How to Navigate Unconscious Bias in the Workplace

This episode of the Inclusive Growth Show features Buki Mosaku, author, diversity and inclusion consultancy founder, thought leader and global expert in bias navigation for workplaces. 

If you're enjoying this episode and looking to boost equity, inclusion, and diversity in your organisation, my team and I are here to help. Our team specialises in crafting data-driven strategies, developing inclusive leaders, designing fair recruitment processes, and enhancing disability confidence. With a blend of professional expertise and lived experience, we're ready to support you on your journey. Reach out to us through our website. 

If you want to build a more inclusive workplace that you can be proud of please visit our website to learn more.

Transcript

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Inclusive Growth Show, with Toby Mildon. Future-proofing your business, by creating a diverse work place.

Toby Mildon: Hey there, thank you ever so much for tuning into this episode of The Inclusive Growth Podcast. I am Toby Mildon, and today am joined by a fellow author, Buki Mosaku. Buki is the Founder and Chief Executive of a London-based Diversity and Inclusion consultancy called DiverseCity Think Tank, and they specialize in workplace bias and diversity and inclusion consultancy. Buki, is one of the world's foremost bias navigation experts, and he's cracked the code of the calling out unconscious bias within the workplace and stopping it within its tracks. And he details this within his book, I Don't Understand navigating unconscious bias in the workplace. And so I'm really excited to just spend a bit of time with Buki to understand his thought leadership in this area. So Buki, welcome along. It's lovely to see you.

Buki Mosaku: Yeah. It's a pleasure to be here Toby. Thank you.

Toby Mildon: So before we dive into the questions that we have prepared for today's interview, can you just elaborate a bit more a bit on who you are, what you do, and that kind of thing? 

Buki Mosaku: Yeah, well, I am from London, West London, Notting Hill Gate. And basically, I have spent the last 22 years or coming into a 23rd year in a consulting capacity working with organizations all over the world, specifically, or originally corporate development and sales and communication practice, focused around training and development. But then luckily moved into the space of workplace bias and navigating that more effectively. Because I just felt that not enough attention was allocated to equipping people with skills to address it. So most of the training and most of the consulting and initiatives around this area are primarily focused on awareness. And even when there is any kind of skills transfer, it's more about management being more sensitive, but not enough attention was allocated to equipping people with skills, and strategies and skills to navigate. And so over the last six years, that's what we've been doing in diversity.

Toby Mildon: Cool. So when you started to write your book, 'cause I have written my own book and I've got another book coming out soon myself, What were the main things that you were trying to address through the book? 

Buki Mosaku: Well, as a minority myself, I had been confronted with bias. So at least I had experienced unconscious bias. And it was confusing to me because whenever I say that, people immediately think, Okay, this is a Black guy, he has obviously been on the receiving end of racial bias. And, yeah. I have experienced racial bias. But the problem was that I got confused because I wasn't sure whether it was mine towards the majority or the majority towards me. Initially, I started off with it being the majority towards me. But then sometimes I say, "Well, actually, oops I got that one wrong." And that started to play on my mind.

Buki Mosaku: So this led to me trying to address that and coming up with the idea of writing a book called "I don't Understand". And the reason I called it "I don't Understand" was because whenever you are on the receiving end of bias, the overwhelming feeling that you have is a feeling of, I just do not understand how this person could be so insensitive. I just do not understand the injustice, the incivility of this behaviour, and you are pulling it in. Well, instead of pulling it in, What if you could call it out? So that became the quest for me to understand how to call that out, and also just to understand the interpersonal dynamics that drive workplace bias, unconscious workplace bias. So I hope I answered your question [laughter]

Toby Mildon: Yeah, absolutely. You've got me hooked already. Sounds fascinating.

[laughter]

Toby Mildon: [laughter] So I know that one of the things that you say is that you unidirectional strategies for tackling workplace bias are creating a bit of a diversity and exclusion nightmare. Could you elaborate on that for us? 

Buki Mosaku: Yeah, I think you understated. I think a huge nightmare. I mean, really is. If you look at the figures, if you look at the Fortune 500, there are only 53 women CEOs in the Fortune 500. There is only seven Black CEOs in the Fortune 500. In the Fortune 100, there is zero Black CEOs. Zero openly physically disabled CEOs or any disability CEOs. Yeah, in the Fortune 100 there are only three females in the most senior roles in the three COs. The CEO, CFO and COO. So there is a representation problem and the unidirectional approach.

