The right hemisphere lives a literal life in present time like a meditator or a good listener. The right hemisphere works fast because it does not interpret but it does pay attention to things and relationships. Always on. Always observing. It is the ultimate explorer. If we let it. When the left hemisphere strays too far from reality, the “explorer” might rein the “interpreter” in because of what it “knows”.

The two hemispheres are complementary, acting like a smart partnership, of different capabilities, when we humans choose to take advantage of their respective specialties. What helps the partnership along? Here are some practices:

An overriding stretch goal that inspires people to join and contribute

A cause bigger than ourselves around which many can rally despite opposing viewpoints

Tapping into the wisdom of the crowd by allowing all involved to think for themselves before sharing opinions

Equal turn-taking and listening in a team as Alex Pentland from MIT and author of Social Physics has discovered is fundamental to team innovation and productivity

Introducing more fun into the workplace which activates the right hemisphere’s explorer mode and the brain’s depth of knowledge

Creating a positive culture of acceptance and celebration of everyone’s strengths and contributions

Starting with “I don’t know”, the standard self-talk of top notch investigators tackling complex problems with no obvious solutions. 

The bottom line: There’s a reason for our biases. We are evolving.  We are learning. Neuroscientist David Linden describes the evolution of the brain as a progressive accumulation of “kludges” or “quick and dirty fixes” struggling to make sense of who we are and how to deal with our changing social, economic, technological and political environment.

Sometimes the environment is glaringly out-of-step with our capabilities. For example, skunks when faced with a rapidly approaching vehicle have been known to hold their ground, perform a 180 degree manoeuver, lift their tails and spray the oncoming vehicle.

Nevertheless, we are becoming more conscious and collectively smart. But the process is sluggish to give us time to adapt. Skirmishes and set-backs happen. Different places on this earth progress at different speeds. Opposing viewpoints cause us to debate endlessly. Our global connectedness fueled by technology helps us to collaborate quickly and richly to discover creative solutions and make corrections. A little at a time, we are “busting out” of our out-of-date biases in the pursuit of common ground. We are shaping a more progressive, democratic world in which we have the pleasure of ongoing survival.

Subtle dynamics of teams make or break their greatness

As in a gentle Marine boot camp, I was madly climbing my way up to the top and over a “rope” mountain when the person behind me asked for help. My “boss”, who was much bigger than me, was having trouble. Naturally I reached out and provided a helping hand despite my angst toward him. Did this make any difference to our relationship in the long run? Not one iota.

We were attending one of those company retreats focused on making us a better team by putting us through a bunch of trust exercises (falling out of a tree to be caught/saved by my colleagues below, for example). Sound familiar? If only building a stronger team were so simple. But, at the least it was fun.

Back in those days, we had a bird’s eye view of teaming. Now, we have a better view from the ground.  With the aid of technology and because of technology and more research, we are able to sharpen our understanding of the inner workings of teams – for better or worse. The subtle human drivers of team basics such as having a clear goal, mutual accountability for the work product, diverse thinking and domain skills, etc., are now becoming clearer. These drivers are like the glue that binds the team basics.

Three such drivers caught my attention recently:

When culture and conflict don’t mix and a subtler approach is better

As teams become less mono- and more multi-cultural, conflict becomes a more sensitive issue. Erin Meyer’s research at INSEAD in France revealed subtle undertones in teams with a mix of cultures. While people from a French background typically view openly arguing as a means to uncovering hidden contradictions and to stimulating thinking, people from Asian countries consider such confrontation to be rude. This can also apply to certain personality types – introverts as less likely to embrace “conflict” than extroverts.

What can a team do to go with the flow of different ways of “doing” conflict”?

-If you are the team leader, consult with “quiet” members before a meeting.

-Enable people to prepare their thinking in advance of a meeting (for example a series of three questions on the matter at hand).

-Refrain from saying “I disagree” and replace with “could you tell me more about that?”


When the “how” of team communication matters more than “substance”

Alex “Sandy” Pentland of MIT’s Human Dynamics Lab captures how people communicate in real time using electronic sensors in the form of sociometric badges. He has found that when building a great team smart people matter less than we have thought and non-verbals count much more. These include tone of voice, gesturing, how one faces others in a group and how much people talk and listen. 

What do members of great teams do?

-Talk with each other many times during the day – a dozen or so exchanges per working hour. Call it ongoing consultation.

-Talk and listen to each other in equal measure, equally. Teams with dominant members, teams within teams, and those that either talk or listen but don’t do both are far less productive.

-Engage in frequent informal communication. Such “water cooler” conversations foster camaraderie and the exchange of valuable ideas. The best teams spend about half their time outside of formal meetings communicating.

-Go outside the team environment to explore for ideas and information. Like bees seeking pollen, outside sources do aid team results.


When work-life balance strategies “made by the team”pay off

In her book Sleeping with Your Smart Phone: How to Break the 24/7 Habit and Change the Way You Work, Leslie Perlow describes how a team at the Boston Consulting Company (BCG) confronted the dangers of burnout. The team set a simple, modest goal: each team member would get a planned night off each week (PTO or “predictable time off”).

That single intention fostered conversations that may never have happened and those led to greater team altruism and empathy, higher job satisfaction and team member retention and better client satisfaction ratings. Looking out for one another engendered trust, a vital electrical current in any team.

This “reimagining” of work yielded a continuous flow of benefits for the team. Better conversations and new connections grew out of a goal to include personal needs in getting the job done.


If my boss and I had known these simple yet powerful ways to build great teams, would we have added more value at the retreat and thereafter back at the office? Probably. In looking back, at the least, I can be more forgiving of myself and my boss for not connecting. We did not know what we did not know.