32 Flock Around and Find Out » Socioeconomic Bias: Prejudices or assumptions about someone’s perceived or actual economic status can skew credibility perceptions. Factors like clothing, cars, jewelry, living conditions, and even Zoom backgrounds influence how credible someone seems, often unfairly correlating wealth with worthiness. This bias can lead us to favor those who display signs of higher economic status while undervaluing those who do not. » Linguistic Bias: How someone speaks, including their communication style, speech patterns, accents, and language fluency, can significantly impact perceptions of credibility and competence. Assertive communication might be praised in some individuals but deemed aggressive or arrogant in others. Native speakers of general or “standard” American English tend to be perceived as more credible than speakers of other English dialects or those with noticeable accents, regardless of the actual content of their speech. Individuals with diverse linguistic backgrounds are more frequently overlooked or undervalued due to unfounded assumptions about their competence and character based on how they sound rather than what they say. » Cultural and Behavioral Bias: The tendency to judge people’s credibility more positively or negatively is often linked to one’s own cultural norms and values. This can lead to misinterpretations or unfair assessments of behaviors that differ from those norms or confront them, as in the case of behaviors seen by some as taboo or immoral. This includes judgments about social behaviors as well as cognitive differences in behavior, such as eye contact, gestures, or personal space. As a consequence of these and other factors, award nominations, evaluations, and decisions can be biased towards individuals who share identities, behaviors and values similar to those of the evaluators and to those of past award winners. Indeed, these patterns of who we value (or don’t) as credible in our industries becomes self-sustaining over time and lead to the kinds of historically entrenched expectations you now find yourself grappling with. Where to Go from Here? 1. Manage Change Proactively: If your organization has done things a certain way for decades and decided to intervene with improvements like changing the purpose, process, or criteria, that change needs to be communicated to all the audiences who have a stake in the outcome and managed proactively. Bonus points for incorporating a period for open comments so you can thoughtfully request and consider constructive input from a wide range of people. Friction from detractors is normal in times of change, so manage expectations to include this, hold your ground, and don’t take that shade personally. 2. Design a Well-Crafted Rubric: If you don’t already have one, it’s time to put a clear purpose and a well-crafted rubric in place to guide the objective evaluation of award nominees. This kind of intentional framework, with intentional proxy metrics that inform subjective assessments, helps establish the guardrails and interrupt the personal, interpersonal, and systemic biases that can (and historically, probably did) skew the outcomes of your selection process. 3. Increase Transparency: I believe your members are right to expect clear and transparent information about your awards program. One of the most common reasons for an upswell of grassroots criticism is keeping them shrouded in mystery and confidentiality, especially in times of change. As you’ve learned the hard way, you will not avoid the hard conversations by flying under the radar with your improvements. That sets the perfect stage for confusion, divergent (literally, made up) narratives, and declining satisfaction. That also sets your winners going forward up for unfair criticism, biased assumptions, and possible exclusion. What Say We? Things done in secret are inherently less defensible. What if award programs were radically transparent? What if everything—the processes, nominees, applications, selection rubric, proxy metrics, scores, ranks, jurors—were published and open to the public, and regularly audited against a defensible set of standards? Curious if that would work? Join the conversation over on Association Chat where we can flock around and find out. Hi, I’m Rhonda Payne CAE (she/her) @my19cents, and I’m on a mission to magnify and defend inclusive expertise—from stage to screen, bookshelf to boardroom, and classroom to congress. Through a people & performance centered association management practice and a deliberately diverse speaker agency called Flock Theory, I get to partner with purpose-driven executives and organizations on keynote speakers, event content & learning programs, staff and volunteer retreats, and all sorts of workforce and organizational development initiatives. The best part is inspiring leaders and learners to push past barriers, create great work lives, and capture competitive advantage with and for the communities they serve.
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