How to Overcome Bias in the Hiring Process with Leadership Expert, Nora Burns

On this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit, I sat down with Nora Burns. And let me just tell you a little bit about why this is going to be such a great episode, because we’re going to be talking about bias and hiring, but here’s why you need to listen to Nora. Think about it. What would you learn about leadership and workplace culture? If you step onto the front lines and mop the floors, stock the shelves, or made the deliveries. Nora Burns a leading expert in leadership and workplace culture did just that. And as a Fortune 200 Executive, Nora Burns witnessed the phenomenon of disconnection between the boardroom and the break room and its cost to the organizations. She became obsessed with understanding this disconnect in bridging the gap between titled and informal leaders while remaining in touch with all levels of the organization. In the years, she invested in analyzing leaders and working as the undercover employee for big brands, Nora uncovered some truly remarkable stories and enjoy as she shares with us, multiple examples and stories of how we can unbias our hiring process.

Jenn DeWall:

Hi everyone. It’s been a while. And on this week, I am sitting down with leadership thought leader, Nora Burns, and we are talking about the ever important topic of bias in our hiring practices. Nora, thank you so much for sitting down on Crestcom’s Leadership Habit podcast. We are so happy to have you here with us today.

Nora Burns:

Of course, I’m delighted, you know, I’m a total geek on this topic, so this might be the longest podcast. Oh no, you’ve got a hard stop. Nevermind. Okay. Seven day podcast episode.

Jenn DeWall:

Yeah, we’ll just do the longest one ever. Let’s just talk a little bit about your background, what you do, because I know that you work with clients all over and you help them in a variety of capacities, but I’d rather hear you talk about it than me try to fumble through. Because I, you know, I’m not always great in that capacity, but no worries. Just go ahead and introduce yourself to our audience. I know that you, Hey, we talked to you back, I believe. Oh my gosh, the pandemic, you know, 2020, this is your second episode.

Nora Burns:

17 years ago. I think it was about 17 years ago that we left.

Jenn DeWall:

But Nora, yeah. Tell us what you do.

Meet Nora Burns and The Leadership Experts

Nora Burns:

Yeah, so, well, my name is Nora Burns and my business name is The Leadership Experts. And I have this passion around how we lead effectively to ensure that the ECHOS that we put out into the universe, both as leaders, as well as, as team members have a positive return. Right? So, so that’s kind of my passion. Everything I do is filmed around, focused around. How do you look from a different perspective? How do you shift your perspective to see this experience differently in order to improve it? So we’ve talked before in your previous podcast about the fact that I’m the undercover candidate and that I’ve been on over 250 job interviews, not as myself. Just looking for some things in the hiring process there to help organizations redesign theirs and I’m the undercover employee. So I worked for 15 months on the front lines of five different Fortune 500 organizations where they didn’t know that I’m an expert in leadership and workplace culture. And they saw me as the cashier and the warehouse employee and the person who cleaned the bathrooms a lot. So some of the things we’ll talk about today when we talk about bias. And the impact that bias has is informed not only by my own my own study behind doing a lot of reading and research, but also about my own experience during those research projects and what I saw and what I played with then and what kind of showed up. So, so that’s, that’s who I am and I’m based in Denver, Colorado.

Jenn DeWall:

So your experience, Nora, as you know, I think it really, it blows anyone else out of the water. To know that many people in leadership positions maybe have never even experienced some of the things in their organization, whether it’s the experience of a frontline staff or even what their specific hiring process looks like. They may only have experienced at the time they got hired, but they don’t see the consistency as they onboard new people. So I’m excited to be able to draw from all of this information and knowledge that you have to share with our viewers. Thank you again so much for sitting down with us. So what like so hiring, I mean, we, how we even came about, like we need to do another podcast was just a really interesting conversation that you initiated just around, you know, the unconscious bias.

Jenn DeWall:

But the, the question to start with then is why do people with good intentions still accidentally discriminate? Because we know that it happens. You’ve seen it happen more firsthand than I ever have. So why does it still happen? People, you know, why are we still discriminating? Well, it’s interesting because there is the spectrum, right? So there’s the spectrum of people who are purposefully willfully, discriminating, people who are like, I absolutely acknowledge the fact that I will not hire a woman or a man or somebody who is of a different color or race, religion. There are people who will still willfully discriminate. We’re not going to talk about those today. That’s the whole, that whole bucket over here that are those people who are purposefully willfully discriminating. And then there’s the spectrum across to the people who have just stumbled into it and are accidentally discriminating because of their own bias, because we all have bias. Bias on its face, right? Is not- bias is really a preference for one thing or the other. Right?

Nora Burns:

I prefer the mountains to the ocean, which is why I live by the mountains. Right. Still love the ocean, but my preference is for the mountains, right? So that’s, that’s a bias that I have towards where I live. That’s not a discriminatory bias in terms of hiring thing, but it’s a bias. So I want to make sure that when we say bias, we’re not attaching it as like the word on its own on its face is bad. Right?

Jenn DeWall:

Yeah. Because I think that is a misconception. I know that I’ve seen it in my space where people, you know, it can feel like a label that people just don’t want. Like, I don’t want to say that I have bias, but we all have it. We can’t get away from it.

We all Have Bias

Nora Burns:

And we all have bias. And it’s based on all of our filters, all of our own experiences and it is living in our brains. So it’s really neuroscientists who are at the leading edge of the studies on how bias impacts all of our decisions on a daily basis. But really it’s a matter of us reclaiming that decision-making control and not letting biases make the decision, but having us purposefully, willfully making the right decisions. But the people who are unwilling to acknowledge bias are the people who will most often let their biases take control. So it’s when people say, Oh no, I don’t have any bias. Like, you know, don’t attach any of the ISTs to me essentially. Right? I don’t have any bias. I am. I am always looking at everything completely clear. And what have you, and that is the most dangerous person to have as your hiring manager, because we all have bias. And we have a society that doesn’t really allow us to talk about it. We often get shamed when we talk about it, but within our organizations, we need to be able to say, I know that I have my own biases. And so I want to make sure that when I’m hiring, I’m taking that into consideration so that I’m not tilting the scales. I don’t have, you know, the fingers on the scale of one side of that. And it’s small, they’re little things. They’re little things. Our brains are incredible are incredible. Okay.

