Bias is a hard thing to root out.

It’s amorphous. Invisible to its carrier, it seeps into the nooks and crannies not only of the individual mind, but also of collective thought, and products of that collective such as business. Unchecked, it becomes systemic. It’s hard to change what you cannot see. Recognizing bias requires a leap from one thought pattern to another. Often what is needed is a complete system overhaul. In Spain, a colloquial expression has become popular that describes this switch—cambiar de chip, or change of chip. And so, this is an article about systems: systemic racism, systemic oppression, systemic change, systemic growth and systemic support.

American business guru Peter Drucker said you can’t manage what you don’t measure. Saint John’s MESH/diversity, which uses behavioural metrics to help companies drive positive change in diversity and inclusion, might say you cannot see what you don’t measure.

In the past, anti-racism and anti-oppression training was often a one-and-done endeavour, which rarely enacted lasting change within the culture of an organization, says MESH/diversity co-founder and CEO Mike Wright.

When Wright, a UNB computer science graduate from Woodstock, N.B., whose background was in “straddling that line between business and product and software, and helping bring those ideas to life,” met up with Dr. Leeno Karumanchery, an academic with decades of ground-breaking work in emotional intelligence and diversity, they set about to change this.

 

In the past, anti-racism and anti-oppression training was often a one-and-done endeavour, which rarely enacted lasting change within the culture of an organization.

– Mike Wright, Co-founder & CEO, MESH/diversity

 

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