Diversity, equity, and inclusion have become polarizing terms in our world and that is likely because they are greatly misunderstood. Part of that misunderstanding comes from our unconscious filters – how we see the world, how we take in information, and how we assume we are “the norm” but others are different when the reality is we are ALL different.
Today, Sara Taylor illuminates us by sharing what unconscious filters are and the three purposes they serve for us humans – even though they can get in the way of effective relationships. We discuss why diversity initiatives have become so polarized despite the data on how diversity and inclusion enrich organizations and the bottom line, and what we can do to better communicate those benefits by dealing with emotions and unconscious filters more than facts and figures. Sara also shares how intent and impact look different from both sides of the relationship, how to pause to check ourselves, and why leaders set the bar and build the culture so your DEIB initiatives will get traction.
To access the episode transcript, please scroll down below.
Key Takeaways:
- We are inputting 11 million bits of information every second across all our senses, but we can only process and are only consciously aware of 40 of those.
- Assume positive intent on behalf of others. Also, assume your impact isn’t positive. When you take that accountability, we can communicate more effectively when we face obstacles.
- It is not your responsibility to make others behave empathetically. It is your responsibility to model the appropriate empathetic behavior.
- You can’t make empathy HR’s problem. It requires self-awareness and consciously slowing down to understand your own biases.
“Where are we missing the mark when we know that everyone benefits from an inclusive workplace? Why is there resistance? How do we need to approach folks in our organization that are resistant in a different way for them to see what’s in their self-interest as well?” — Sara Taylor. Author, Thinking at the Speed of Bias
Episode References:
The Empathy Edge podcast episodes related to DEIB:
- Karen Catlin: How to be a Real Ally
- Cynthia Owyoung: Diversity and Inclusion Deliver Real Results. But Have We Made Progress?
- Jeannie Gainsburg: How to Be a Savvy LGBTQ+ Ally
- Renée Freeman: Coaching Leaders to Embrace Inclusion
- M.E. Hart: How to Have Honest Conversations at Work
From Our Partner:
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Go to sparkeffect.com/edge now and download your complimentary Professional and Organizational Alignment Review today.
About Sara Taylor, President, deepSEE Consulting, Author, Thinking at the Speed of Bias
Nationally recognized speaker, author, and consultant, Sara is a thought leader in the field of DEI and Cultural Competence. Numerous individuals and organizations use her bestselling book, Filter Shift, and new release book Thinking at the Speed of Bias to increase success and create greater effectiveness in interactions across differences. Sara’s company, deepSEE Consulting works with local, national, and global clients to take their Diversity and Inclusion work to the next level.
Connect with Sara:
Book: Thinking at the Speed of Bias
deepSEE Consulting: deepseeconsulting.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/sarajanetaylor
Facebook: facebook.com/deepsee.consulting
Connect with Maria:
Get Maria’s books on empathy: Red-Slice.com/books
Learn more about Maria’s work: Red-Slice.com
Hire Maria to speak: Red-Slice.com/Speaker-Maria-Ross
Take the LinkedIn Learning Course! Leading with Empathy
LinkedIn: Maria Ross
Instagram: @redslicemaria
Facebook: Red Slice
Threads: @redslicemaria
FULL TRANSCRIPT:
Maria Ross 00:04
Welcome to the empathy edge podcast, the show that proves why cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. I’m your host, Maria Ross, I’m a speaker, author, mom, facilitator and empathy advocate. And here you’ll meet trailblazing leaders and executives, authors and experts who embrace empathy to achieve radical success. We discuss all facets of empathy, from trends and research to the future of work to how to heal societal divisions and collaborate more effectively. Our goal is to redefine success and prove that empathy isn’t just good for society, it’s great for business. Diversity, Equity and Inclusion have become polarizing terms in our world, and that’s likely because they are greatly misunderstood. Part of that misunderstanding comes from our unconscious filters, how we see the world, how we take in information, and how we assume we are the norm, but others are different, when the reality is we’re all different. My guest today is Sarah Taylor. She’s a nationally recognized speaker, author and consultant and a thought leader in the area of dei and cultural competence. Numerous individuals and organizations use her best selling book, filter shift and now her newest release thinking at the speed of bias to increase success and create greater effectiveness in interactions across differences. Sarah’s company, deep sea consulting works with local, national and global clients to take their diversity and inclusion work to the next level. Today, Sarah illuminates us by sharing what unconscious filters are, why we have them, and the three purposes they serve for us humans, even though they can get in the way of effective relationships, we discuss why diversity initiatives have become so polarized, despite the data on how diversity and inclusion enrich organizations and the bottom line and what we can do to better communicate those benefits by dealing with emotions and unconscious filters more than facts and figures. Sarah also shares how intent and impact look different from both sides of the relationship, how to pause to check ourselves, and why leaders set the bar and build the culture so your deib initiatives will get traction. So many gems in this one. I loved this conversation. Take a listen big. Welcome Sarah Taylor to the empathy edge podcast to talk to us about thinking at the speed of bias. Welcome to the