Buki Mosaku: See, from Mumbai and I should just clarify, just in case for everyone, what I mean by unidirectional, the one-way street approach of looking at a career stifling, unconscious bias, which is what my book kind of addresses, no definitely address. Is the one-way street viewer that seems like the right thing to do, but actually it's creating another diversity and exclusion nightmare because inadvertently it excludes the people that it's trying to help. If you have a one-way, if you say, Okay, the problem is with us White, middle class, heterosexual, able-bodied males...

Buki Mosaku: Or majority and put some females in there as well, right? If you say that and we need to sort it out, what you're doing is you're not being collaborative. You're actually being exclusive as opposed to inclusive. And so this mindset leads to what I describe, this unidirectional approach leads to what I describe as a guilty perpetrator versus hapless victim model. That is, you have these people who look a certain way, walk and talk a certain way. They are the guilty perpetrator. And then you have these people who look a certain way, walk and talk a certain way. They are the hapless victim. And so these guilty perpetrators have this original sin that they have to cleanse themselves off in order to make and change their behaviour in order to make the world of the poor hapless victim better.

Buki Mosaku: The problem with that is that that tells, that reinforces to the traditional victim that everybody who's in the majority is a guilty perpetrator. So you're reinforcing a bias already. Secondly, you reinforce the bias and which is one of the most destructive and most demeaning biases of minorities. And you could cut across all the different minorities but let me do it from a Black minority perspective that they're a bunch of hapless victims who can't make it in this world unless you are empathetic to their needs and show them and give them a helping hand. I don't think that's the right way. I think, and as a result, those figures that I mentioned to you are the way that they are because the people that are actually affected have absolutely no input in changing the game. And this is what addressing career stifling bias has been built on for the last 50 years. So to quote Mick Hucknall, "a new day has come." And I think we need to spend more time equipping people with skill to navigate it.

Buki Mosaku: And when you do that, and the methodology that I kind of promote is a collaborative methodology focused around that called IDU.

Toby Mildon: Yeah, and we'll come onto the IDU Methodology in a moment, but it's reminding me, first of all, collaboration is one of the traits of being an inclusive leader. It's something I talk to my clients about. But as you were describing that, it reminds me of a framework that I quite often share with my clients around mindful leadership and whether, first of all, do you get trapped in the drama triangle? So, are you the perpetrator? Are you playing the victim? Are you playing the rescuer? Or are you an empowering leader? So do you take on much more of a coaching mindset? As you were describing it, it was just ringing some bells for me.

Buki Mosaku: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And that's true. Yeah, especially that rescuer, I think is what a lot of people have been sort of guilted into. And it's become a way of thinking. And yes, it's great that we've had all these strides in diversity, equity, and inclusion, but it's very important that we don't lose sight of what you said there, empowerment. You don't wanna disempower the already disempowered by excluding them from the process. And including them in the process isn't just having pronouns by our name and celebrating dates. That's great. Don't get me wrong. And eating different types of food and, doing events with people. Those are all important things, but we have to equip people with skills to actually take control of the process. In essence, if I'm biased towards you, you should be able to call me out if you're my boss. And likewise, if you're biased towards me, I should be able to call you out. So the question then becomes, Well, how do I do that without getting your back up and you get without getting my back up so that I can navigate it? But at the moment, we just don't have that. We send people to safe spaces.

Toby Mildon: Yeah, a term that I'm coming across quite a lot lately is the need to create brave spaces.

Buki Mosaku: Oh, I love that. That's great.

Toby Mildon: Yeah, 'cause we talk about creating safe spaces, but in a way the problem with that is that we need to go a step further. We need to create these kind of brave spaces where people feel able to speak up and, like you say, call in, call out, and unidirectional as well. So you've mentioned this already, your IDU Methodology. I like a bit of a framework in the methodology. Can you tell us a bit about what the IDU Methodology is all about? 

Buki Mosaku: Yeah, so essentially, when you're on, like I said, when you're on the receiving end of bias, what you sense, and it's always sensed. It's important for me to say that. Otherwise, it would be explicit, not implicit bias. It would be explicit. So you never actually 100% know. So when you sense bias and you feel, most people feel they can't say anything. And so what they do is they call it in. But that calling tends to have some variation of, I just don't understand why these people are behaving in this way, or this person. How could someone be so nice and then be so wicked? Or how can't they see this? So instead of calling it in, what if you could call it out? So then the question then became, Well, what am I trying to call out? Well, I'm trying to call out my misunderstanding of the situation because I really don't understand how this unfairness is happening in front of me. So I thought, Well, what if I could say that to someone? And that became the whole basis for the IDU Methodology.

