Wednesday 29 March 2017

Legal-Island Equality and Diversity Awards for Northern Ireland

It's all happening this week at Legal-Island. Friday night is big. Very big with the inaugural Legal-Island Equality and Diversity Awards.
So far everything is going according to plan. All tables and all seats are accounted for and it is a capacity sell out crowd. The entertainment is booked and consists of Irish Dancers, African Drummers, Slovakian Fiddle Players and Caribbean Soul Singers.
Our keynote speaker is Kate Marshall. I have a feeling about her that tells me she will be great and really connect on the night. Yours truly is delivering a five minute speech after the Lord Mayor of Belfast has also said a few words.

Bring it on Legal-Island! Like only Legal-Island can!

Wednesday 15 March 2017

Strictly speaking we could be in big trouble here!

So we have about a week to go before the dance competition and it's beginning to get a bit worrying. There's still too much slow in our quick, quick slow and I seem to be getting confused between my jive and my cha cha steps.
Our biggest challenge, however, is us. You see there are two leaders in the partnership which is one too many. I keep reminding Anna that the male is supposed to lead but she wants to manage the partnership becomes she thinks she's the better of the two dancers. And she is right.

We need a lift too! Anna is slim and some have even called her petit. Trouble is she feels neither of these things when I try to get her in the air! Maybe we both need more dance lessons and me a few protein shakes.
Any kind donation would ease the worry and the pain. These can be made online. Please be sure to mention Anna and Barry in the optional message facility when making the donation. Thank you!

Donate here

Monday 13 March 2017

Unconscious Bias and that BBC Interview


They were all laughing about it at first. But now the whole thing seems to have turned a bit nasty.

Over the weekend a video clip showing an interview with an expert on Korea went viral.Not because of anything he said but due to the fact that at some point in the interview two of his children came rushing in and were promptly retrieved by a lady who clearly treated the matter with the utmost seriousness and urgency. Both she and the two children disappeared back through the same door pretty quickly. Maybe she had been watching the interview in another room only to see and to her horror, the two children in her care appearing on the screen behind Daddy? Yep that too would have sent me in something of a frenzy.

Fiona Bruce admitted on the news on Saturday that she had been laughing about the video clip all day.

But then social media starting analysing some commentary on the clips and people seemed to get angry very quickly. What had angered some was that many had talked about the lady in question as being the nanny and seemed to be making that assumption because she appeared to be of Asian origin. As it turned out she wasn't the nanny but the expert's wife and presumably mother of the two children as well.
So why is it that so many commentators made this mistake and just how surprising and offensive is it? 

The answer is would seem is to be found in what is commonly referred as our "unconscious bias". Every day we take thousands of decisions and to do so efficiently (though not always effectively and accurately) we allow ourselves shortcuts. These shortcuts are executed by drawing on references in our brain that, already in storage, save us considerable time. In one way it's good and clever process. Without it, our decision taking would be seriously slowed down and we could end the day going to bed still undecided about whether to have chicken or ham for dinner or to bath the children that night.

But shortcuts have their disadvantages too. They often require us to work off quick assumptions and stereotypes that can lead us to draw wrong conclusions (as in this case), cause offence and on occasion too, behave in a way many would consider racist.
Ask any group in public to admit to being racist and they would all attest to being anything but (or at least you would hope so). But the fact of the matter is that none of us work off perfect and pure thinking and we all operate off biases to a point. The important thing is for us to realise this and to actively go after our biases with a view to containing and even eliminating them.

One of the best ways of achieving this is by doing training on "unconscious bias" in the workplace. Just a few scenarios for the trainee is usually enough to convince them that unconscious bias lurks in us all but can be relatively easily addressed. My own company offers training on unconscious bias which is offered as an e-learning package.

And here's a scenario for you. Let's imagine the expert on Korea was not actually the white male in the picture but the lady who looked like she was from that same country or perhaps a neighbouring. What shortcuts would we play in then? And where would that leave the white male? Retrieving the children I suppose - cue an awful lot more stereotyping.