Sara Taylor 02:34
show. Thank you so much, Maria, so glad to be here. Yeah. So you
Maria Ross 02:38
are not new to this author rodeo, you had another best selling book called filter shift, and tell us a little bit about we heard your bio. Tell us a little bit about how you got to this work and what makes you so passionate about it, before we dive into the content of this podcast today. Yeah,
Sara Taylor 02:55
absolutely. Well, that’s kind of a there’s two parts to that question. And for those that are listening and don’t see me, I’m a white woman, and you might think, what the heck is a white woman doing as a diversity, equity and inclusion practitioner of 35 years and surprisingly, even though I grew up on a farm outside of a teeny tiny town, I actually have been doing this work since I’ve been in middle school. I was giving presentations and doing research about bias and stereotype. We didn’t call it bias then, but stereotypes and how to be able to see each other more holistically. So honestly, that young, it’s just kind of always been a passion of mine.
Maria Ross 03:49
Yeah, I love it. And so while 35 years so you have a really good perspective, you know, I’ve seen the changes over the last decades as well. I’m curious this. I wasn’t planning to ask you this, but I gonna throw it out there. What is your perspective on the backlash to dei be in our world today, and do you think it’s short lived? Do you think it’s just a matter of maybe changing the words we use and still embracing the concepts like, what’s your take on that?
Sara Taylor 04:18
Yeah, well, you know, overall, I would say that in some ways, it is a natural reaction, because we’re starting to get some traction, and folks are a little nervous, starting to feel as though they’re going to lose out. And also, there’s a real lack of understanding of what the work actually is, exactly. And so if folks think it is, this is just activity to replace me and mine, then lots of reason to become polarized against that. Absolutely. I think that one thing that’s obviously very, very different about what we see, a couple of things. First, the. Resistance that we see today is amplified in social media, and obviously that wasn’t the case 35 years ago, exactly. And we also know that incidents of actual violence have been on the increase, and that couples with this work in organizations, because folks become more afraid of the work, the more there is violence in our society, violence against particularly marginalized groups. So that is all very, very different. You also in that question, though, said, What do I think is this going to last? And I think in some ways resistance in general, yes, may last. We may completely change the words that we use, but I don’t think the work itself will stop, because there are significant measurable research based reasons, evidence, economic evidence for doing this work in organizations. And so when organizations can make money or save money by doing something, they’re gonna be doing it
Maria Ross 06:17
for sure. That’s actually my optimistic take as well is, you know, folks saying that this is, you know, on the decline, or kind of stay away from it when you’re talking about empathy. The remarkable thing that you see is that organizations that recognize the benefits they’re achieving by investing in diversity, equity, inclusion, belonging, all the things they’re not going to be willing to let go of that, because there’s a bottom line benefit to them, and there’s a benefit too overall, in terms of their ability to attract the right talent, their ability to stay innovative and compete, their ability to make good business decisions. So it’s not just this, like fancy veneer they’re putting on their business. It’s actually helping the business or the organization succeed. And so that’s actually my, you know, my hopeful star that I look to all the time to say, you know, if it’s kind of crass, but it’s also like, well, if they’re continuing to see the benefits and they’re continuing to make money, they’re going to continue to support it, no matter what anyone says, no matter what the so
Sara Taylor 07:19
I’m hoping absolutely well. And you know, the other piece about that, we can always look externally and say, How are folks talking about us? Are they going to, you know, what’s going to all of that? And I think it is also an opportunity for introspection as a practice. So if we know so clearly that there are benefit yet folks aren’t seeing it. How are we not communicating about this work in a way that we could be? Where are we missing the mark when we know that really everyone benefits from an inclusive workplace? Then why is there resistance? How do we need to approach folks in our organization that are resistant in a different way for them to be able to see what’s in their self interest as well.
