You must have biased employees. Bias is something we as humans have. Although biases can help us categorize things and may help speed up some decision-making, biases are generally seen as negative. Biases help prevent us from having a completely open mind. Having an open mind is especially valuable when the clever manager is concerned with creating new business opportunities. So what do you do? The smartest organizations have the answer. They use the biases to their advantage. How?
If you have an organization that has lots of similar people with similar backgrounds, you are likely to get people with very similar biases. The net effect of that is that the entire organization will have same blind spots and the same type of opportunity myopia. Some companies recognize this problem and try to overcome it with a 360 degree feedback and review process. This is certainly helpful, but if you have a diverse group of people working with you, their biases in effect cancel each other out effortlessly. The entire organization then has a much broader view.
Secondly, there is the idea of selective perception. Perception is highly influenced by a person’s interests, previous experience, beliefs, attitudes and other personal attributes that basically make us individual. Therefore it may be concluded that perception is highly subjective and selective . Perception is selective because the person is not able to process all the stimuli around him or her; therefore, he or she subconsciously selects the objects to pay attention to or to react upon. As a result, the simple fact of having a diverse pool of talent will allow successful organizations to perceive a greater number and greater diversity of stimuli (potential opportunities) from the environment.
In sum, use human nature to your business advantage.
