Optimal Work Daily - Career, Productivity and Entrepreneurship 1932: How To Work With Unconscious Bias In Your Organization by Christine Comaford of Smart Tribes Institute
Jan 14, 2026
Explore why traditional diversity training often falls short and what neuroscience reveals about unconscious bias. Discover the distinction between diversity and inclusion, and learn how fostering inclusion can enhance team performance. The discussion highlights strategies to improve communication and develop structures that effectively mitigate bias. Finally, understand how our instinctual threat responses can hamper creativity and connection in workplace settings. Uncover practical steps to create a more inclusive and innovative environment.
AI Snips
Chapters
Books
Transcript
Episode notes
Bias Is Built Into The Brain
- Unconscious bias is hardwired and evolved to quickly categorize people and threats.
- The brain processes ~11 million bits but we consciously handle ~40, making bias necessary for survival.
Diversity Outperforms Similarity
- Diverse teams consistently outperform homogeneous ones despite comfort in similarity.
- The business case for addressing bias is strong because diversity improves performance.
Awareness Alone Won't Fix Bias
- Biases help us delete, distort, and generalize massive incoming data so we don't go crazy.
- We operate almost entirely unconsciously, which explains why awareness alone rarely changes behavior.