Maria Ross 08:09
Absolutely, and I think you know what you said earlier about the misunderstanding, I get this with empathy all the time, of the misunderstanding of empathy and leadership, the more we can educate that’s actually helping us get over the change management hump of this, which is really psychological. It’s not data driven, so being able to explain, no, this is what it is, and this is what it isn’t. And here’s the role you get to play in this, and here’s how it doesn’t threaten you. It actually enhances what you do. It enables you to do your job better all of these things. It’s a psychological exercise, as much as it is. You know us, we really want to throw the data at people, but it’s really about their emotions at that point. So So talk to us about unconscious filters. What are they? How do we recognize them, and what is the damage that they do
Sara Taylor 09:01
absolutely unconscious filters are automatic mechanisms that operate in our unconscious, and they dictate for us, our thought, our decisions and eventually, Our actions. So one way to better understand them is by understanding what their functions are. So just like my elbow has been designed to bend my arm and it has evolved to do that, my filters have been designed to do three things. First, actually, the first one to get at it. I’m going to ask a question, how many pieces of information do you think our brains take in in one second?
Maria Ross 09:49
Oh, how much are they exposed to? Or how much do they take
Sara Taylor 09:53
in? Well, actually taking in? Yeah, okay, and I mean, one second,
Maria Ross 09:58
I feel like it. In the hundreds of 1000s, just all the data points across our senses. Yeah, 11
Sara Taylor 10:05
million. And you’re right. It’s across all of our senses, 11 million. And the reason why that’s difficult to imagine is because of the second part of the question, how many of those 11 million are we conscious of? Only 40. So
Maria Ross 10:19
40 million or 4040, per second. Okay, got it
Sara Taylor 10:25
so the rest of those 10,999,960 it’s our filters that are taking them in, Yeah, completely outside of our conscious awareness. How many seconds have I been awake today? I don’t know, not a savant to be able to figure that out. But multiply that by that number, that’s how much information I don’t even have conscious access to that. I’ve taken it the second. So that’s the first function. They’re designed to take in that information without our conscious ever being aware of it, because it’s too much for our conscious to it’s protective, in a way. It’s protective. Yeah, our conscious just literally isn’t able to do that, right? So, yep, we need the information. Then the second piece is, second function is our filters go through all of that information, and they use it in every situation to explain and evaluate what’s going on around us. So that explanation and evaluation is coming only from my past experiences. And then the third function I’ll get at also with a question, and I’ll ask you to pause and just see if the listeners can think about it for a second too. Can you tell me right now what your next thought will be? And we can’t, because that thought is created in our unconscious by our unconscious filters. So you start to see putting all three of these together, just how very powerful they are, taking in more information than we’re conscious of, then using that information to create our thoughts, which in turn create our decisions and our actions. Which means every single one of my actions today, whether they were inclusive or not, whether they were equitable or not, whether they were effective or not. They originated with an unconscious filter. And if I don’t have the ability to check and challenge those filters, then my filters are 100% in control.
