This document summarizes a presentation on cultivating diverse and inclusive organizations through social intelligence. The presentation covered various cognitive biases like accent discrimination, optimism bias, and the halo effect that negatively impact diversity initiatives. It discussed how social intelligence strategies can help organizations address these challenges, including learning about biases, integrating knowledge about them, and implementing science-based decision-making approaches. Specific tools introduced were a web app for numerically evaluating significant decisions and exercises to build empathy and collaborative problem-solving. The presentation emphasized the importance of social intelligence for overcoming human tendencies that impede diversity and fostering truly inclusive organizations.

1. Cultivating Diverse and Inclusive
Organizations via Social Intelligence
 Human Resources Association of Central Ohio
 May 8, 2018
 Columbus, OH
 DisasterAvoidanceExpert.com

2. Where Are You From?
 Accent discrimination
 Americans tend to
perceive (wrongly) those
with foreign accents as
lest trustworthy

3. Hidden Biases
 Accent discrimination is one
of many implicit, hidden
biases
 Hidden biases are often just
as harmful in the workplace
as biases against more
visible forms of diversity
 Yet because they are
hidden, organizations often
fail to address them

4. Presentation Overview
 Presentation on role of social
intelligence in diversity and
inclusion
 Exercise and Q&A
 Overview of social intelligence
strategy to address D&I
challenges
 Exercise on implementing
strategy
 Session wrap-up and Q&A

5. 3 Key Take-Aways
 1) Don’t Just Go With Your Gut
 2) Watch Out for Cognitive Biases
 3) Use Science-Based Decision-
Making Strategies

6. Activity
 1) Take a minute to write down one
significant D&I challenge and one
significant D&I opportunity in your
organization (they can be related or
not)
 2) Turn to someone nearby (ideally
someone you don’t know), introduce
yourself, and share with your partner
about your D&I challenge and
opportunity, and learn theirs
 3) I will ask a couple of people to
share what they learned from their
partner: who they are and what is
their significant challenge and
significant opportunity

7. Our Evolutionary Heritage
 Tribal instinct: enabled survival of
our ancestors
 In modern world, impedes D&I
initiatives
 D&I efforts have to struggle
against basic human nature
 As do other efforts to make
humans more civilized
 Need to avoid shame and guilt
 Instead, need to understand and
reshape our natural, intuitive
emotional drivers and gut instincts

8. Emotions and Reason:
Elephant and Rider

9. How Does Our Mind Work?
System 1
Elephant - Autopilot
 Subconscious
 Automatic
 Habits
 Fast
 Intuitive
 Emotional
System 2
Rider - Intentional
 Conscious
 Mindful
 Attention
 Slow
 Reasoning
 Logical

10. Knowledge is Power:
Beware Cognitive Biases

11. Emotional Intelligence vs. Social
Intelligence

12. Socially Intelligent Organizations
 Socially Intelligent Organizations
 Integrate social intelligence-
based policies and practices
into all aspects of
organizational culture
 Unfortunately, these
organizations are rare
 Despite research showing vital
role of social intelligence for
organizational success
 Including in D&I initiatives
and elsewhere

13. Empathy Gap
 Organizations tend to underestimate
importance of employee’s emotions
 “They get paid, why do we have to
care about what they feel, right?”
 Well, employee motivation and
engagement result from emotions
 Empathy gap: cognitive bias of
underestimating intensity of other
people’s emotions
 Extremely relevant for D&I
initiatives
 Those in positions of privilege
have difficulty empathizing with
those in marginalized positions on
various aspects of diversity

14. Empathy-Building Exercise
 Find partner and take turns:
 First, one person (the speaker) takes a minute
to share something they are worried about
right now relating to their job or organization
 The other person (the listener) listens
actively, without interrupting to ask for
clarification or problem-solving
 The listener then paraphrases in their own
words what they heard, including both the
emotions felt and the specific object of
concern, and asks if they have it right
 The speaker either agrees, or clarifies as
needed
 Then, you switch and do vice versa
 Discuss with each other your experiences
with this exercise

15. What Do You See?
 Raise your hand if you see
a young woman
 Raise your hand if you see
an old woman

16. Pessimism and Optimism Bias
 Two hidden biases often missed in
D&I initiatives
 Optimism bias: unrealistically
positive evaluation of reality
 Pessimism bias: unrealistically
negative evaluation
 Team conflict often comes from:
 Optimists generating ideas
 Pessimists shooting them down
 What if both groups collaborate
by combining strengths?

17. Halo Effect and Horns Effects
 Halo effect:
 if we like one characteristic of an
individual, we have a too-positive
view of their other characteristics
 Horns effect
 if we don’t like one characteristic,
we have a too-negative view of
their other characteristics
 Especially dangerous biases in
assessment for hiring & promotion
 Very important to address them in
D&I initiatives

18. Integration Exercise
 Go back to your partner and
discuss how you will integrate the
information presented so far into
your organization
 Action: Write down at least one
next action step for integrating
the information presented so far
into your organizations
 Make sure you have each others’
contact information and discuss
how you will hold each other
accountable for doing so

19. Dealing With Cognitive Biases
(in D&I and More Broadly)
 1) Learning about and watching
out for cognitive biases by
yourself
 2) Integrating knowledge into
your organizations about them
and having everyone watch out
 3) Implementing strategic
decision-making approaches in
your organizations to address
cognitive biases automatically

20. Strategic Decision-Making:
Put A Number on It
 Put numbers on personnel
assessment for hiring and promotion
 Can also use this for other
organizational decisions
 Putting numbers on decisions:
 Facilitates transparency and reduces
perceptions of unfairness/injustice
 Brings to light potential challenges
to diversity and inclusion initiatives
 As much as possible:
 Clearly communicate about the
numbers with relevant stakeholders
 Collaborate with them in deciding
on numbers to get buy-in

21. Web App: Making the Right Call on
Significant Decisions
 Free online tool to “put
numbers on it”
 https://intentionalinsights
.org/making-the-right-call-
on-significant-decisions/
 Example: hiring decision

22. Clarifying Questions and Tip Sheet
 Flip to last page of handout
 Tip sheet on putting numbers on
evaluations to make good decisions
 Can use with web app or without
 Also another tip sheet for a strategy
to prevent disasters once a decision
is made
 Fill out tip sheet form if you want
these tip sheets
 Then, ask any clarifying questions
about web app and general strategy
of putting numbers on decisions

23. Exercise on Integrating Science-
Based Decision-Making for D&I
 Find partner and discuss:
 How can you integrate science-based
decision-making into your
organization to advance D&I efforts?
 Write down a specific next step you will
take to do so
 What are the ways you can use this
app to help your organization?
 Write down a specific next step you will
take to do so.
 Exchange contact info and coordinate
with partner to hold each other
accountable for these steps

24. 3 Key Take-Aways
 1) Don’t Just Go With Your Gut
 2) Watch Out for Cognitive Biases
 3) Use Science-Based Decision-
Making Strategies

25. Invest in Social Intelligence for the
Sake of D&I Success
 Understanding and influencing
other’s emotions and
relationships – social intelligence
– is the key to true D&I success!
 In the next month, invest at
least 10% of your organization’s
D&I resources into integrating
social intelligence-based
strategies
 Next month, do 10% more and
slowly increase

26. Q&A
 Action: pass up any remaining tip
sheets
 Site: DisasterAvoidanceExpert.com
 Email: gleb@intentionalinsights.org
 Phone: 617-460-5434
 My Amazon #1 bestseller:
 The Truth-Seeker’s Handbook: A
Science-Based Guide
 Ask any questions you have about
the presentation as a whole