Buki Mosaku: What also became the basis of the IDU Methodology was an acceptance of the multi-directional nature of workplace bias. So it's not unidirectional. That means that sometimes, and as I alluded to earlier, if all bias is sensed, I can misinterpret a person's decision or a person's behaviour as driven by unconscious bias.

Buki Mosaku: When I make that misinterpretation and I'm wrong. That becomes my bias because what's my misinterpretation based on? It's based on hearsay. It's based on my past experiences, and it's based on a wider narrative about the majority. So my misinterpretation becomes my bias. So in order to make the IDU Methodology work, step one is accepting the multi-directional nature of workplace bias. Something which nobody seems to want to do, right? What happens is that we have workshops and programs and people will say, Yeah, we're all biased. We all have biases. Think of a pilot and you think of a pilot and they say, Oh, you don't, what you see is that you think of immediately as a White male, you don't think of a woman, you don't think of a Black person. You don't think of a physically disabled person.

Buki Mosaku: You just think of a White male, a White able bodied male. That's what you tend to think of. So we're all biased. Then the training that comes after that is primarily focused around correcting, getting the majority to self-correct. But I thought we're all biased. So if we're all biased, first of all, the training should encompass all of us, right? And I don't think it really does. It does in a way, but it really doesn't. So that was the first thing. So with the IDU Methodology, it was a way I had to come up with a way of calling out bias, navigating it sensed bias, but allowing for misinterpretation. And that's what the IDU does. It's based on what I describe as... You'll like this 'cause you like acronyms and stuff. DDE, Dispassionate Developmental Enquiry coming from a place of developmental inquiry. It's the purest, it's the most unscathed place. So when you say, I don't understand, it tends to invoke, a certain reaction and the reaction tends to be, What don't you understand? Or Let me explain. And that gets you into a sticky conversation, a bias convo... Which you wouldn't have been able to get into previously. And then the key is navigating that conversation using developmental inquiry.

Toby Mildon: Yeah. Yeah. I don't know how you feel about this. 'Cause, I do touch on implicit bias in a lot of the work that I do. And in one of my workshops, first of all, I use the definition by Verna Myers, who's the, she's the head of diversity over at Netflix, lives over in America, lawyer by background. She's done a couple of really good TED talks. And in one of her TED talks, she says that biases are the stories that we make up about people before we get to know them. And I just love the simplicity of that definition because there's a lot of academic definitions out there. And then I quite often tell people about the story that when I first did unconscious bias training, when I was on the receiving end of it, when I worked for the BBC, I found out that I was mildly biased against disabled people, which shocked me because I'm a wheelchair user and I was born with my disability, and my brother's got the same condition.

Toby Mildon: I went to school with disabled kids. I've worked with loads of disabled adults. Yeah. I've got this mild bias. And I mean, it just goes to show that this bias really is the product of social conditioning. It's me growing up in a world that's been designed largely by and for non-disabled people. And if you just think about the messages that have been put out there through British media, then disabled people are often portrayed as victims, villains, or heroes compared to non-disabled people. So it makes sense about why these biases have have occurred. It then got me thinking at the time, I was thinking, surely there's gonna be some unintended consequences now that I've got this awareness. Yeah. I don't know what your thoughts are around that, or what your personal experience has been.

Buki Mosaku: Yeah. I mean, you're making me think now you're making me, if I have biases against minorities or, I hope I don't, but I'm sure I do, I'm sure I do. But I think it's important to be aware of those biases if you have them. But I think what's more important is being able to, well definitely navigate your own biases. Definitely strategically position yourself in a way which enables you to, deal with your own bias, but also bias towards you or sensed bias towards you. We talk, there are issues around representation of certain groups of people, and I think the fastest way to organically expedite the pace at which you increase, representation is to, empower those people who are under-represented.

