Recently, I started trying this simple exercise in most my workshops on team and talent management. I ask my audience to close their eyes, free their mind, be open and then imagine the following:
You’re sitting in a dark room and there’s a candle beside you. The candle is lit and you’re sitting by its light.
That’s it! And now I ask, who could give me the most detailed description of the imagined image. The first person would say, they saw the wax in the candle dripping down painting a droplet art on the floor. The second person would add, the blue tint of the flame near the wick of the candle leading the blight yellow flame. The third person might add, the golden candle holder.
The goal of this exercise is intentionally misled because in the end what we try to observe is not who could give the detailed picture but why is everybody imagining the same white wax candle? (even though we asked them to free their mind and be open)
Because the white wax candle is the default. It’s the standard. It’s the norm. If this same exercise is repeated by saying, “imagine the most creative interesting and advertently different candle you possibly can”, it is the same white wax candle that people would be fighting against to come up with something different.
So, in a situation unless we are consciously aware to do something different, our conclusions always tend to rely on the default and the norm.
Hold this thought for a minute. I have another incident to add to this.
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I once entered a garage in the countryside in the middle of the night to take some tool. In a distant dimly lit corner in the garage was a snake. It was still. I began to sweat, feel agitated and fear started to take hold of me.
Holding my breath, I turned on the light to realize it was just a rope that had fell from one of the shelves.
What was snake a second before in the dark, is just a rope now in the light. But still the snake that I saw and panicked a second ago was as real as the rope I see this second.
The snake I saw was just a projection of my fears displayed on the rope in dark. The reason I had that fear was, I cleaned the garage earlier that day and I knew there shouldn’t be anything on the floor. But there was something that I did not expect to be there and my brain projected the worst possible image over it to protect me.
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Now if we could combine the white wax candle experiment with the snake in the dimly lit corner experience, we would have an extremely interesting perspective on bias.
Instead of a white wax candle, if I asked you to imagine a receptionist at an office, who’re we going to imagine? A young woman with a smiling face? OR if I ask you to imagine a powerful CEO of a company, who’re we going to imagine now? A middle-aged man wearing a suit?
Now, let’s extend this to social situations. Let’s take the example of a public transport, may it be a bus or train. If I ask you to imagine a co-passenger, who’re we going to imagine? In Stockholm, let’s say you’re imagining a Swede sitting next to you in your imagination.
What if, me, a large Indian with a beard comes and sits next to you. From our default imaginations of a traveler sitting beside us, I’m different. So, would I be the rope that isn’t supposed to be there in the dimly lit corner?
If so, what is the image that’s going to be projected on me out of fear or surprise?
Most of the time, we do not have the luxury to see the people around us in light. We always see them in split seconds as they pass us in different walks of life and what we see are in most cases not them but our projections over their faces.
I’m not trying to say a white wax candle is bad or imagining a rope as a snake is biased. But not being aware of it and making consistent decisions based on it or even worse, designing structures and policies based on it, is where bias gets real. This is where your imaginary projection screened over my face, actually starts to affect me.
But if we were all a little more aware of this circus going on within us, next time when we walk into an office and see an elderly man sitting behind the reception desk, I believe we would all greet him a big smile 🙂
Our eyes don’t just see, they project!
