The unconscious bias research, plus the kernel of truth evidence, suggests that simply pretending there are no differences and that all views that express such views are infused with a false consciousness is quite simply trying to push psychological water uphill. Even if the conscious mind succumbs to the effort, the unconscious brain will most likely rebel. A much better course of action is to recognize the reality of some variations, but to try to get people to value differences more – that is, encourage them to more actively examine their models of what is good or necessary for success. This is where unconscious bias can really lead to a false consciousness and cause leaders to fail to leverage the power of diversity. In fact, there is something of a paradox to some of the arguments around diversity. At one level proponents of such an agenda want to minimize any suggestion of difference; but at another level they also want to get people to value diversity more. The latter can only make sense if differences exist, and if people recognize and actively celebrate them.
Greater Similarity and Difference at the Same Time
It would not be entirely true to say that people are always more different than one thinks or that prolonged exposure to a culture invariably leads to a heightened sense of difference. It only does so in certain respects. In other areas, people can also be equally surprised by similarities, which had been underestimated from a distance. There are many respects in which people everywhere are just humans going about their daily lives with the same hopes, drives, anxieties, instincts, and foibles as everyone else. From a distance, certain stereotypes and assumptions about differences that we hold can evaporate the minute one connects with a different culture. It is important in international business to see the person beyond the race. Simply ignoring differences is sometimes not a bad strategy at all and sometimes firms tread too softly and self-consciously when engaging other cultures, tiptoeing around imagined sensitivities and differences. However, the point is to be alert to both greater similarity and difference at the same time.
We witnessed firsthand this paradox of greater similarity and difference when working for one of our global companies. This client had commissioned us to run a series of in-depth and groundbreaking personal development workshops for managers. As is the case in many of these workshops, there was an emphasis on personal disclosure, reflections on one's values and purpose, as well as extensive feedback from participants – the kind of intervention that gets routinely caricatured by television programs like The Office. Cynicism aside, we had in actual fact created an event that was quite powerful and at times even moving for participants. We ran it initially in Europe and the United States with great success. The managing director of the company's Africa division heard about it and said that he wanted to try it in his region as part of his long-term plan to develop local senior managers for the top posts.
Most thought that this was a step too far and that the company's African managers would find the experience somewhat perplexing at best – but most likely downright weird. However, the MD was proud of what he and others had created in the Africa division and persisted. After a degree of corporate handwringing, and mildly skeptical, we set off to Nigeria to run the first workshop for a group of managers picked from across the African continent.
It was clear from the moment that we touched down at Lagos airport that we had to reset some of the normal instincts and precepts that one ordinarily uses to navigate daily life. Simply getting into Nigeria proved to be a feat in itself, requiring the navigation of numerous arbitrary checkpoints, all aimed at fleecing us in some way. After having navigated one of these simply to get onto a horizontal moving belt, my heart sank when I saw a gaggle of semi-official looking individuals waiting to interrogate us at the end of the moving section. We had been led to expect this and told to smile and say, “I'll bring something for you next time.” Astonishingly, this platitudinous and self-evidently unlikely promise more often than not did the trick. This was a regular pattern that we found in dealing with a lot of official and semi-official people in Nigeria then and also subsequently in trips to other parts of Sub-Saharan Africa. We were able to overcome initial wariness and at times overbearing sternness by telling a joke or attempting some form of personal connection, the impact of which was typically to release extremely high levels of responsiveness and personal warmth.
Once out of the airport, we were hit by what every visitor experiences – the joy and vibrancy with which people deal with each other on a daily basis in Africa. Quite simply interactions take place with more vivid color, emotional expressiveness, intensity, and laughter in many parts of Africa. This is both refreshing but at times also a bit overwhelming, especially if you come from a more restrained culture. Our sense of relief at having survived the airport experience and entering the country, was tempered by a wariness introduced by the realization that we had armed escorts in front of and behind us as we set off for our hotel. We wondered why such extravagant security was necessary. The truth is that Lagos, like many parts of Sub-Saharan Africa, is just not that safe. The caution shown by Western companies around security is well founded and not just a reflection of paranoia at operating in an unfamiliar environment. The jarring juxtaposition of great friendliness and warmth at one level, with an underlying feeling of threat at another, is something that plays on one's mind in many parts of Africa. We often found that a seemingly benign situation could unpredictably develop a threatening edge, just as a problematic encounter could easily dissolve into indifference or, more confusing at times, joviality.
Contrary to expectations, African managers took to the program like ducks to water. They showed a level of drive and commitment to the exercises that we had not encountered. There was also an openness and a robustness of exchange that at times even made us wince with its directness. The African leaders engaged in exercises that we had worried they might find silly or meaningless with a level of gusto and passion not witnessed before. The managers also performed extremely well on the case studies and other exercises. However, we did notice that if there was no allocated leader in the group discussions, participants tended to debate until they reached complete consensus – no matter how time-consuming this proved. If they made a decision at all, they did so only when the allocated time was about to run out.
However, just as we were concluding that African managers were just like those in Europe – but maybe even more driven – certain small but intriguing differences started to emerge. Participants were required to fill in some personality questionnaires at the end of the first day. We gave these out and told people that they typically only took 20 minutes or so and they should then break for the day. We left them to it, but after two hours, an anxious administrator came to get us and informed us that the African managers were having difficulties with the questionnaires. Perplexed, we returned to the room to find a number of them under considerable strain, sweating, and looking quite agitated. The group was treating these psychometric questionnaires – which merely tapped individual preferences and had no right or wrong answers – like an exam. What's more, word had got round that we were endeavoring to cross check responses across items as a test of honesty. Rather than reacting to each item naturally, the managers were going back each time over all their previous answers in an effort to avoid the inconsistency they thought we were trying to catch people on. Such cross checking was vaguely feasible at the start, but after you had completed about 50 or 60 items, it became a highly stressful kind of 10-dimensional Sudoku.
After the three-day program finished, we had the opportunity to visit some of those managers at their place of work – which was something of an eye-opener. Magically, it seemed that the collaborative and consensual leaders we had seen in the workshop who had had difficulty converging on a decision had transformed overnight into highly confident, driving, larger than life figures barking instructions furiously at their subordinates and conveying an impressive sense of decisiveness and efficiency. Often a certain degree of gratuitous insult was thrown in with the