Buki Mosaku: Yeah. And I think by knowing how to navigate by, I actually, interestingly, in the, to your point in the IDU Methodology, it has an inbuilt mechanism which actually forces you to, recondition yourself and the other person by recognizing first of all that there's a multi-directional nature to bias, you realize that you can be as much of the perpetrator as the victim. So I think that's really important. Just by doing that, it makes me think of your story and makes me think sometimes I need to check my own self. So that's the first thing. And secondly, in the process of calling out bias, and we give a way of doing that in the process of calling out sensed bias, well, one of four things happens, but I can summarize them in two things. The bias towards you calls itself out, right? So it becomes evident to, the perpetrator, the unconscious perpetrator. Or what happens is that your reverse bias calls itself out and it becomes evident to you that you are the one with the bias. So, yeah, I think that kind of speaks to your point. Yeah.

Toby Mildon: Actually, the framework that I like to use is the SEEDS model that was created by the NeuroLeadership Institute. Don't know if you've come across this, but it's an acronym. It stands for Similarity bias Experience bias Expedience bias Distance bias and Safety bias. And I find this a really good way of talking about bias without making people feel like they are homophobic or racist or ableist or sexist. 'Cause people, if they don't understand implicit bias, they can often mislabel themselves. We all have our biases, but if we take something like similarity bias, I mean, that basically says that we like to hang out with people like ourselves and that we create in groups and out groups. I mean, it's something that is applicable to you, as it is to me. So I think people really understand it when you talk about it in those terms.

Buki Mosaku: Yeah.

Speaker 1: If your company has a great diversity and inclusion strategy, if your organization has an amazing work culture, where productivity is peaking, if the best talents in your industry are working for you, if all your employees are happy and feel included, then feel free to skip this message for about 30 seconds and continue listening to the podcast interview with Toby. But if you feel that your company is lacking in any one of these areas, your employer reputation is taking a hit. Toby Mildon is one of the UK's leading diversity and inclusion expert, who has helped top companies like 
Deloitte, the BBC, Sony Pictures and Centrica, as well as numerous scale-up businesses who want an outstanding inclusive culture. To go further in your diversity and inclusion journey, log on to Toby's webinar at www.mildon.co.uk/free-webinar to accelerate your company's diversity and inclusion strategy in 40 minutes. Thanks for listening. And now back to the podcast interview with Toby.

Toby Mildon: In your book, you draw the distinction between defensive fragility and white fragility. Can you just explain to me a bit more about the differences and why it's important to understand this? 

Buki Mosaku: Yeah, well look, so, White Fragility is a phrase, a term coined by Robin DiAngelo PhD, right? So she's a doctor, she wrote this book called White Fragility, was a big seller. And I don't want to say anymore about it because it's sold enough already, right? 

[laughter]

Buki Mosaku: But, yeah, and the principle behind this, that the, the basis of it is that, white people become fragile, emotionally fragile and uncomfortable when confronted with the reality of racial inequality. That's it. The base of the book is that, white people need to own up, or be more aware break with the apathy of their racial bias to, in particular, towards black people. And that's what the book is basically about. Now, first of all, I'm just going to say, and commentators have, have latched onto that, have latched onto that in the UK, US and all around Europe.

Buki Mosaku: And they check themselves, they check organizations and themselves for their fragility levels and all of this kind of stuff. Frankly, I'm going to try and be professional here, right? I think that it's nonsensical, right? The thesis is nonsensical. People get annoyed because you say bad things about them. Well, hello, I get annoyed, no sugar Sherlock, I get annoyed when you say bad things about me. So is that black fragility? Whether they're right or wrong, I would get, if you said to me black people have, and people like me have a chip on our shoulder, I might respond and say, you damn right, I got a chip on my shoulder. Nevermind a chip. I've got boulder on my shoulder and it should be a tree. You have no idea what it is to be a black guy trying to make it in a white man's world in the US and the UK. You couldn't walk a minute in my shoe, let alone a mile. Isn't that fragile? Isn't that the same fragility attributed to white people? Right? So this is a major, she is a major, or that philosophy is a major example of what I describe as the guilty perpetrator hapless victim model, which is driven by unidirectional views of workplace bias.

Buki Mosaku: Saying that it's one way, it's not one way. So the difference between what the... The example that I just explained to you and that what she attributes as white fragility, and I said, what do you call mine black fragility? Actually, it's not a color fragility. It's what I describe as defensive fragility. It's the propensity for human beings to be upset that you paint them in a negative light. So it's really important to understand, especially from the state's perspective, where this has been like this book and this philosophy is being eaten up by certain quarters like [0:23:36.7] ____ and Similac, right? 