Maria Ross 12:38
My gosh, so good. Well. And also, you know, where we link that up with how we end up treating other people is that we’re constantly creating, it sounds like we’re constantly creating all those shortcuts. It sounds like kahnemans work around the brain and the two areas of our brain of the conscious and the unconscious, and our brain only letting in so much into our conscious, just from again, from a defensive, a protective like we can only handle so much, but then that impacts not only the decisions we make, but how we treat other people. And so I’d love if you would talk about what is the impact on our empathy of those unconscious filters,
Sara Taylor 13:19
absolutely, if the behavior of another person. So let’s think about that. Our filters create our thought, which create our behaviors, right? And that’s the same with the people that I’m interacting with, but if I’m not thinking about their filters, I’m only focused on their behaviors. And so I see the behavior and I say, Oh, that was rude. Well, that was unprofessional. And I might even expand that value judgment to them as on as an individual, not just their behavior, but they were rude. They were unprofessional versus thinking about that behavior was created by a filter for them as well. And then, if I overlay that with another piece that, if we really think about, I’ve asked this question to, I don’t know, 10s of 1000s of people in presentations and and I say, you know, how many folks, how many of you enter the workplace every day, or enter into your relationships with positive intent? Everyone raises their hand. I mean, honestly, who shows up in the workplace and says, Today, I really want to be an ogre, like I want the biggest jerk? Yeah, yeah. So if we all have positive intent, then why is there any misunderstanding? Why am I not able to see then how my action landed differently for someone else? Mm. Hmm, I’m focused on my positive intent and not the impact I have on the other person. And I’m also not thinking about their positive intent. That’s really the empathy gap. So I’m focused on I’m respectful, because I don’t want to be an ogre, right? I’m respectful, I’m professional, but yet there’s this disconnect here, so then that means they’re the ones that are disrespectful, and I don’t have the empathy to see where that behavior came from. And so instead of seeing that end behavior as something that came from their filters. My I’m letting my filters judge them, yes. So let’s take just a real quick, really easy example. Let’s say two folks, and one like small talk in the in a meeting, and the other one doesn’t. And you can imagine the kind of conflicts, right? So Well, you could extrapolate
Maria Ross 16:06
this across introversion versus extroversion, yes, people that are more open and vulnerable than other people, like, yeah, all the differences that we bring to the workplace, for sure of
Sara Taylor 16:16
those, and if I’m only focused on well that person was rude because they didn’t have the small talk. And I like small talk. I’m not exhibiting the empathy to know what were they really intending. What really did that behavior mean for them? Can I really see that from their perspective, not from my perspective, because if I’m only looking from my perspective and leaning into my filters that are judging them as rude, then I don’t have that room for empathy to see that’s not at all what they intended.
Maria Ross 16:58
So what I’m hearing, which is an interesting tie in of our work. Why you’re here is that in order to get to first acknowledge our unconscious filters that we have them, but also to leverage empathy as a way for us to get beyond both of our unconscious filters in an interaction. And that’s where you know why I believe that trait of curiosity is the number one trait of empathic people. Because I’m not going to make assumptions. I’m going to ask. I had a situation several months ago with a new person that I met. I’m a hugger. I meet people and I hug them, and I was sensing that this woman was like bristling when I was hugging her, and I was making an assumption that as another woman, she was a hugger too. And so what I did was I just said, Oh, I’m so sorry. I’m actually a hugger. Are you not a hugger? And she didn’t quite answer the question, but at least I could ascertain that it wasn’t comfortable for her to hug me yet. Yeah. And so I could have made all kinds of judgments about this person. Absolutely it was cold, or she didn’t like me or whatever, when it’s really, she’s just not a hugger. And so it was just, you know, being able to just put that out there. And I think she was taken aback that I even called it out, but she was also relieved at the same time, yeah, that, you know, her actions weren’t, her impact wasn’t going to be misinterpreted either. And so I really feel like when we are more present, and we’re kind of getting people’s cues, but also asking them those questions, we can help them recognize their unconscious filters as well, absolutely.