Nora Burns:

So like today I’m drinking a hot coffee. I love coffee. So I’m drinking a hot coffee. If I were interviewing you for a job while I’m drinking this hot coffee. And then in the next hour, I interview an equally qualified candidate, someone who face on the face of your resumes and your work experience and your job samples, it would be difficult to discern, which of you is actually the stronger candidate and I’m interviewing them next. And I’m finished with my coffee and I go and pour myself a nice cold ice water. My bias is going to give the preference to you because I was drinking a hot beverage and I, my unconscious bias. There’s just something about her that was just warmer. It’s just really warmer than that other person.

Jenn DeWall:

Wait, what!? That is mind blowing to think that even some, a beverage choice, which I think, you know, I know you’re talking about accidental, you know, accidental dental bias, but I had no idea to even think that what I would have were a beverage could potentially play into how I perceive someone in an interview.

Nora Burns:

Yeah. So now let’s add asking different questions in a different room at a different time of day, or like all of the other things that change in shift during a hiring process. And then we’re, and then when we get to the end of the hiring process, if we haven’t used a data driven process, standard hiring questions in a data driven process, oftentimes hiring managers will say, I don’t know, my gut just says to go with this person. I don’t know why. I don’t know why. As soon as, as soon as you use the expression, “I don’t know why I prefer them over the other one,” bias is at work. That’s your cue. You know, there is bias at work.

Bias is Not Always What You Think

Jenn DeWall:

When you say that, and you’re not even talking about the bias that I think most people think about, you’re actually asking them to sit down because to your point there, which I love is like, how can you add more structure into your process to reduce that accidental bias that plays, but I don’t think many people even realize I didn’t until you just shared that, that if I would interview someone, you know, I’m a morning person. So if I interview someone in the morning, I am typically more alert. I feel like I have better connection by the end of the day, my tank, you know, I’ve expended a lot of energy, so I don’t connect as much at the end of the day, just because I’m a little bit more tired. And yeah, I would be doing an absolute disservice to someone by interviewing them at the end of the day. Because all I would probably be thinking is when can I turn like turn myself off and just like relax and wind down for the day. And that is, wow. I’ve never really-

Nora Burns:

Unless you’re interviewing all of your candidates late in the day. Right. So if I’m doing 6:00 PM interviews for everybody, great.

Jenn DeWall:

Now I’m like, gosh, I feel like I would have needed to know that in my experience scheduling interviews with, you know, that was part of the role that I played in HR for the brief time that I was there. But I would have, I wish I would’ve known that because I just looked at someone’s calendar and said, well, this looks like a good time that they can make it work. Perfect. Let’s schedule that .I didn’t even realize. And I feel like that’s the first start of that. I’m setting up that manager for bias then of not knowing. And I’d never thought about that. Holy cow,

Nora Burns:

A lot of things impact what’s happening in our decision making process that we’re not paying attention to. And it’s all happening in the background of our brains. Right? So, so right. Warm drink, cold drink. You don’t get, I wanted it without having read the information about somebody having done that study. I would not have occurred to me that that would have come into play. And yet as a speaker and trainer, I know that if I’m on at the 1:00 PM time slot, right after lunch, I’m going to have to work a lot harder. And if I’m on the 8:00 AM slot, right, because of the impact of lunch. So I know that there’s things environmentally that impact how engaged people are and what decisions we make. And yet there’s all kinds of little things that we don’t even think about. And that’s how really well-intentioned people make biased decisions. And it happens in little ways like the coffee or the water. And it happens in big ways by one of the biggest things is if I allow, if I allow a candidate’s resume to direct the conversation that is wrought with bias! And I can-

Jenn DeWall:

Wait, wait, wait, wait. So let’s talk about this because I know that we can go a lot of directions. So let’s talk, how do you overcome it? So one of the ways, so how do we overcome this accidental bias that we don’t even realize that maybe we have, and that’s fully present in our hiring process? How do we overcome it? So the first thing that you’re saying is, I know you said a structured process and we’re going to go to that. But now another thing that you’re also saying is thinking about how do you start with a resume because yes, again, you look at the resume and you highlight what you think, you know, looks like it aligns with the job description. You ask questions about it, but that is not a great thing. That’s what I’m hearing?

Nora Burns:

This hiring process that most organizations have been using for decades upon decades. If not centuries is flawed, right? We’ve automated, it we’ve updated it with automation, but it still comes down to the fact that you’re filling out an application of some sort. And we’re using that to make a decision. This is the same process that was being used in the 1800’s and hiring somebody to work at the market, right? Like, so there’s those, we’ve layered these processes in. So let’s back up all the way. So if we’re going to go through it in a systematic way, let’s go all the way back to our job posting. So if you want to try to eliminate bias within your hiring process, you got to go all the way back to that very first touchpoint. Because when we post a job, right there, we have some unconscious bias. If we’re not actively looking to overcome it.

Avoiding Gender Bias in Job Postings

Nora Burns:

So there are words that will be more likely to attract a female candidate versus a male candidate, right? So there’s gender words. And we pack our job postings with things that say like competitive and determined. And I really need somebody to build, right? Those are three masculine terms. Now I can hear some of you already being like, wait, like masculine terms? But we know that when we pack a job posting with words like that, like competitive and determined and build that we will get more male candidates. And if I use terms more like cooperative and team and create- those words tend to draw more female candidates. Right?

Jenn DeWall:

No kidding. That’s what I think about that. I’m like, I want to apply for the one that’s cooperative, like focuses on team.

Nora Burns:

Yeah, I want to create versus build it’s it’s this nuance that says we’re going to draw more of one or the other candidate. Now some of this you’re going to have to play with, so data is your friend in avoiding bias. So if I run a job posting, I’m a huge fan of AB testing by the way. Meaning having two job postings for the same job that are worded differently out in marketplace and pay attention and ask, have something in the job posting where they have to designate something in their cover letter when they submit. So you’ll know which one it came from. And then you can look at your data where, who, who responded to which one right? Or men or women or people who don’t identify, don’t have a gender identity who choose not to identify their gender. If you have a drop of a particular race, if you have a drop, you know, any of the markers that you want to try to measure to break down bias.

Bias in the Job Description

Nora Burns:

So our language and our job posting, we also know through research that if you put those little things in the job, posting the things that are like the dream, like really nice to have, like, I don’t absolutely need it, but I was sure love it. But it’s something that they’re going to do maybe once or twice a year, if they have that skill, let’s leave those dream things off of our job postings. The reason I want you to leave dream things off of job postings and not even couch it in the language that says it’d be nice to have or special, you know, preference given for this particular unusual skill that we don’t really need, is that more men will apply to that job than women will. Women tend to want to check all the boxes. So if they’re not suitable under every single thing that you’ve listed under your job posting, they’re less likely to submit. The men, they’ll still submit.