Buki Mosaku: It's really important to understand that it's human nature to get your back up when, somebody paints you in a negative light. And actually the biggest obstacle to navigating bias at an interpersonal level or an institutional level is defensive fragility. It's the propensity for people to get their back up. Because if I sense bias from you as my boss, I don't wanna tell you because you might get upset. So guess what I do, Tony? Guess what I do? I don't tell you. At worst, I don't tell anyone. I keep it in, which is bad for my wellbeing. But what I tend to do is I go to tell somebody else and guess who that somebody else looks like, they look like me. Right? They tend to be a black person. And then they'll say to me, oh, welcome. That's happened to me. Which reinforces a bias about the majority. Now the same thing happens on the other side because we're all the same. You might sense my bias 'cause it could be palpable, but you won't tell me.

Buki Mosaku: What you might do, maybe three weeks later you have a conversation and you might say, oh, I'm not saying that. I'm just using as an example. And you might have a conversation. You say, "Yeah, I'm really sympathetic with the equality cause, but sometimes these minorities sense bias, especially these black guys sense bias when it's actually not there." Right? And the person will say, "Oh, yeah, that's happened to me before, which then reinforces the bias about ethnic minorities having chips on the shoulder and never the [0:24:58.6] ____ twain shall me, and this is where we live." And then you've got boards who will address this by saying, "Oh, we need to do a bias awareness training so that we can make sure minorities are treated better." Or you senior leaders, or you majority leaders need to self-correct. Check yourself and they spend inordinate. I think it's important to spend some time on that, but inordinate amounts of time on that. But they don't spend enough time equipping the minority and themselves with the skills to call out multi-directional bias, because we're all guilty of it.

Toby Mildon: Absolutely.

Buki Mosaku: It's unconscious.

Toby Mildon: Yeah. Yeah.

Buki Mosaku: Does that make sense? Did I sort of make the... Did I differentiate between white fragility and defensive fragility? 

Toby Mildon: No, totally. Totally. It's really interesting and it makes a lot of sense. I'm just thinking that the person listening to us right now might be thinking, this is really interesting, but how does it work in practice? How can I call out this multi-directional bias when I see it or sense it? And what can I do within my world of work? Can we leave the person listening to us right now with some practical hints and tips? 

Buki Mosaku: Yeah. Well, look, I think that there are, yeah, a couple of things that they can do. First of all is to determine what type of bias you're being confronted with, and that will determine how you respond. And I like to break it down into categories, right? So there is what I call simple bias, right? Simple directional bias that's directed towards you, right? That's the one that we're all kind of familiar with. And there's complex bias. Now, simple directional bias is microaggression, right? These are like microaggressions. These are slights about your character, about your personality, about your ethnicity, right? And then you have complex directional bias. Complex direction is the stuff that you can't put your hands on. You can't, it is intangible. Maybe you're not short-listed for a role or you're never given a glamorous project or you never seem to be making partner, but you're better than everybody else.

Buki Mosaku: You bring in more money or all of these are intangible 'cause they're difficult to prove. And sorry, they're complex because it's difficult to prove. So how do you deal with that? Well, with the microaggression, right? I think we should give my, this goes contrary to what most people say, give them the attention they deserve, which is very little, right? So from a steps perspective, the first thing I would suggest somebody do is whenever you sense a microaggression towards you, is give the person the benefit of the doubt, but still call them out, right? And the way that you call them out is if you back the microaggression away with a comment in kind, and then move on and enjoy your lunch. So I'll give you an example. When I started speaking, people would say to me, "Oh, Buki, oh, you speak so well, you are very articulate."

Buki Mosaku: So I would immediately think and wrongly in many cases, oh, you're white you're shocked because I'm a black guy. You don't expect a black person to be articulate. This was my bias, right? But this is what I would think, right? Sometimes that was the case, but I'm sure more often than not, it wasn't. They just thought I spoke well, right? So I could get up. My internal talk was, oh yeah, why are you so surprised? I'm a client facing person just like you. I'm a graduate. Why are you so surprised? It's just because I'm black. That's what my internal dialogue was, right? And I'd get all upset about it. But instead of doing that, what I would do now is give the person the benefit of the doubt. The person says, you speak so well. I'll say, great, thank you.

