May 16, 2022

Post Author: Sharleen Gatcha, CEO & Founder, Women+Power

I can’t say enough about this book or the author, Jessica Nordell (aka “JD”)! Goodreads describes The End of Bias: A Beginning as “a transformative, groundbreaking exploration into how we can eradicate unintentional bias and discrimination, the great challenge of our age”.

I had the opportunity to hear Nouman Ashraf (He/Him/His) interview Jessica about her book and it highlighted her findings which are nothing short of monumental! Anyone who wants to understand how unintentional/implicit /unaddressed bias impacts the workplace, everyone in it, the work we do, and the world in general (Hint: That’s ALL OF US!) needs to read this book. Some spoilers:

Implicit bias: persistent, unintentional prejudiced behaviour that clashes with our consciously held beliefs. We know that it exists with a corrosive and even lethal effect. We see it in so many places but are we able to step beyond recognition of our prejudice to actually change it?

With fifteen years’ immersion in the topic, Jessica Nordell digs deep into the cognitive science, social psychology, and developmental research that underpin current efforts to eradicate unintentional bias and discrimination. She examines diversity training, deployed as corrective but with inconsistent results. She explores what works and why: the diagnostic checklist used by doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital that eliminated disparate treatment of men and women in disease prevention; the preschool in Sweden where teachers found ingenious ways to uproot gender stereotyping: the police unit in Oregon where the practice of mindfulness and specialized training has coincided with a startling drop in the use of force.

Thankfully, the book does bring good news. Biased behaviour can change; the approaches outlined in the pages can transform ourselves and our world.