Jenn DeWall:

I think that that’s, you know, I think I’ve heard the, you know, the data that women need the 100%, but I don’t have a solution for that, but what you’re bringing out as a solution, a way to recognize that you might be adding in additional information that may either then, you know, discourage someone from applying because they feel like they don’t have that per that statistic. And yeah, women absolutely want to feel like, I think, you know, it brings up imposter syndrome, right? We’re fighting with other people’s own psychology or own beliefs or limiting beliefs, thoughts. So but I love that, you know, thinking, yeah, it’s a nuanced thing that people don’t, you know, it’s not part of their day to day that take it off the resume, make sure that it’s just really focused on the primary things, because I think also then you’re going to get someone that may be so attracted to that too, that they may then feel like the position is probably weighing heavier in that piece. And so that’s their draw. And then if you hire them based on that, then they would also, I guess be probably unhappy if they’re now thinking that that’s a big part of their role.

Nora Burns:

Oh my gosh. Yes. So you are also misleading the candidate. If you say, Oh, that’d be great. If you had AutoCAD experience and they get to use AutoCAD once a year and they’re like, right. So having those, the dream list will, will build bias into your system. And so the thing is if, if we back it up all the way to the job posting and we do some things to, to block bias there, it helps the entire funnel all the way through, because if we are only addressing it with the questions we’re asking the interview, we’re already too late. We have already banked bias in, right?

Jenn DeWall:

Because the number of candidates that we had that came from one pool or the other. So, so how we play with the wording on our ads and a lot of it is going to be trial and error. You’re going to play with how you write your ads. You’re going to change the words. And there’s all kinds of tools available in terms of words that tend to skew more masculine or feminine and, and making sure that you, you trade off, right. That you have an equal distribution across your job posting. So then we get through that and our job posting is out there. And then where do we put it? Right? So this has been an age-old problem with, if we only use one recruiting tool or we only go to one college to draw recruits from, for our management development program, then the demographic of our candidate looks like the demographic of that publication of that job, board of that college. So, and we all those of those in the audience who are recruiters who work in the talent acquisition space have worked hard on relationships with colleges and universities, so that they are top of mind for the professors there, for the job counselors there so that they get great space at the job fair. Right? And so they’ve worked really hard to cultivate those relationships. And now I’m saying, Oh, I need you to look at the demographics of that college or university, because we tend to cultivate those relationships either with our own Alma maters or with one that is like tried and tested through the, through the organization. Like some, somebody years ago in a leadership role had gone there. And that’s why we go there.

Bias in Education Demographics

Jenn DeWall:

Yeah. I can tell you that at, by past company or at the first company, the first job that I took very heavily recruit, very heavily recruited at all, big 10 universities plus BYU like that is I could guarantee that everyone came from either that pathway and it, you know, it did come from a little bit of like, Hey, we’ve got this. And then like, someone’s going with their friends. But even when they asked me to go and recruit, I was going to big time, you know? So not only did all of my peers go to a different, big 10 school, I went to a big 10 school, shocking, but I, you know, got to travel to big 10 schools to try and recruit more people from big 10 schools. And yeah, we were missing out on a lot of people. And then you did get, and I just, I will always remember a vendor saying to me when I worked at that job, she’s like, everyone in this organization looks the same. And I’m like, you’re right. And even my husband, when we would be out shopping at my employee shop, my husband would be like, you all look the exact same. You dress the exact same. You wear the same things on trend.

Jenn DeWall:

I mean, there, it got so easy to then be able to say, I could watch a new intern or a new hire and say, I know exactly how far you’re going to get based on, you know, then you’re laying on a different thing. Like based on how you show up based on what, you know, I can tell you that it was very, I mean, I love my peers, but if I’m just speaking candid, like about that experience, it felt like I was working in the Greek system just in that. And you know, I loved all those peers, so I don’t want to make that sound like it was bad, but we don’t want all of the same people in a workplace.

Nora Burns:

And it didn’t come from a place in a various, right. It didn’t come from this. We are purposefully, actively. It comes from subtle things like people saying, Oh, they’re not a cultural fit. And I’m like, Ooh, okay. That phrase for me is just like, okay, we’re going to have like a 45-minute exploration. Because I want to know what that means to you. Because often cultural fit is simply a nice and HR, term kind of way to discriminate using bias. And so now if you’re going to say right, we had three interviews, they relate to each of them and we run with military precision, our, our operations, et cetera, it won’t work. And that’s, that’s not cultural fit. That’s there. They don’t right. Like the timeline doesn’t match. Right. So that’s one thing. But if it’s, well, you know, I think, I don’t think they’re gonna get along with the guys. I don’t think they’re going to fit in with, you know, we have a pretty rough and tumble crowd. And right. That’s bias.

Jenn DeWall:

And you hear that one too, like, Hey, they’re not strong enough. Or they’re not asked to be again. That is a point where you do feel like you’re doing someone a favor by not putting them into a situation that you think that would be bad for them, but bias. Oh my gosh. Like I feel like that is absolutely something that I would try to consider even in like volunteer positions. Like I’m, you know, a co president of a board. And it’s even if I think about the fit for our board, I wonder if I could be in the process, even adding in more bias

Nora Burns:

As humans. I mean, this is human nature. This is, this is all built out of our ability or design to protect ourselves, right? So where do we see danger and where do we see things that aren’t our norm, this starts when we’re babies, the people that we are around that when we are babies and we’re observing everything that’s happening and our little neural pathways are developing, we’re determining, what’s safe. Who’s taking care of me. Who’s providing food shelter, clothing, right? We don’t actually say that as a baby. We don’t have those language skills, but we’re aware of where is food, shelter, clothing, where is warmth coming from? And we are associating that food shelter, warmth, comfort from the faces that are surrounding us. And for most of us, the faces that are surrounding us look like ours. Right? So unless purposeful intent has been going to introduce babies to people who don’t look like us, sound like us, act like us, believe like us. Our very first neural pathways are being designed to say, this is what safety looks like. Right? So all of this is banked over time off of that.

Nora Burns:

Sorry, we can break it. We can break. So the, the, so the scary news is I grew up in a town of 711 people who all looked like me. And our greatest level of diversity in that town is that you were either Catholic or Lutheran. That’s right. Two religions worshiping the same God. That was our diversity in town. And we still managed to fight about that, just, you know. But all of the people surrounding me, looked like me. So if I don’t purposefully make effort to redesign some of those attachments and what safety looks like, I will continue to carry on through my life with that bias, banked and built in. So you can do things to break it. You have to be cognizant and aware of it.

