The Unconscious Bias Against Creativity at Work

Posted on September 6, 2023

“The Leadership Dilemma” and 4 Ways to Check Your Bias for Accepting Creative Ideas

Riddle me this:
“A father and son are in a horrible car crash that kills the dad. The son is rushed to the emergency room, and just as he’s about to go under the knife, the surgeon says, “I can’t operate – that boy is my son!”
How is this possible?

We all have biases, and if you say you don’t – you’re wrong. I mean it’s called unconscious bias for a reason – you don’t know that you have them.

Unconscious bias stems from our tendency put people into categories, often according to visual cues, like gender and race. One type of unconscious bias is affinity bias – where we tend to recruit and surround ourselves with people who look like us.

These biases can lead to micro-behaviours, whether they be positive (supporting ideas of someone for which you have a positive affinity) or negative (interrupting someone or failing to give full attention)

HERE is a short video summary on unconscious bias.

Did you figure out the surgeon riddle yet?

The unconscious bias is that surgeons are men, because many people have seen male surgeons, but few female surgeons. Even female surgeons had trouble with the riddle!

Time for a (related, I promise!) personal story about bias

You might’ve experienced some bias yourself.

I remember a time as a fresh-faced veterinary graduate, I was working as an ER Vet in Florida. One summer evening, a panicked pet owner rushed their animal to the clinic after an accident and I rushed to triage, give instructions, and stabilize.

“I would like to see the vet,” the wide-eyed pet owner says to me.

“That’s me,” I replied, distracted by the critical patient in front of me.

“Well, I don’t care if the vet is a woman or whatever, I just want to see the vet.”

“Still me,” I answered, raising confused eyes to meet hers.

The bias against creativity - I share a personal story about when a distressed pet owner came in asking for the veterinarian, assuming I wasn't because I am female.

You see, she had not considered that the veterinarian could be a woman.

Let alone that a 24-year old could be holding her beloved pet’s life in her hands. I couldn’t blame her –

But I did save her pet and change her opinion on what a vet should look like.

What is the bias against creativity at work?

In her book Creative Change, Jennifer Mueller talks about this effect with leaders. We see leaders in the media, and in our life, who look a certain way. We naturally start to think that all leaders should look like that.

Not because they are effective, but because it’s what we expect to see.

This is one of the reasons men are overrepresented in leadership roles, despite women have an advantage in leadership skills.

Although companies say the WANT creativity, there is an unconscious bias against it. Dr. Mueller suggests creativity bias is slippery to diagnose – here is a video where Mueller explains studies around how creativity is squashed in organizations

The Leadership Dilemma:

Leaders / Decision-Makers are especially prone to a bias against creativity.

If decision-makers choose a status quo solution, they might not solve the problem, but they won’t second guess the decision
If decision-makers choose a creative solution, it might solve the problem, but they are open to criticism if it fails.

New ideas tend to be buggy, so these bumps tend to be disheartening, not to mention the difficulty of knowing how to choose metrics and goalposts to measure the success of a brand new approach.

Decision makers feel a lot of pressure – they want to be right, the stakes are high if they are wrong, and their butt is on the line. They tend to have an “economic mindset.”

4 Ways to Check Your Creativity Bias

1 – Awareness is the first step

If you’re feeling strong emotions about something – it’s time to check your bias.

If you are a decision maker or leader and you want innovative ideas, be aware of the “leadership dilemma” that might influence you to favour status quo ideas with high social approval – where can you reasonably take a few more risks and step toward creativity?

2 – Present Your Creative Ideas at Work with Metrics

If you are an idea generator at work, one way to mitigate the “economic mindset” when presenting your ideas to a leader is to find metrics by which to evaluate your creative idea, and present those metrics together with your idea. Present the idea in their context (economic feasibility, what can we learn from if this doesn’t work?)

3- Emotional Appraisal is a simple process that can increase your ability to find and accept creative ideas

Defined as “taking a step back and viewing a provoking event in an objective way” emotional/cognitive reappraisal allows one to see a situation from multiple angles.

For instance, if you get road rage when people cut you off, you might think they are inconsiderate jerks.

Cognitive reappraisal might allow you to consider that they are dealing with a rough day, or maybe didn’t see you, or they are a tourist who doesn’t know the road patterns in your city.

The best time for this is before you “flip your lid” and have an emotional response. Although some people can do this more easily than others, it is a skill that can be learned.

4 – Increase your tolerance of ambiguity

Engage your tolerance of ambiguity (ability to face uncertainty) by using mindfulness practices to stay in the moment, instead of jumping to conclusions.

A leader with a high tolerance of ambiguity is less likely to jump to status quo solutions, more able to navigate the leader dilemma and choose creative options with a less clear path to success.

Find ways to satisfy your need for certainty, like selecting metrics to evaluate success for a brand-new approach.
Looking for more ways to tackle your unconscious bias? Check out this research from The National Center for Cultural Competence at Georgetown University

In Other News…

Speaking Events

In September I will be talking about creativity at two conferences.

Is one of these conferences related to your industry and near you?

Come hear me speak:

Creative Lifescaping with Kerryn Fewster

Kerryn uses her humour liberally in this interview, and shares her research into TOA – Tolerance of Ambiguity and what it means to organizations and leaders.

How does increasing our TOA improve our ability to bounce back from adversity, see alternative options and have better well being?

Check it out, you won’t regret it. Lean into the ambiguity.

WATCH THE REPLAY