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A review by pushingdessy
The End of Bias: What the New Science of Overcoming Bias Teaches Us About Transforming Our Lives, Our Companies, Our World by Jessica Nordell
challenging
hopeful
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
5.0
Why do we have bias, and how can we reduce its impacts to work towards more egalitarian societies?
Those are the questions that Jessica Nordell sought to answer. This was a rather phenomenal read, packed with research on real world experiments around the world led by people who’d had enough.
We’ve all probably heard about the story of the managers who are given two CVs with the same qualifications, one from Jane and one from John, and they end up picking John every time, or another experiment like it. Nordell offers a plethora of examples of this kind, both from the lab and the real world, mostly focused on gender and race. She also presents a selection of cases she studied in depth where changes had been made to overcome bias.
The book is split into three parts. “How bias works” gets into the science of why all human beings have biases, even if we truly believe ourselves to be unprejudiced, and the impacts that cumulative, daily bias has on historically marginalized demographic groups. “Changing minds” gets into how we can become aware of our bias so we can begin to change it; why diversity trainings might have the opposite effect; and some tested tools to begin rewiring our brains. Finally, “Making it last” goes deeper, insisting that individual or community changes are not enough, and offering some examples of architectural or systemic changes that have been effective in altering the culture itself towards equity and inclusion.
I think everyone can benefit from reading this one, but it's a fundamental read in particular for anyone in any sort of leadership position. While it’s not meant as a guidebook, it’s full of science-based clues and examples we can follow to begin dismantling bias in our own spheres of influence.
Those are the questions that Jessica Nordell sought to answer. This was a rather phenomenal read, packed with research on real world experiments around the world led by people who’d had enough.
We’ve all probably heard about the story of the managers who are given two CVs with the same qualifications, one from Jane and one from John, and they end up picking John every time, or another experiment like it. Nordell offers a plethora of examples of this kind, both from the lab and the real world, mostly focused on gender and race. She also presents a selection of cases she studied in depth where changes had been made to overcome bias.
The book is split into three parts. “How bias works” gets into the science of why all human beings have biases, even if we truly believe ourselves to be unprejudiced, and the impacts that cumulative, daily bias has on historically marginalized demographic groups. “Changing minds” gets into how we can become aware of our bias so we can begin to change it; why diversity trainings might have the opposite effect; and some tested tools to begin rewiring our brains. Finally, “Making it last” goes deeper, insisting that individual or community changes are not enough, and offering some examples of architectural or systemic changes that have been effective in altering the culture itself towards equity and inclusion.
I think everyone can benefit from reading this one, but it's a fundamental read in particular for anyone in any sort of leadership position. While it’s not meant as a guidebook, it’s full of science-based clues and examples we can follow to begin dismantling bias in our own spheres of influence.