Jenn DeWall:

Well, the only thing I was going to add, because I hadn’t ever heard, I have a lot of friends that are parents. And there was one friend that was talking about where they were going to send their son to daycare. And they made a very conscious choice to send him to a very diverse like daycare school. One where he is a minority almost because they, you know, with the belief that they’re like, he sees us, he sees our friends, he sees the exact same thing, like when we want him to know and experience different cultures different. And I love that they did that because I guarantee there are also some people that would say, well, I don’t know, like I, you you, you believe the opposite or something, but I think that’s really important to recognize that even in little ways, or I guess I am a part of a organization called Woman On. And one of the things that I love about that organization is the The host maximum employer will bring in people that I can tell you, they, they’re not represented in my friend circle. Even in terms of just my exposure to understanding some of these topics, I don’t have anyone that represents that. And that’s why I love it so much just because you do finally get to have that. So they’re out there, but we do have to be intentional with it.

Be Aware of Your Own Bias

Nora Burns:

Okay. So you’ve just brought this up. Like what your friendship circle looks like. This is one of the exercises. When we do training programs around this that I ask participants to do. I want you to write down the list of your top five friends who are the five people in your world. You have their back, they have your back. They’re your closest five friends, absolute, closest people, to you. Right? And then I want you to describe them in terms of what’s their race, their religion, what’s their political leaning, what’s their socioeconomic condition? And then I want you to choose two or three other differentiators. Most people end up choosing differentiators that they know that they’re going to have some variety, right? They’re like they were raised rural or urban, right. Because they’re looking for something that will differentiate, but to go through and look at the people who are the five closest people to you in your life, and what do they look like? And that gives you your idea of what you’re, what you’re in-crowd looks like, right? What you were trusted to circle is on the, meet, the Fockers. This is like a weird pop culture, reference, little circle of trust. Right? right. So what is your circle of trust? What does it look like? And no judgment. It is what it is. This is data. This is nothing other than data. This is not it’s good or bad. It is what it is.

Nora Burns:

And then it’s for you to make a decision to say, am I comfortable with this as my circle? Or do I want my crowd to have a little bit more variation? But the thing is when you’re, when you’re growing that, when you’re growing that circle of trust, it does take time and effort, and it can’t be an unequal relationship, right? It can’t be, I need you to teach me what it’s like to be “blank”. Right? Whatever that diverse thing is, that thing that’s not like your crowd, that’s different go to workshop, right? Like read a book, kind of a thing. It has to come from a place of equality and that you are on equal footing. And some of these things are easier than others. For some people having diverse socioeconomic groups is really hard because of the value and the story that they put on money. And they cannot- people who have wealth sometimes struggle with being friends, with people who don’t, because they see themselves as caretakers and they put inequality, they put an unequal ranking on that. Right. and it goes the other way as well. And so making sure that they are equal relationships, it’s kind of like when someone says, Oh, but I had, like I grew up with a black nanny. Right, right. Grew up with a Hispanic nanny. Or I grew up with a white nanny or whatever the nanny situation was. And they’re like, Oh, but I had this person in my life. But at that time, that was not an equal relationship, a child and an adult who is in service to that child are not on equal footing. That’s very different. Right. So we want to build those relationships and that circle with people who are on equal footing, it’s a teammate versus a team member who reports to you kind of a thing. So, sorry you know I can talk about this forever.

Jenn DeWall:

Oh, I love this. I’m starting to think like this might have to turn into a part one and part two, I think there’s so much to unpack there. There’s so much to unpack and based on, I would say, I think I’m I don’t know. I feel like I’m fairly experienced and educated and I’m finding that I am, I already accepted that I am biased, but I am now realizing that I am biased in ways that I never even realized I had bias. I know the bias and the friend thing, but even in the bias and the language that you use or the time that you schedule an interview. And I just hope that more people that we can, you know, the shed some insight on them because we can all figure out how to then mitigate that or manage it in a way that doesn’t, you know, discriminate against anyone, but also disservice the organization because we deserve great team members and that we want that person. We don’t want to miss out on those people. So what happens after? So if you do all the work on the job posting, then we need to think about where we’re posting it to make sure that we’re actually, you know, attracting a diverse crowd. So we can’t just look at like one set of schools. We’ve got to open that up. What do we do after that?

Ableism in the Application Process

Nora Burns:

Okay. So then when we get to the application process, now there are some actual applications, right. Online application where you need to fill out some information where we’re still in 2020 asking for some information, that’s really none of our business. And we don’t need that early in the process. And it’s everything.

Jenn DeWall:

Can we talk about that please, because I have multiple sclerosis. And the fact that that is a thing that they ask for on the application. Do you have multiple sclerosis like that? And especially how I asked you that that’s our most standard applications. And it’s insane because I think, you know, they’re asking you if you have a disability and how I live my life with multiple sclerosis right now, I do not perceive that I have any disabilities, but then asking me if I have, it is almost, it’s really offensive to me. Like it’s actually something I get very- see I interrupted you. Cause I’m so angry about that. Like, because I don’t see myself as this disability and you know, what, if there is a point in time that I am and do become disabled as a result of this, like I will deal with it then, but what, why do I have to like, say that to you now? I don’t get it.

Nora Burns:

It’s the- over time, and again, well-intentioned, that then took a different little turn. Because when Do you have questions about, do you have a disability? And what accommodation do you require an accommodation for disability? I was, and that language is, is elusive. It grew out of things having to do with the American Disabilities Act. So, right. So sometimes well-intentioned legislation led to us doing some things to try to make sure that we were accommodating people that in turn ended up, outing them for having something that we didn’t even need to know about. So part of that is the timing of when we need to know, and if we need, if we need to know when we need to know. Mainly there’s some organizations who really want to make sure that they are accommodating for anything that you might have, because they’re trying to not discriminate. And sometimes by asking the question and then HIPAA came in, so we generally don’t ask those questions, the health insurance portability and accountability act, sorry, give other people a hard time about using acronyms that other people might not know. And then I just did it. So our workplace culture thing, right. It’s and it, and it, and it excludes people who aren’t yet well informed on what all of our acronyms are that we think everybody knows. So anyhow so yes, disability is definitely one. I just had this conversation with a friend of mine who works in the space of food and how do we make sure that we’re not discriminating or killing any of our employees or people that we work with by the food that we present. And so there, the question came up, I was at what point in the process should I ask someone about if they have food allergies, because I want to make sure not to give them food that they are, they’re going to be offended by or allergic to. And it’s, and it’s so nuanced because it’s going to depend so much on how, how significant of an issue is it, right.