Sara Taylor 18:33
And what we the way I talk about it, is very first understanding your own and you started there. Yeah, I’m a hugger, right? So then you know when you’re in those situations, and that’s a rub. But the same is true for things that aren’t as visible, like you mentioned. I’m an extrovert, how does that show up in my behaviors then? I’m a direct communicator. How does that show up in my behaviors then? Or I’m crystal clear about how I’m different, yeah, different from for you, not everybody in this world is a hugger, right? And so if we assume difference a starting with ourselves, that what I do is not the norm. Mm, hmm, what I do is my difference. My filters are my difference. How am I different? How are my filters dictating how I see the world, and then not holding judgment when you come across the difference. And you did that in your example, two things that I’ll just it
Maria Ross 19:32
only took me to my 50s to get that, but
Sara Taylor 19:37
I know when we’re all it’s
Maria Ross 19:39
a long time I just I’m laughing at what you’re saying, not because I’m laughing at you. You’re reminding me of this whole thing of like you’re different because you’re not me versus me, saying, Well, I’m different from you. It reminds me of when I moved to Ohio from New York, from Long Island, from Queens, when I was going into sixth grade. Yeah. And I purposely lost my New York accent because I was treated so badly, yeah, that the kids were saying, Well, you have a funny accent. And I was saying, but you have a funny accent, and they’re like, No, we don’t. We talk like the people on the news. So we don’t have an accent. You do. And it’s was such a great example of No, but to me, you have an accent. I don’t, right, so it’s just that was such a like, blatant example of us. We don’t we think our behaviors and our norms are the norms are the norm. Anyone who’s not that is different,
Sara Taylor 20:36
yes. And then when we don’t start with ourselves and say, I’m the different, then what can happen is we can more easily sit with judgment with others. So if I’m the norm, then, yeah, that’s why your behavior isn’t right, isn’t professional, right? So it’s a whole lot easier to release that judgment if we start with, I’m the different. And it’s also helps us to lean into assuming that there’s different, yeah, and just automatically there’s going to be a difference. Might there be some cases it’s kind of like, I think about the criminal justice mantra, right, innocent, until proven guilty. I say different until proven similar. You might still find that there’s a similarity, but if I start with it’s different, then I’m gonna ask, you know, like in this well, I’ll actually take, uh, what I just did just the other day, there was a holiday that was that’s coming up. And I said, So do you celebrate that holiday? And they said, Yeah, okay, well, then happy this holiday, right? So I’m assuming that difference is there, and the same could be like with that example of a hugger. So I’m a hugger. What do you think? Are we hugging? Are we shaking hands or Yeah, kind of a thing, yeah, just assuming that difference is going to be there.
Maria Ross 22:06
You know, what’s interesting as I’ve gotten older through my career, one of the biggest ones that I’ve become more cognizant of is that whole extroversion, introversion thing. For years, I’ve taken multiple Myers, Briggs, from the time I was like 15 in, like, a leadership camp to, you know, 20 years ago, within a work team that we had and my four letters have kind of remained the same for my entire life. But one of the biggest things I realized about difference at work, when we talk about diversity, we’re not just talking about ethnicity or race or gender. There’s a lot of different facts. And really taking the time to understand that if someone is not speaking up in a meeting or brainstorming session. It’s not because they don’t have anything to offer. It’s because I process in the moment, out loud they do not. They need time to marinate and think about and, you know, discover for themselves. And I was always very judgy early in my career, in my 20s of people like that, until I realized and now I accommodate that in meetings, when I do workshops for teams, when I do brand strategy engagements, I try to give people different modalities to tap into their ideas, so that when we do come to the workshop, understanding that there might be someone who doesn’t say a word for that entire four hours. But have I given them some sort of an outlet, or some sort of a forum, or some preparation they can do in advance? But that was a long time to realize that, and I think it’s because we didn’t have people talking to us like we do today, about difference and about inclusion and just, you know, everybody is not built like us, and this is why you know in my recent book in the empathy dilemma, why the first pillar of being empathetic and effective as a leader is self awareness, yes, understanding where you are and what your strengths and your challenges and your blind spots and your emotional triggers are because they’re different than someone else’s so absolutely little diatribe there. But well,
Sara Taylor 24:03
it’s not because it it completely connects in our process of developing this ability to check and challenge our filters, our ability to be more effective, that’s where we start, too, and we talk about it as see self. I need to see my own filters, see my own differences before I see others, yes, and see their filters and their differences before I see approach and think about how I’m going to operate differently. And when it just to be clear, when I say, see, we’re not talking about just ocular vision there. We’re talking about all of the ways that we’re taken in, yeah, which is, like you said, you know, the feelings, the sense I’m getting about folks, but what we often do is we want to go straight to that end. Okay, what am I supposed to do in this situation?
Maria Ross 24:53
What am I supposed the action? Yeah,
Sara Taylor 24:57
when we actually have to develop. Through those I can’t do that do if I can’t take those other first steps first
Maria Ross 25:06
so I wanted to ask you about that, because we always do like to leave people with some practical things they can practice or take away from this. And so if you’re in that moment, whether it’s it’s you as a leader with your team, what would you advise people to what could be a next step they can take. Is it just they have a broad relationship? Is it that they, you know, what do you advise in that moment where it’s like, okay, I realize there is difference now. Now, where do I go from here? Who accommodates who as an example?