Buki Mosaku: Thank you. So do you. Then move on. Or I might say, oh, don't sound so surprised, and then move on. I don't need to mix it to get into one. And what that does is give the other person something to think about, semi reconditions them, and you can enjoy your lunch. So that's the whole way I kind of deal with microaggressions and stop them from accumulating and causing the kind of distress that they can do. So that's one way, right? And then the complex bias, which is the stuff in between. This is the stuff where, it could be gender. You don't think that you work in an organization where there's all men in senior management roles, and you feel that you should be, or it could be gender identity issues or any of these things that you can't put your fingers on, touch on, and you are not being promoted or you are not getting the opportunity, you're not getting the same crack of the whip, the way to deal with that, well, I'll give you a edited highlights, version, right? 

Buki Mosaku: There are four steps. Step one is set your mindset, right? So leave the baggage in the lobby. We have racial baggage, physical disability baggage, gender baggage, neuro patent baggage, sexual orientation baggage, baggage that you have every right to be holding based on what society and your sector and your workplace is showing you. You've gotta leave that in the lobby. You've got to leave that in the lobby, right? And then the question now becomes, well, why do you need to leave it in the lobby? Why do you think I'm suggesting you need to leave that baggage at the door? Why do you think that? 

Toby Mildon: Well, I think it's so as to like not wear you down, and then it creates that space for you to be able to move on.

Buki Mosaku: Exactly. And that baggage impairs your vision. I don't know if you've seen the original Karate Kid, did you see the original one? 

Toby Mildon: I have, yeah, yeah.

Buki Mosaku: Yeah. Mr. Miyagi, I'm sorry for those people who are too young to know what I'm talking about. Right? But it was awesome. Watch it. Anyway, [chuckle] Daniel, his protege is at his last fight, right? His final fight. And Miyagi said, and he's scared because he's been bullied and he wants to win this fight. And Mr. Miyagi says to him, "empty your head. Empty your head." Well, and the reason he's saying is that so that you can have clarity. It's exactly the same thing. So step one is set your mindset right? And the reason that you want to do that is so that you can move to step two. So the question then becomes, well, what is step two? So step two is give the person the benefit of the doubt. Give them the, however certain you are, just give them the benefit of the doubt. But here's the rub. Call them out anyway. Call them out Anyway. So the question then becomes, well, how do I give a person the benefit of the doubt in terms of bias, which I definitely can sense, right? But then call them out, right? Well, the way to do that is to use these three powerful words. I don't understand. That's it. Tell them you don't understand. It's the purest. It's the most unscathed place you can come from. And guess what, Toby, there's more good news, right? 

Buki Mosaku: When you tell them you don't understand, right? You ignite their natural instinct to give direction, right? So the person will then say, well, what don't you understand? Or Let me show you. And now you're into a conversation which would otherwise be sticky about bias, right? And the key is to maintain the developmental inquiry. I don't understand type conversation. And what you are going to find is that the bias, either theirs or yours in some case will call itself out. And then what you can do, step four, is collaboratively work with that person to agree next steps. Very simple. And if their bias towards you has called itself out more often than not, work with you to gain what I describe as worthy recompense for your loss. And if it doesn't work, if you've done all of that and it doesn't work right, and the person is stubborn or doesn't wanna own up to the unfairness, right? 

Buki Mosaku: For whatever reason, you have a trail of a conversation that you can now go to HR and have, as opposed to doing what most people do is when they sense bias, they don't say anything. They talk to other people or go to a safe space. And we end up walking on eggshells with that manager or leader because we don't know how they see us or how we see them. If they bring a facilitator, the inter-mediator in, we don't know where we stand. So I think these are two gifts that I hope your viewers and listeners will find useful.

Toby Mildon: No, it's really, really good. And I'd love to incorporate this into the workshops that I do. I mean, could you, just to bring this to life, that four step process that you just described, could you give us like a really quick example of maybe something you've been part of or you've experienced and how you've used that four step process? 

Buki Mosaku: Yeah, so that's a really good question. So I was working for an organization and I sensed... This is how I, from a consulting perspective, I sensed bias, right? In making a decision towards, in terms of giving me the business. And I didn't really know how to deal with it. And normally when you do these things there's the sort of feedback you are given if the company's nice, and you kind of have to deal with the feedback. But I just sensed bias, to be honest. I felt that I was, I did everything. I was clearly better based on the measurements and the criteria they were using. I thought I was better. So I just said to the person, the key decision maker, there were a few, the key decision maker, just for my own development, this is an IDU type question.