Nora Burns:

Am I- does it play a role in the interviewing process or does it not, right? Because if I never feed you as an employee, as a candidate or employee, we don’t provide any food. We don’t have a big treat wall that happens in some tech firms kind of a thing. If there’s never that issue, then I’s employee, employer really never need to know. Right. So, so it is, it is that’s nuanced in terms of when we need to know, but let me tell you one thing that does happen with disabilities in the hiring process that I see a lot, and that is super frustrating to me. And that is in organizations that don’t have- and again, let’s, let’s operate as if we’re in- we are post pandemic, right? Because we’re planning for the future where they’re looking for space to interview somebody and they don’t have a committed conference room on property and a neutral space on property.

Nora Burns:

And so they say, Oh, let’s just meet at the coffee shop. Let’s meet at a coffee shop near you. If I can get people to stop interviewing people at coffee shops, unless they’re actually applying to work at said coffee shop, who would see that as a huge win? As a huge win! Because I cannot sit at a coffee shop for more than an hour on any given day without watching, or, you know, professionally eavesdropping on a job interview. So there’s all kinds of issues here, but one of them is, think about the coffee shops that you go to the most often and how easy they are to navigate if you have crutches or a walker or wheelchair. And if you have a hearing, if you have hearing loss, right. If you have a sight deficiency, right? Like in any of those things, how complex that setting is for that group of people, right?

Jenn DeWall:

Even I would have guessed, like, even if we’re going in taking it, pass disability, that’s again, another great thing. But also like financially, like, cause then do they have to invest in something? I’m sorry, keep going.

Bias in the Virtual Hiring Process

Nora Burns:

Oh yeah! We can do a whole thing. When I was going to work as the undercover employee, I would regularly text friends like, okay, I’m like $80 into buying the right clothes that I can wear as a uniform for a job. That’s paying me minimum wage. Like this math is upside down, right? So we’ve got all kinds of issues there. But, how, where we interview someone, Hey, we’ve got bias around the interviewing. But we also have outright discrimination that happens because we choose an area. Now let’s talk about it during the pandemic. Right? So where we are right now, and people are interviewing like this, right? Across zoom, across Skype, across Microsoft teams, they’re using video interviews. And what is happening is hiring teams are unaware again, of their own bias. And so most people who are interviewing via video don’t know like you and I do to look at the camera, even though your eye wants to look at the screen.

Nora Burns:

So if I’m talking to a group and I’m interviewing for a job, we as Americans at least put a lot of judgment around eye contact. And we tell stories around eye contact, both consciously and unconsciously. And I don’t know, they felt a little shifty to me. I don’t know why. And it’s because they were looking at all of the photos of all of the people who were on the screen instead of looking at the camera. And so this bias then comes into our hiring process without us really being aware of why we thought they were shifting or lying to us because we were applying some body language rules that we use in person, except we were putting them into play in video and they just don’t belong there. Right. So the same thing happens with all the things that are in our background, because we’re now interviewing people and they’re in their homes and we’ve got so much bias just pouring in because we hear the kid in the background, we hear, we hear the chainsaw outside the window, right? We hear, we hear the family background noise and the dog barking and the cat Meow. And the, you know, we hear all of those things that we as hiring managers normally wouldn’t have any access to. And that we’re looking at what the background is. And we’re telling a story based on the books that are there, based on the images that are there. Right? So some of the, some of the clients I’m working with in terms of how do we avoid bias during our virtual interviews, which PS I also expect will continue beyond pandemic because we’ve realized how much easier it is to schedule. Right? Is I think they will continue. And especially for job applicants who are actively working, talk about bias, we all are looking for candidates who are actively working because they’re somehow better than the ones who aren’t working. It’s a story that’s been around for years.

Jenn DeWall:

That is a great one! I think there’s, you know, people have, I want to break down some of these myths and maybe just get your perspective because I know that some people feel okay. I have to have at least two years at this company, even though I am miserable and crying all the time, because if I don’t stay here for two years, then I will not be able to get the next job or if I leave and then there’s a gap on my resume, then the next person won’t hire me. But now based on our conversation, like those are all bias. Okay. So tell me how your perspective on that.

Nora Burns:

Those are all stories that we, that we tell about, because that’s really what bias is. It’s really about the story that we tell based on the information that we have and based on our own experiences. Right. So I want to close the loop on this other I don’t want to forget that thought on the virtual interviewing. Well, to get past it, we are one of my clients. We’re actually sending interview kits out to candidates before they interview and the kit involves a drape, right? So it’s a backdrop and of those pressure cords (tension rod) whether it was pressure, things that you can put up in a hallway or in a, you know, in a closet and whatever, so that every candidate has the exact same backdrop. And it educates them on what to expect during a virtual interview. So, but it helps to pull some of the bias out because everybody, it’s not this background, it’s a basic black background. Everybody has the same background. So I’m not telling a story about what else is happening in the background. Okay.

Jenn DeWall:

So wait, I love that though. That’s a great, I, you know, I hadn’t even thought about how do you get ahead of bias in a virtual setting. So you are actually sending out kits. That is a great, great way.

Nora Burns:

And working with those hiring managers, to understand things about video that are different so that we’re not biasing somebody. And one of the biggest ones right now, a socioeconomic condition is one of the biggest biases that happens with virtual. Because you’re seeing inside somebody’s home and you’re making all kinds of story and judgment about that. But we tell stories, we all have our own, like, we have our things where we’re like, I will never hire somebody who… Right. I’ll never hire somebody who changes jobs every two years. I would never hire somebody who went to a community college. And then to a traditional college, I would never hire somebody who… Tell your story here. That grew out of some bad experience that they had. And now that they have sandblasted that so much, they told the story that everybody who is even a little bit like that is completely like that. I don’t remember. Do you have siblings?

Jenn DeWall:

I do. I have an older sister and a younger sister and a younger brother.

Nora Burns:

Excellent. So when you were in school, did you ever have a teacher say like, Oh, you’re so-and-so’s sibling. You ever have that? Because I did.

Jenn DeWall:

I did, yeah. I definitely had a reputation that preceded me, that people wanted to make assumptions about. I’ll leave it at that.

