Let’s “Break The Bias”

8th March 2022. International Women’s Day! It sounds amazing that we are celebrated worldwide. To recognize Women’s efforts, talent, submissiveness to support others’ passion, diligence, and most importantly to uplift this ignored population which constitutes half of the world, we need this recognition. The theme of this year’s Women’s Day is “Break the bias”. Speaking of bias, unconsciously we all are biased. This may be rooted in our beliefs, habits, upbringing, culture, and life-long learnings. However, when bias becomes prejudice it takes the form of favoritism, poor decision making, inaccurate judgments, and opinions about others. All these could affect the individual and others too. Sometimes we don’t realize from our actions that we are biased. It is ingrained so deeply within us that we start believing it is normal. What is normal then? There is no single definition of what is “normal”. If I will give you one here, I will be biased for sure.

Knowing your biases is important for everyone. However, it is equally necessary to raise your voice and create awareness if you are the target. What is Bias? In simple words, Bias is nothing but your “Whys”. We need to know our “whys”. Because this why plays important role in your life whenever you take any important decisions, make opinions about others, and take any action in personal or professional life. Throughout our life, all critical choices we made are driven by certain beliefs and learnings. These values which help us to make choices are either based on facts (regardless of evidence) or some are purely due to personal experiences of our life. There is a good section of biases that we acquire from our surroundings and could be just based on assumptions. We keep hearing about them in our environment and without questioning we start believing it. E.g., It is assumed and opined loudly in our society that it is difficult for a pregnant woman to continue working on a high demanding job. As a result, many of the firms stay away from hiring pregnant women. And if the pregnant woman is an employee, they will immediately be cut off from critical assignments. Many pregnant women prefer to go on long unpaid leaves after delivery and many don’t even return to work. Furthermore, our society is biased toward the women who chose to return early to work early after their delivery and they are deemed as selfish and heartless moms. People chastised them as overly ambitious, mean, and ruthless. They pity their child if they fall sick or indulged in undisciplined action. The hapless women will be held accountable for any of their kid’s miseries or misdeeds.

We do have working moms but a large percentage of them will be discouraged to accept any challenging role. She would be reminded and realized that she belongs to home and kids only. If she has no kids after marriage, then why she doesn’t have one. If she has one kid, then why only one. If she has two kids or more then she cannot think of a stressful job and moving up the ladder. If she tries, then she would be blamed for not being a responsible and devoted mother. What is the right number then?

In many cases, a girl’s parents are not even supportive of her daughter to continue working post marriage or in some cases post, she becomes a mom. They will constantly advise her to take “easy” jobs or the ones which demand less from her. She would be constantly reminded of her responsibilities towards her families and kids without even asking her what she wants to do in her life. It is not an easy life for a working woman either. She works round the clock managing household chores and office work but still not enough. She is always running, and every day starts with a hill to climb and conquer. Do we expect the same from Men? Why so much demand from her? Now, this attitude has gone so deeply in her blood that by default she should do everything for her family. She is ready to sacrifice her job, a career at any moment of life. Sometimes, it is just her choice. But somewhere I feel these biases are responsible that a woman is like this. I may be wrong in a few cases but the majority of them are sailing in the same boat. In Texas, the bill has been passed where women can’t even go for abortions if they are more than 6 weeks in their pregnancy. How shameful to see such things happening at this age? It’s an individual choice to be a mother or not. She must not be punished if for a few seconds she got carried away and enjoyed some pleasure in life. What if she is a victim and assaulted physically? She may need time to get out of this trauma and 6 weeks is a ridiculous time to even understand and realize you are pregnant. Why are so much pain and punishment inflicted on women? Biologically, women are the producers in our world, but first and foremost, she is human. Why is our society biased towards women?

Most of the women fell into this bias trap and give in to their career aspirations and dreams. There are many conscious and unconscious bias towards women which has become part of being “normal”. I am glad that at least now we can be so vocal about it and there are small and big forums to discuss this matter. Hopefully, all these voices will not go waste and the day will come when the sun rises from the west. Yes, I am positive, that day will come.

I had experienced the bias at work many times. In the last few years, I have switched jobs because of the biased attitude and actions of my seniors. I felt this more since I became part of the Mid-level management. If I tried to be more assertive in my thoughts, I have been called mean and dominating. Leaders (Men) around me expect me to be nice and sweet in my conduct. Because of my technical expertise and background, I can contribute to any technical discussions and suggest a way forward. Rather than getting encouragement from my manager, I will be constantly asked to stay away and focus just on my area of responsibility. In the room, if my opinion is different than others who are male, more than 95% of the time my voice and opinion are unheard. Are women just good enough to take minutes of notes and publish them? I have seen how incapable male colleagues have been promoted and entrusted with critical assignments despite their lack of skills to do the same. If they commit mistakes, leaders will come forward to support them. However, if “she” is the one who is leading a task then one small slippage or mistake would bring criticism and humiliation.

