Are there any initiatives or strategies you’ve developed to weed out potential biases in succession planning and development of emerging leadership talent?
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I often end meetings by asking for observations, which can serve as a segue into discussing biases. This approach encourages participants to reflect on any biases they might have, such as a lack of women on the slate. By making people step back and think, it opens up a different level of conversation and allows them to bring up biases themselves.
Bringing cultural awareness into conversations is crucial. For example, during a CEO Talent Review, I had to point out that labeling a high-potential woman in Puerto Rico as "aggressive" was culturally biased. If she were a man, the same behavior might be seen as assertiveness. Highlighting these biases helps ensure that talent is assessed fairly.
We focus on the behavioral side of performance reviews with very structured definitions. These definitions did not exist in the past and have helped change the conversation about who is considered a strong performer. This structure reduces the overall threshold for bias.
We have succession health metrics, based on gender targets. We also track gender proportion for those meeting our talent criteria.
Because succession can only be done with existing employees, the only way to identify bias is to compare the demographic composition of the succession pool to the demographic composition of that part of the company. By "part" I mean function as well as geography.
The World Economic Report Gender Survey for example shows a much higher percentage of woman in the "People function" about 68%, whereas in Cloud Computing there is only 12%. So if you have 2 woman in the successor pool in cloud computing, you're doing well.
But to weed out bias you need to look at the entire "possible" successor pool, i.e. anyone who is in a "feeder" function and at the right level (not more than 2 job grade levels below) and then identify the emerging talent and ask "Why not this person?"
Most of the time the answer to that question highlights the reasons for bias: lack of visibility, cultural difference, interpersonal styles, etc. Then ask the manager of the succession position, NOT the incumbent, to mentor that emerging talent for 6 months.
Sometimes it's just about setting up (structured) opportunities for people to get to know each other.