Nora Burns:

Right! And no matter if it’s good or bad. I I’m the youngest of nine. Youngest of nine. Now, here’s, what’s interesting. Those of you who are listening or watching this podcast, I want you to pay attention to the story that you just told in your head about me when I said that, because almost everybody tells a story about the youngest of the family. Right. and they’ll be like, Oh, you’re the baby. I’m like, no, actually that was the sister directly above me who refused to give up that role. Based on the psychology about the birth order kinds of studies and all that kind of stuff, I don’t fit the description. But regardless of that, I want, I want those of you who heard me say that to really take a minute, to think about what you told yourself about me with that one data point. And that’s exactly what it is. It is only one data point and it is the vast majority of who I am. You don’t know about, even though I’ve just openly shared a whole lot of information, but you’ve told a story and that, that that’s the bias that pops in, right. I would never hire a youngest of the family. I would never hire up. I would never hire up our biases showing up for those who got upset or angry so far and will get upset and angry with other things we talk about. When you get really upset or angry, you’ve got a hot button about something, that’s, that’s a sign that you have a bias, right?

Learning to Empathize in the Hiring Process

Nora Burns:

So when I talk to people about using the term girls, instead of women, right? I’m like, Oh, let’s equal the footing. Let’s send a message that women are equally important by calling them women and not girls. And I’m assuming you’re not employing a bunch of eight year olds. And so and I’ll have people you can- I like say one of my super powers is reading the bubbles over people’s heads. When I speak, when I have an edit and event, I’ll be like, God, I just saw that you just got really angry that I said that that’s a sign of bias. Right. I don’t understand why that’s such a big deal. That’s a sign of bias. Right? So, so when we move through those that’s that, but years ago, many years ago, when I was still in my twenties, I would not interview somebody who showed up late to an interview.

Nora Burns:

I just wouldn’t even interview them. So you showed up five minutes, 10 minutes late to your interview. You’re like, thank you so much. Have a great day. Like just rude. And I did that up until, when?

Jenn DeWall:

I think until probably realizing that some people may not have a mode of transportation. Some people may not have. I guess that that would be my guess is recognizing more of the background of the circumstance that someone may be facing to be able to get there. Am I missing the mark?

Nora Burns:

That all happened. But it all happened because I was late to an interview. I was like, Oh, wait, life does sometimes intervene when you’re trying to get somewhere on time. Right? Like sometimes everything does go wrong. And I had, I had an interview and I already had three job offers. I was doing a week long interviewing process. I was moving back to the Midwest to be closer to my family, as my parents were growing older and I wanted to be more available. So I had spent a week just interviewing all over Wisconsin and Illinois. And I had three job offers already on the table. So I didn’t need this interview. But everything went wrong that morning. Like everything went wrong from blowing a fuse, to the dog running away, like just everything went wrong. And I remember thinking I feel like I might be being filmed. Someone is watching how I navigate all of these obstacles. And I drove like a crazy woman to the interview, but I called and said, I’m going to be late and rescheduled it. And it was, we had one thing after another happen.

Nora Burns:

And I realized that I wouldn’t have interviewed me. I would have re I would have removed me from the hiring process. If I was on the other side of that decision table, and I’m incredibly thankful that that hiring manager did not have the same bias that I did. Because I truly had legitimate explanation. And all of that kind of stuff is lifted happen. Now that hiring manager, when I showed up late for the second time, I said, could I, will you please carve out some time for me? I will wait as long as you, as long as you need me to wait until you’ve got an opening in your schedule. And that’s what I did. I worked at the company for four years. And I would not have hired me. And I was I without question the right hire for that company at that time. I was absolutely the right person in that exact role. It worked out beautifully.

Nora Burns:

Now they did what I recommend other people do. When somebody shows up late to an interview, they interviewed me three times. They made sure it wasn’t a pattern. They made sure that I could in fact show for job interview on time the second and the third time. Right. So we knew that wasn’t the issue. But yeah, I had that bias until it was broken because I finally had empathy around the scenario and went, Oh wait, that does happen. How do I find out what the real story is? Because you know, but yeah. So our biases and we are all these stories that we built that say, Oh, I knew this one person at one time who did that one thing. And you remind me of that, right.

Jenn DeWall:

Or if you have a wrinkled shirt or because you sat down in your car and then it got a line or if you have that. So because there are a lot of very superficial, like you were late. So then I’m going to assume you’re always late and you’ll never be reliable. You have a wrinkle on your shirt so that you’re unkempt and messy and you’re not that’s so yeah, those stories just blow up off of one small piece of data. Yeah. And I’ve had people I’ve had hiring managers say, Oh yeah, I walk, I always walk candidates out to their car after the interview, I was like, huh, why do you do that? Because I want to see the condition of their car. But like, no, don’t do that. Anybody listening or watching, please, please do not do that. I hope nobody just said, Oh, that’s a really good idea.

 

Nora Burns:

Right. Because unless you’re hiring me to be a driver and that’s the vehicle I’m going to be using. It has no actual merit and relationship to the hiring process. Because let’s talk about the biases built into that pumping, right, where we’re at the, we haven’t had to go to the application. This is absolutely older application. We did, we got a circled over. So, so we get on our application even even years ago, I’ve been saying to people, stop putting social security number, like stop asking people for their social security number on the application. It is irrelevant at that particular point. And if you know how to read social security numbers, you know, if somebody was actually a natural born citizen, you know what part of the country they were born in, all of that kind of thing. Not even get us started on the issues of identity theft, right? So unless you’re being really secure with all that information and we can talk to our friend, John Sileo about that because he is the expert in that.

Reduce Bias in the Application Process

Nora Burns:

But other than identity theft issues, what’s the year you graduated high school or college? Who cares? Doesn’t matter, it’s not relevant. Right. And it’s going to show up. We can get that when we need to verify that information and verify that they have the degree that they said they do. But we don’t need it that early in the process. And what I actually recommend is that you have somebody who’s your, your go-between, right? So your HR person or somebody who is acting in that role, who actually transitions the information on applications and resumes to make them blind applications and resumes, there’s also software that can help you do this, that strips out all of the information, including name, including your name, your address. You know, if you have information on where somebody went to school and what year they graduated, because all of those things bank in bias.

Nora Burns:

So if you, as the hiring manager only get my actual skills displayed to you, you know, that I’ve experienced with, we talked about AutoCAD earlier, right? So you I’ve experienced with AutoCAD and this software and that software, like you have that information. You don’t need to know my age and my name, all of those things create bias. I can tell you that as the other undercover candidate, there were specific roles that if I submitted an application under a gender neutral name I had a much better chance of somebody calling me if I said Sally, and I said, Jan, those are different. If I say, Pat, I’m going to get a lot more traction, right. Because they don’t know if I’m a man or a woman. And I’ve shown up for interviews as the undercover candidate where they were clearly surprised as to who showed up because they were expecting Sam. Then I say, Oh yeah, it’s, it’s Samantha. I’ve always, I go by Sam. Right?

