A short story to reveal our biases

• Showing that we all have biases
• Enabling the participants to realize how strong they are and to understand where they are rooted and how to work on them.

Duration : 15 minutes

Gather all participants for a small brain exercise (ideally at the beginning of a session). Stress the importance of visualization for the exercise and invite them to close their eyes, take a deep breath and pay attention to the pictures they will get in mind.

Start the storytelling :

“Imagine… You’re late to catch a flight You rush through the airport You pass the security check You run to the gate You step on the plane just as they close the door behind you. The pilot steps out of the cockpit to say “Hi!” You get to your destination. You go to a local restaurant and you have the best meal of your life. You really enjoy this. At the table next to you, there is a couple happily celebrating their anniversary. The next morning you go to the biggest technology conference in the world. The director of the best technology start-up of this year take the stage to speak.”

Invite the participants to remind the pictures they have in mind and to open their eyes again. Ask them :

• In your mental image, was the pilot black ? Raise your hand if the pilot was black.
• Was the married couple two men ? Two women ?
• Was the director of the technology start-up a woman ?

Give the speech to some participants that would like to react.

Conclude by reminding that it is Ok if one, or even all, of their answers was/were “no” because our brain creates images with what is familiar to us. This exercise is not made for us to judge ourselves and feel guilty but to acknowledge our biases in order to work on them. In fact : the more we train ourselves to see counter-examples of what we are used to, the more we can fight our own biases and prejudices.

• A copy of the story for the storyteller

To go further on the subject : You can screen the Ted talk of Verna Myers : “How to overcome our biases? Walk boldly toward them” Link to the Video : https://www.ted.com/talks/verna_myers_how_to_overcome_our_biases_walk_boldly_toward_them#t-431390