A New Year ... Perhaps It's Also Time for a New 'Ear'?

We're all aware that hearing occurs when air vibrations are converted to vibrations of the tympanic membrane and ossicles of the middle ear which activate waves along the basilar membrane stimulating the hair cells of the basilar membrane to convert the sound vibrations to nerve impulses in the fibers of the cochlear nerve to get them to the primary auditory area of the cerebral cortex—the ultimate center of the brain for hearing.

Huh?

As fascinating as this may be to some of you, I'm pretty sure the majority of you aren't reading CORE Bites to learn about the physiological aspects of hearing! So let me provide another angle on "hearing" and why it might just be time for a New 'Ear' in this New Year.

When I was a teenager and music was "indispensable" (some of you will relate), I had a stereo comprised of a right-channel and a left-channel. Audio engineers mixed some of the vocals and instruments to play on the right-channel and some of them to play on the left-channel trying to simulate the sound of a concert hall. All of this was great stuff until one day I lost the right-channel. What a disaster! It wasn't just that the volume was diminished; entire instruments and entire vocal tracks just disappeared as if they didn't exist. What is Led Zeppelin without Plant's vocals? Hendrix without his guitar? RUSH without Peart's drum kit?

When half the information is missing, what remains is incomprehensible!

I'm writing about this topic—within the context of adopting a New 'Ear' in this New Year—because none of us are immune from a similar "one-channel-missing" phenomenon that's impacting our ability to manage and lead. This "one-channel-missing" is a direct result of the biases that each and every one of us carries within our subconscious that renders some of the information we receive incomplete and imprecise. What's problematic and concerning about this is that we may not even realize when a bias doesn't let us 'hear' the other channels.

You can think of implicit, subconscious, and unconscious biases as the cognitive equivalent of 'muscle memory' frequently brought to the surface when we're confronted by gaps in our own personal experiences. The human brain is incredible at creating shortcuts and connections, as well as grouping things together for easy access and efficiency. When faced with unfamiliar situations or circumstances, the brain disproportionately pulls from widely applicable—and frequently misaligned—associations, such as stereotypes, to speed things up and use less energy.

Becoming bias-free is virtually impossible but, before you give up hope entirely, there's a very practical way to overcome this obstacle. It all starts with an acronym:

AWARE ... Always Watching; Always Recognizing; Everyday!

High Value Activity (HVA) Action Steps

By becoming AWARE, you'll start to pay more attention (the "Watching") to when you are most susceptible to a bias creeping in and impacting a thought process and/or a decision-making process (the "Recognizing). And, when you do this consistently (the "Everyday"), you'll build in safeguards, or what I refer to as Trigger-Moments, that help you "hear" all the channels of information necessary to stay in balance. The first important step we need to take is to understand what types of biases exist so we can watch out for them. The HVAs listed below are a collection of some of the more common biases that exist:

• Confirmation Bias: This bias is a type of cognitive bias that involves favoring information that confirms previously existing beliefs or biases. In essence, it's the tendency to search for, interpret, favor, and recall information in a way that confirms or supports one's prior beliefs or values. When this bias is evoked, people tend to unconsciously favor information that supports their personal views, but ignore (or discount) non-supportive or contradicting information. There is also a tendency to interpret ambiguous evidence as supporting an existing position. Because most of us think that our personal values and convictions are rational and logical (based on years of experience and objective analysis of the information we've been exposed to), this bias can be fairly insidious.
• Recency Bias: This bias describes the fact that we're much more likely to remember things that have happened recently over things that have happened throughout the entire year or in previous quarters. While it's natural to focus on the most recent activities, behaviors, and accomplishments of employees—because they're freshest in your memory—this can negatively impact your perspective since it doesn't actually provide a holistic view of an employee's performance.
• Proximity Bias: This bias is a complex one given the large-scale movement from on-site work to remote work. In essence, Proximity Bias describes the tendency we have—as managers—to place higher value on work we can actually see being done or that we are directly involved in and/or aware of. When this bias occurs it can result in lower value being placed on work that is being done out-of-sight (or out-of-mind).
• Idiosyncratic Rater Bias: This bias describes the tendency that we have—again, as managers—to evaluate others based on the perception we have of our own skill and talent level instead of based on the actual skill and talent level of the employee we're evaluating. In essence, when we're strong in a particular area, we tend to rate others less favorably and when we're not so strong we tend to rate people more favorably. One possible explanation for this is when a manager is good at something (e.g., project management) he/she is likely to have a more in-depth understanding and, hence, higher standards for this skill area. Conversely, when a manager has less familiarity with a skill area (e.g., computer programming), he/she tends to be less familiar with possible standards for performance and, as a result, more lenient.
• Centrality Bias: This bias describes the tendency to rate most items toward the middle of a rating scale. This pushes higher performing employees lower and pulls lower performing employees higher. When the majority of employees are receiving a rating of 3 out of 5 across the board, it's difficult to distinguish the top-performing employees from the lower-performing employees. One way I've found effective to combat this bias is to simply remove the neutral (middle) option from any rating scale. Instead of using a 5-point scale, consider making it a 4-point scale to eliminate the possibility of a 'sitting-on-the-fence' score.