Nora Burns:

So, so we can strip that out in the application process and we can have blind resume and an application. I can tell you right now, the organizations where I’ve put this into place, I’ve gotten some significant pushback, right? So, so there’s hiring managers who like, no, I need that information. And that’s the story that they’re telling because for years and years, and years and years we’ve had access to the information and we actually don’t need it in order to make a hiring decision. You don’t need to know if I’m a man or a woman. You’re ultimately going to figure that out when I show up for an interview, but let’s get the funnel, let’s get as much bias as we can out of that initial funnel in order to get us there.

Jenn DeWall:

I love that. So really the call to action here is where can you strip out these points that really have no bearing on whether that candidate will be a good fit for the job? So the year of graduation, the name, even if you need them to have a degree, you can just say degree in blank. You don’t have to say what university and also removing the address or contact information. So many great partners, but one of the things we were talking about too, you had mentioned a structured interview. So like when you shift from the application, how does the interview process need to look to make sure that we’re minimizing bias?

Reducing Bias in Interview Questions

Nora Burns:

So we’re going to design interview questions that meet the core key competencies and the work experience or the, the skills that somebody needs to do the job. And we’re going to design those based on that job. And we’re going to ask everybody the same questions. We’re going to ask some follow-up questions that allow you to tell more of your story. And as soon as I say, I want, I want you to do structured interviews in order to remove bias. I’m telling you off in the distance, I just heard like 15 hiring managers groan. Because hiring managers are, will really push back on this idea, especially if it is new to your organization, because they are like, Oh, I want to have the conversation. I want you to have a conversation, but I want you to have some structure around it. And I want to make sure that we’re asking everybody the same questions so that we can compare the same information across candidates.

Nora Burns:

Now there’s lots of layers to this. And we could, and I, I do spend hours training how you design a process like this and in helping organizations to do just that. But I want to ask a question like when I’m asking about AutoCAD experience and you’re describing your AutoCAD experience and some of the things that you’ve designed and probably giving me some workplace work samples. I’m going to compare the answer between candidate A and candidate B. I’m going to, I’m going to compare answers per question and then do appropriate ratings that way. Not going this entire candidate, that entire candidate. I want to say, I want to go piecemeal. I want to say, let’s talk about OCAD experience and our first question having to do with AutoCAD experience. What came out with candidate 1, candidate A or came up with candidate B, right?

Nora Burns:

If I compare answer to answer, I am more likely and rating that I gave in the interview at the time, which is also important. We’re going to do a rating scale that we’re going to do in the moment instead of afterwards. And I compare them question to question. I strip out some of the bias that happens when I compare an entire candidate to an entire candidate. I say, Oh, I really prefer Bob over Jenn We get into the, I don’t know why. Right? The bias elements of it. Let’s talk about that first question. And you can only do that if you have structured interview and you’re asking everybody about the same things.

Jenn DeWall:

Yeah. And that’s so interesting that people are reluctant, you know. And I can see it because it feels like maybe you’re taking away of the organic fun, getting to know you seeing behind the curtain. But yeah, you’re comparing then apples to oranges. You’re not comparing the same data points because they’re two entirely different conversations that may have some similarities. But depending on whatever question you ask, you may be highlighting something in someone else. That’s I think you were the one that shared that with me, but like in thinking about what questions and how they might highlight something of someone else. And then if you don’t ask it to someone else, then they don’t look as great.

Nora Burns:

Yeah. We stumbled upon it with the one candidate. One of the, one of the biggest things with that, with the unstructured with unstructured interviews is one, a lack of preparedness. The number of times I sat in front of somebody and they were like- one woman in particular. I just, Whoa. I just pictured her in my brain with like, huh, let’s see, what should I ask you? And I thought, I spent like four hours preparing for this interview. And you haven’t figured out what you want to ask. Like so A- the level of preparedness, but also in terms of making sure that bias isn’t because then we’re like, I don’t know, likeability comes in. Right. We just like, I don’t know. I just connected with them because they look like you talk, like you act like you and believe like you and they gave you examples that are totally like you.

Jenn DeWall:

What are the questions you hate? Because I know we talked about this too. What are the questions that you hate in the interview process.

Nora Burns:

Things that would, it would make me super happy if people would stop asking these questions. Right. So I guess I would, if, truly this might be what goes on my tombstone right. Like she got people to stop asking. What’s your greatest strength. What’s your greatest weakness? Like if you could stop asking, what’s your greatest strength, what’s your greatest weakness. I would be so happy. I’d be so happy. But the reason I dislike that question so much is you never get any good information. Like nobody has ever been like, well, you know what? I embezzled from my last company. Nobody’s gonna give you like something that’s going to be discernible in terms of a candidate.

Jenn DeWall:

No. And we all know the weakness answer is I’m a perfectionist. And so I might find myself working too hard. Like we know how to position that and do our own PR spin to an extent to make it that weakness look like a strength.

Nora Burns:

Yeah. There’s not a book, a blog, a podcast, a anything having to do with jobs, interview preparation that doesn’t tell you to take a strength and wrap it up like it’s a weakness, right? So it’s a waste of a job interview because one of the biases we have is a limited amount of time. So if we spend time and the thing I’m like hiring candidates say, Oh, five minutes into the interview. I knew that they were my person bias. That’s where that came from. Right? Because five minutes into an interview, You don’t know that they’re your person, five minutes into her interview. All you have is the fact they look like you talk like you act like you believe like you remind you of somebody that you really, really liked or didn’t. right?

Nora Burns:

So if we spend an hour with each job candidate and we need to spend an hour with each gut job candidate, because there’s a benefit to time, but the other is, if I’m asking greatest strength, greatest weakness, that’s a five to 10 minute question out of only an hour. That’s a big percentage. Right? So we’ve just wasted that time. So that one’s just a, please let’s just stop asking that question. The only basis that that question really has is if you were new to interviewing and you need to get your feet under you and you need to feel comfortable in the interview, that’s the only basis it has. But it’s, it’s really a throw away trash question, but specifically to bias. What’s the most recent book you’ve read?

Nora Burns:

I mean, What to Expect When You’re Expecting?

Jenn DeWall:

No, I had The Aligned Receiver right there.