Buki Mosaku: What was the criteria behind the person, the company that you, the vendor that you were using? And in the course of that, the person then came out told me, and it did. And when they said the criteria, I said, well, yeah, but we met all of that criteria. I met that one, that one, that one, that one. So I still don't understand. Then he said some more. And I, and he said that, and I said, well, we met that, and I still don't understand. And in the course of that conversation, it became clear that all the criteria that he said, he didn't say personality, which would've then made sense. All the criteria said, we had met in Spain. So in that situation, I said, well, look, we've met, we've met the criteria by your own admission, we've met this criteria.

Buki Mosaku: How do we resolve this? Now they'd already given the business to somebody else, right? So I said, well, look, what I'd like to do for you, this is from a business perspective, is a pilot. Let me do a pilot of the type of program that we can do, right? And I think given the questionable decision that you came to which you've agreed, I think that's a reasonable request. And he said, yes, we did the pilot we went on to, they loved what we did, right? And they went on to do business with us, not to the complete exclusion of the other organization, but we ended up getting more business with them. And I think, if you look at that, I went I followed all those four, those four areas, I dropped the baggage, right? I told them that, which allowed me to say for my own development.

Buki Mosaku: Right? Which invoked what something which you spoke about the coach in the other person, right? So he was open to tell me the criteria, and we've now got into a conversation. I didn't make it a black thing, right? Or any or a class thing. I just kept asking questions, criteria type questions, which is a form of I don't understand, IDU. And in the end, the bias called itself out. And so we were able to agree collaborative next steps. So hopefully people can take that and say, right, how I can use that in my situation if I feel I should have been given a job or I should have been short-listed and I wasn't. And then the worthy recompense and this is a really important bit, Toby, the person usually, once they sense unconscious bias, isn't this about people being bad, right? 

Buki Mosaku: It's unconscious bias. When they sense that they become almost, aggressive is the wrong word, but proactive in trying to resolve the situation. And you as the sensed victim, right, are strategically advantageously positioned to capitalize on that proactivity. And as a result, it makes it a lot easier. You expedite the pace, you get what you want, because that's ultimately what people want. They just wanna achieve their objective, have the whatever, career, business, whatever. So that's kind of, hopefully that helps your guide. And from a management perspective, it's kind of the reverse of that. But I don't know if we've got enough time to go through that.

Toby Mildon: I think we'll get you back on for another episode where we can.

Buki Mosaku: Yeah.

Toby Mildon: We can talk some more. I mean, we're getting to the end of the episode now. The penultimate question I ask everybody is, what does inclusive growth mean to you? 

Buki Mosaku: Again, an awesome question. And my answer to that is, inclusive growth to me means accepting and acknowledging the multi-directional nature of unconscious bias or workplace bias. Because when we accept that we truly become inclusive because we're accepting that we're all the same. If I have the propensity to be biased as a minority and a member of the majority has a propensity to be biased towards me, and we both acknowledge that.

Toby Mildon: Yeah.

Buki Mosaku: Then our strategies for dealing with it are going to be inclusive by definition. But if we're saying that there's one bad set of people, and there's one put upon trodden people, we're taking a unidirectional view. So for me, inclusive growth is accepting the multi-directional nature of workplace bias.

Toby Mildon: Brilliant. Now, if the person listening to us right now wants to learn more about their biases and the work on them, where do you suggest they go? 

Buki Mosaku: Oh yeah, definitely. Interesting you should say that because we have an assessment tool called the Mosaku's bias navigation test @navigatingbias.com, or you can go to Bukimosaku.com and this actually creatively assesses your unconscious bias strategies or that we may be unaware of, that we employ or use. And so it allows you to identify those, and it's a 90 second assessment tool. So I'd encourage people to do that and go to my site.

Toby Mildon: Excellent. Well, thanks so much for joining me today, Buki. It's been really interesting to talk to you. I mean, you've given me plenty of material, that I'm going to start talking to my clients about when, when they want to talk to me about implicit bias within the workplace. So thanks for sharing your knowledge with us.

Buki Mosaku: You're welcome. You're welcome.

Toby Mildon: And thank you for tuning into this episode of the Inclusive Growth Podcast with me and today's guest, Buki Mosaku. Please do go and get a copy of his book. As a reminder, it is, I Don't Understand Navigating Unconscious Bias in the Workplace. It's definitely a book worth picking up and reading if you want to understand how bias works within the workplace. So until the next time, take good care of yourself, and I look forward to seeing you on the next episode of the podcast, which will be coming out very soon. Take care.

Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Inclusive Growth Show. For further information and resources from Toby and his team, head on over to our website @mildon.co.uk.