Sara Taylor 25:34
Oh my gosh. Okay, just in all of that, I’m like, Okay, I’ll say this, and I’ll say that it’s
Maria Ross 25:41
just based on the picture. Sorry, say it all. Say
Sara Taylor 25:43
it all. Let me actually start with where you ended, which was, I do get this a lot. You know, folks will say, you know, but it’s a two way street. It’s a two way street. So why do I have to be the one that shifts my behavior? And I use in my first book the analogy of, let’s just pretend it actually is a street, and we’re headed towards each other, and I see the obstacles that will make us crash, and you don’t. Would I say, Well, hey, this is a two way street. I’m not gonna I’m head straight to those obstacles, because you are too. I mean, no, we wouldn’t do that. We wouldn’t cause a crash intentionally. We wouldn’t cause that flash of our personalities, of our ways of being, that ineffectiveness. So first of all, that accountability. If I’m going to wait for others, well, then I’m going to get it sucked into an effective interaction, when I might be able to pull that up to a more effective place. The other piece is just some real quick things we talked about it a little bit earlier, and that is really thinking about intent impact. So instead of focusing on my intent, which my filters are always going to say, you’re right, Sarah, you’re respectful, you’re professional, you’re this, it was them. Instead, I’m going to flip that around, and I’m going to assume positive intent on their behalf, and then I’m also going to assume that the impact I had on them wasn’t positive. So when I do that, it gives me the other piece, which is accountability. I need to take accountability for what’s going to happen in this interaction. Again, it’s kind of like I was saying earlier. Who wants to raise their hand and say, Yay, I really want to be ineffective. No, none of us. So let’s take accountability for being as effective as we can in those situations, assume positive intent on the other part and focus on our own impact. That’s one quick strategy.
Maria Ross 27:55
I love that because, and first of all, I love the analogy of the two cars going at it because it’s like, okay, so what do you want to do? You want to be right, or you want to be right, or you want to be dead, like, exactly. But I love that analogy, and I also love your point about, you know, and I think, I hope, at least for me, it’s been true again, as you get older, you start to think more about what role you play in the interaction I talk to when I’m doing leadership trainings or keynotes. I talk about this fact of understanding what you bring to the interaction, yes, and where you know it’s that old phrase of like, well, I’ve had all these bad relationships with all these people at work. Well, what’s the common denominator? It’s you, right. So thinking about, well, what actually am I bringing that? Maybe it may be, it might not be the truth, but maybe that person is reacting to yes or responding to So really being thoughtful and reflective about the bad situations. I do this a lot. When I have arguments with my husband, I think back of like, oh, I probably could have said that in a better way, or I could have, you know, it doesn’t avoid the argument, but you know, it’s being able to reflect on it after and not just assume it’s all the other person’s fault or the other person needs to do all the changing. And what I always tell people, and this sounds similar, is that when I get the question of, well, what do I do if I’m in an interaction with someone who’s not empathetic, like no matter what I do, they’re not being empathetic to me, and I always say, well, that’s kind of not your responsibility. All you can do is model how you want the interaction to go and hope it stays with them, and it may not impact them in that conversation, but maybe when they go away, they’ll realize that you were acting in a certain way with them, and you were getting curious, and you were trying to reach out, and maybe you’ve impacted them for the next interaction or the interaction with someone else. And so it’s you can’t make someone be inclusive in your world or equitable. We can’t make someone be empathetic. All we can do is be the model and show up absolutely that we can and hope that people sort of get the hint. Yes, absolutely, to dumb it down, right?
Sara Taylor 30:01
Absolutely, you know, you’re reminding me of, I remember eons ago in a parenting class. You know, our youngest daughter was probably, you know, three or four, and the instruct parenting instructor saying, okay, you know, we hear you all want your kids to be empathetic. How do you teach that? And we all sat there scratching our heads, how do you teach empathy? How do you teach empathy? And it was that be empathetic yourself. It is that same piece, so also from my line of work, if I want to set up my children in my life for being an inclusive and effective when they’re adults, I need to model that now with them, right, whatever the children are in my life or the staff that I have on my team, I need to model it myself.
Maria Ross 30:55
For sure, your actions speak way louder than your words, and so talk to us a little bit about what is your intent with the new book. With, first of all, I want to know what you mean by thinking at the speed of bias. But also, what do you hope leaders will do after reading the book? What do you hope they take away from it? So kind of two questions in there as we wrap up.