Nora Burns:

Right, right. But, but imagine when you’re asking that question, what’s the most recent book you’ve read. Right? We’ve got, what if I say, What to Expect When You’re Expecting, what if I say Understanding and Overcoming the Symptoms of MS. What if I say the Bible or the Quran? There’s that, that question is rife with bias. And when I talk to hiring managers and say, why is this question on your list? They’ll say, well, I want to make sure that they’re well-read. I want to make sure they’re continuous learner. I want great. You want to make sure that they’re up to speed in their industry, in their area of expertise. So there’s a better question. There’s a question asked to say, what is the most recent periodical you’ve read that has to do with XYZ industry and how did it really stand out to you? Right. But steer it very specifically to be work-related I’ve had authors say, but I want to know if they’re going to come and work for me. I want to know if they’ve read my book. I’m like, I have to read your whole book before I apply to work for you. You can make that something that you’re going to have me do, but, but maybe I don’t have to read the entire book right before I apply.

Nora Burns:

Right? So what’s the most recent, but what do you do for fun? What do you do for fun? Gets us into all kinds of dangerous territory. And its only purpose is bias. And I’ll have hiring managers say, but I’m hiring, hiring the whole person. I need to understand more about them. Like I’m not hiring the person for what they do on Saturday night and on Sunday morning. Or on Sunday, Saturday morning. Right? Like that’s can they do the job? Right? And so it turns out I don’t need to be friends with everybody that works with me. Right. They need to be friendly. They don’t need to be friends. And so they don’t have to be the person who’s- and I’ve had hiring managers say, I just don’t get the impression that there’s somebody who would go to the bar with us and shoot down shots afterwards.

Nora Burns:

And I’m like, yeah, I’m going to go ahead and go with that person who has that particular religion probably isn’t going to do that. The recovered alcoholic, probably isn’t going to do that. Right. The right. All of, all of these things, the person who has three kids at home, probably isn’t going to do that. Right. That’s bias. And that’s so questions having to do with, what do you do for fun? What do you do with your free time? All of those types of things are just rife with bias and get us into a discriminatory path. If we make a decision based on them.

Jenn DeWall:

mind blown, what are safe questions? I mean, can you ask questions? Like what how do you see yourself? You know, as a individual or as a member of a team? Like what role do you play? Can you ask that?

Nora Burns:

Yeah, I have questions about, I thought you were going to different. I thought you were going to ask me what I wanted to do in three years or how I saw myself in three years. I’m just going to go ahead and guess that in 2017, nobody said I was going to be in the middle of a pandemic, working from home and trying to figure out how to manage all of that. I didn’t know in March what this was going to look like, right? Like in March I fostered two dogs because I was going to be home for two to three months. It was so adorable that I wasn’t naive about this.

Nora Burns:

So, so yeah, so the three to five question years, I like to ask questions about how people see themselves in team dynamics and what role. So I actually often ask about projects that they’ve done in a team. Like have you worked in an organization that really does team involvement and cross-functional team involvement. And tell me about it, like tell me about that project and then let’s explore what was your job? And then pay attention to things like the language that people use because it tells me their own bias about if it’s very, “I” language or very “We” language. And then I explore that. I also when we do panel interviews or team interviews to have a variety of different people in the room asking questions, I really want you to pay attention to who asked the question and who they direct the answer to. So this is one way to talk through bias in a hiring process. I’ve been the person who asks a highly technical question about the applicant’s background and skills and they will then turn to a man in the room to answer the question. And then we talk about that. Because I just, I think we need to talk about these things. So actually say like, explain how is it that when I asked the question, you decided to tell Chuck the answer? And we talk it through because they probably weren’t even cognizant and aware of what they were doing. But it tells me something about their built-in biases that we need to explore.

How can The Leadership Experts Help You?

Jenn DeWall:

Right before you bring them into the team. I mean, Oh my gosh, this is just been how, okay. So I know that we have to wrap up before we do create the longest podcast of all time. How do you work with organizations and how can people reach out and hire you? Like how can you help them? Because you’ve just got so many great insights, things that I didn’t know. So how can people, you know, I guess how do people get in touch with you? What do you do with them, Nora?

Nora Burns:

What do I do with them? So we I do a couple of things like training programs on, on helping people to understand unconscious bias and how it’s impacting their team. For me, my funnel is very narrow on that. Right? Cause you can find all kinds of speakers who will talk about unconscious bias as the whole. Mine is very specifically directed towards that employee and candidate experience, right? How is it impacting there. Right? There’s people who talk on unconscious bias as it affects our medical decisions, as we right, who have all that kinds of knowledge, mine is specifically on this hiring and employee experience. So we do training around it, do consulting around it, design people’s hiring organizations, hiring practices to try to strip out some of the bias and help people through that AB testing for their, for their job, posting those types of things. They can reach me at www.theleadershipexperts.com. So a website that I desperately need to update. And you would think I would have had time to do that, but the last couple of months, but theleadershipexperts.com. My email is nora@theleadershipexperts.com. There is an S experts because as it turns out, there’s not just one. And so they can reach me there. They can reach me also through Twitter, although not as regularly. And on Instagram, @thenoraburns. But best way to reach out or go to our website, fill out the contact us form, and let’s have a conversation about how we can help you to break down some of the biases that are impacting your ability to hire top talent.

Jenn DeWall:

Yes, they need, they need to reach out to you because I, I can only imagine, you know, the benefits of just having a better well-rounded diverse workforce, you know, just the success, the team, the feeling that you are seeing. I mean, there’s so many benefits, but then obviously like you could also avoid some lawsuits by understanding things that might be, you know, there, but I mean, Nora, thank you so much for just sharing, you know, an extended amount of time with us. I, I’m still trying to process everything that you shared, and I just truly appreciate you taking the time to share that with our audience. I know so many people are going to benefit from what you’ve shared today.

 

Nora Burns:

Thank you. I hope so. I hope we can do a couple of little things. One of the biggest things with unconscious bias is just hearing about it once. Reading one book, reading one article, having one training session, it, it helps, but it is the first step. It’s not the last one. It is an ongoing process because you’ve got a whole life of bias that has built up over time.

 

Jenn DeWall:

Yes. Well, thank you so much, Nora. You guys have to reach out to her at The Leadership Experts, and I hope to have you back on the podcast sometime soon.

Nora Burns:

Excellent. Thank you so much for your time and hopefully it’s been helpful and have a fantastic rest of your day.

Jenn DeWall:

Thank you so much for listening to this week’s episode of The Leadership Habit. If you enjoy this episode or if you know someone that maybe really could benefit from understanding where there could potentially be biased in their process, share this with them. But of course, if you liked it, please reach out and give us a review on your favorite podcast streaming service until next time.

 

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