Recently I provided feedback for one of the consultants from a reputed firm to his manager. He is working for us for the last year. Not only me a few others from my company shared the same sentiments and expressed discontent towards that consultant. He may be technically sound, but he needs to listen to the client’s requirements with an open mind. Being arrogant and rude is not an acceptable way. Just a couple of days back, I got to know from his manager, who is my counterpart that the same guy is getting promoted to the next level in his firm. I was certainly not in favor of this promotion. Well, I have no control over the same as I’m not his Manager in the company. I can only provide feedback as a client to this vendor. His manager assured me smilingly that he will learn and work on his attitude and relationship management skills as he gets to the next level. However, based on his technical work on this project, he deserved to be promoted to the next level. I was shocked to hear that. I had worked with this firm in the past. I still remember one of my appraisals at year-end, when my promotion was rejected because I lacked relationship and networking skills. My counselor and Sr. Managers, both make gave me this feedback. Despite my technical expertise and fantastic delivery of work, I received average ratings in my appraisal which didn’t qualify me for the next level. And here is the guy, who has similar issues, but Sr. Management is ready to give him chance to grow, learn and prove himself. We may think maybe this Sr. Manager is different. But I am certain if this consultant was a woman, my story would’ve been different. Think about it.

Let me share another personal story. I was working for a client and leading an important program. We were required to come up with innovative ideas and creative solutions in the IT systems to help business users to do their work efficiently. The ideas could be related to pure automation, time-saving, or process improvements. To drive this initiative effectively, I formed the team and established the weekly cadence with team members. In this meeting, we didn’t only brainstorm but also chalked out the overall execution plan. I firmly believe in thinking differently and always encouraged the team to come up with creative solutions to business problems. We as a team proposed and implemented multiple solutions across finance, supply chain processes, and analytics space. It was going well until two Directors expressed interest to attend our weekly meetings to get a sense of how we are operating and managing the work. They both are responsible for our account growth, and I had dotted line reporting to both. I was working closely with my team Lead to manage this initiative. I invited the Directors and presented the stats. In the meeting, one of the Directors constantly praised my team lead and for him, I didn’t exist at all. I felt irritated and demotivated, but I tried hard to have thick skin.

A few days passed and I began to hear some grapevine. I noticed that the same Director is attending meetings frequently along with one of his favorite managers. After a couple of meetings, the same Director introduced him in the meeting and told us that he would be managing this program going forward. Without discussing with me, I was told to pass on the baton to him. The heights of humiliation, I was told to do extensive knowledge transfer. Without asking me, I got assigned to another project in another city. I was taken aback. Do you handle change in leadership like this? I discussed this matter with my Directors. I asked why this decision was not discussed with me before. Both accused each other of taking this decision but never agreed to come to a meeting together to tell me, what was wrong with my approach. I discussed the matter with my client as well. He was told that I wanted to move out of this assignment as I had a different aspiration. When did that happen? I wanted to be associated with challenging Transformation projects. Who doesn’t? But this time, I never demanded my roll off from the project. This project was in my city and required no weekly commuting. I joined this organization and took this project because I didn’t want to travel. I have family responsibilities and a traveling job doesn’t suit me. Without asking me or discussing it with me, my manager decided to remove me from this project. Why? I established this innovative team, and we were on the roll. Suddenly everything was taken away from me because a Director wanted to plant his favorite manager in that role. I hate this favoritism exhibited by Male leaders and it is more apparent when they must choose a male manager vs a female manager. Eventually, it became toxic for me to thrive in that company. Some women can choose to keep their heads down and continue working in that environment. Unfortunately, I am the kind of person who cannot tolerate this biased behavior. I want my true share of recognition and praise I deserve. Between fight and flight- I chose flight from that organization as I didn’t know to whom I can discuss such matters. Moreover, who will support me? Many women, including myself, have been affected by this gender bias by male leaders. If a woman is successful, confident, and can speak of herself, she will face more problems in the workplace. It takes a lot for any woman to rise to the top and break the ceiling. It is certainly not common for every woman to reach even close to that ceiling. That is why we have a few Female Executives in the world. Unfortunately, there is no easy solution to reduce this gap.

I think to tackle this issue the Diversity & Inclusion initiatives of any company should start with changing male managers’ and leaders’ thinking. They need to realize that they carry an unconscious bias with them. This realization should start from the top leadership and go down to the bottom. Any inclusion initiative shouldn’t be just having a podcast session or coffee with a successful woman leader with a bunch of juniors. Let’s make a serious effort and plan to change this mindset and behavior of all men towards women. Most importantly, we need to continue to measure the effectiveness of this change as well. The message should be loud and clear, “Treat Women equally”. Let’s break this bias.