Sara Taylor 31:15
Yeah, absolutely. Thinking at the speed of bias. If you think about those three functions of our filters, our filters go boom. They’ve created my thought, which lots of times I don’t even have the thought. I just go straight to the action, and it’s happens in a millisecond. So in order to catch up with ourselves, we’ve got to slow down, and we’ve got to have a more active, conscious process. So instead of our filters just dictating our our actions or our behaviors, we do a check and a challenge. Wait, what was that? Well, you know, where is that coming from? And in my book, I give a lot of tools of how to do that. Again, you know, one that I mentioned be real clear about my biggest filters, that’s one of the easiest ways to see when those are in juxtaposition to someone who’s different, and also know understanding the different types of filters and so forth. So that piece of how do you think at the speed of bias? It’s impossible to think that fast. So we have to actually counter intuitively, slow down. We have to slow down and slow down our conscious process in order to do that check in challenge. So when it comes to organizations, what I hope that leaders will do is just like we started off before saying the work starts with ourselves. That’s true in organizations as well. Leaders have to do their own work first. This is not work that we can delegate. We are taught as leaders to delegate, but this is not work you can delegate. Hey, will you go to get some of that self awareness for me? We can you have that by next Friday? I
Maria Ross 32:59
actually say that about empathetic culture, about, you know, you as a leader, can’t make it hrs problem.
Sara Taylor 33:05
Yeah, absolutely.
Maria Ross 33:07
Go. Make us an empathetic culture like, no, you’ve got to do some of the work for your team, and that’s why, you know, the first two pillars in the empathy dilemma are about self, not about others, because you have to have your own house in order. Yes, and you won’t succeed every day. You’re going to have different levels of capacity on different days. And I’m sure it’s the same in the work that you do as well.
Sara Taylor 33:28
Absolutely. And the other piece is that we actually measure this competence. There’s a an assessment out there called the IDI that measures it, and what we have seen in 1000s of groups and organizations, is that when we look at the overall effectiveness of an organization, it is never more effective or more developed than its leaders. So what does that mean? Not that our leaders are somehow better or smarter. It means that our leaders set the bar and create the culture, so if our leaders haven’t done their own work to develop, they cannot expect their organization to develop and be more effective. It also means that any kind of dei work you’re doing without that development is just going to be hamster wheel, spinning the wheels 100% transactionless attraction list transactions. So that development piece has to come first, starting with leaders cascading down in the organization, and then they’ll have the ability to really take a look at where inclusion or exclusion, equity or inequity is built into the system. I love it. Well, I could
Maria Ross 34:48
talk to you for another hour about this. This is great, but we gotta go. I’m gonna put a link to the IDI assessment you mentioned in the show notes, and I’m also gonna give listeners a few episodes they may want to. To take in that are related to this topic, from allies and inclusion experts like Karen Catlin and some of the names are escaping me. Cynthia, oh young, I will put some links to those past episodes as well, because this touches on so much so. Sarah, thank you so much for your time and your insights today. And where can we’ll have all your links in the show notes, but where can folks that are on the go learn more about you and your work?
Sara Taylor 35:26
Yeah, LinkedIn is good spot. So Sarah Taylor also my company, which is deep sea consulting, and that’s se deep sea consulting, that’s another good spot, of course, wherever you get your books, and particularly Amazon. I’ve got an author bio there, and you can get the books there as well. Yes,
Maria Ross 35:45
the new book is called thinking at the speed of bias, and your past best seller is called filter shift. So everyone, please check those out. Thank you again, Sarah,
Sara Taylor 35:53
thank you, Maria. This has been a delight. And thank you everyone
Maria Ross 35:57
for listening to another episode of the empathy edge podcast. If you like what you heard, you know what to do, rate review, share with a friend or a colleague, and until next time, please remember that cash flow, creativity and compassion are not mutually exclusive. Take care and be kind. For more on how to achieve radical success through empathy, visit the empathy edge.com there you can listen to past episodes, access show notes and free resources. Book me for a Keynote or workshop and sign up for our email list to get new episodes, insights, news and events. Please follow me on Instagram at Red slice. Maria, never forget, empathy is your superpower. Use it to make your work and the world a better place. You.
