Page 26 - Seniorstoday September 21
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colleagues, few would accept that that any half-truth since they could not withstand
of them could have any negative attributes the onslaught of the warrior sage, Drona
or chinks in their armours or do any wrong. who was fighting for the Kauravas.
In my lexicon, this can be termed as an Coming back to the corporate world,
‘aura’ bias. Given that I am attitudinally recruitment efforts will be surfeit with
circumspect and discreet, I never bothered examples of unconscious bias at play.
to talk about those chinks. Let the so-called Depending on the predilection of the
heroes stay heroes for the hero worshippers! interviewer/hirer, one may have a
The same thing will happen with people preference for a person from Mumbai rather
known to be failures most times. We will than say Delhi or Bengaluru. One may
always assume that such people can never only hire from IITs or IIMs on the bias or
succeed and we will maintain our distance notion that no other college can produce a
and not wish to be a part of their team. A better candidate. One may not wish to hire
‘negative’ bias at work there. a person from Bihar as compared to say
Many of the readers would be familiar with Tamil Nadu on some specious assumptions
the term ‘Ashwatthama mar gaya’ in the about their relative ability to work hard
context of the Mahabharata. Dronacharya or honesty. One may hire based on caste
lays down the arms in the midst of the or community rather than absolute core
battle on being told by Yudhishthira that competency. I know of a person whose team
Ashwatthama has died. Dronacharya consists mostly of people from his home
believed him since he presumed that the state. One may hire only males thinking that
eldest Pandava prince, known to speak females cannot bring similar value to the
the truth, will never lie. Yudhishthira was table for some jobs. Similarly, one may hire
actually referring to a mighty elephant only females for some roles, say HR as an
with a similar name as Dronacharya’s son. example, thinking that women will be more
Dronacharya thought that his own son has empathetic and understanding. Persons
died and laid down his arms in remorse and who have come up from the ranks or have
was killed soon after. Dronacharya was a only the minimum of qualifications, very
victim of his ‘aura’ bias about Yudhishthira. often have proved the biases stacked against
It was also a ‘confirmation’ bias reinforcing them wrong by being exceptionally better
one’s own belief about somebody else. It was than others. One may hire someone just
an expedient ploy by the Pandavas to say a because he or she is very handsome/pretty
regardless of the skill sets.
Given the deeply entrenched biases that we
all have, the only way it can be mitigated,
let alone eradicated, is by recognizing that
there exists a serious problem within us and
that we are willing to transform and make
concerted efforts to obviate its influence on
our behaviour, decisions and interactions
with people.
After all, bias is nothing but nonsense. Say
bye to bias.
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