Dealing Openly With Our Biases

I am a biased person. I will freely admit it. I have plenty of biases. So are you by the way (if this is a human reading this, of course). If you are an algorithm, then you probably have biases as well depending on your training data. If you are some alien tapping into our internet to work out your invasion plan, then I can't say whether you have biases or not, but I do welcome you as our new overlords. The thing is, we all have biases. Some that we recognise and some that we don't.

When presented with solutions to a problem, I will generally pick the one that is best for the environment, or the one that is best for growing community. You may pick the one that makes the most money or is cheapest. Or you may pick the one that conquers the native population of the planet the fastest. The problem is that as coaches we are supposed to help our clients achieve their goals. Not ours. We are supposed to put our own biases aside and give the client what they want. But how can we? If we are filled with biases ourselves, can we really put them aside?

The answer to that is no, we can't. Our biases and blind spots are part of the way we make sense of the world. We view the world through the filter of our biases. Where I see students justifiably protesting for their futures, you may see a bunch of kids who should be in school and not concerning themselves with adult problems. Same scene, different biases.

So when it comes to coaching, try as we might, our biases will come though. Even when we try to put them aside. We may suggest one course of action over another, favour one idea more than another, suggest a practice that moves things in a particular direction. In dozens of tiny little ways, our biases will creep into our coaching and we will start to move the client where we think they should go and not where they want to go.

We can try to suppress our biases but they will still creep into everything that we do. So how do we become that coach who works 100% for the client and doesn't push their biases even unconsciously? My view is that we can't. These thing are so deeply embedded in us that we can't really get rid of them. At some level we will still be filtering the world through our biases. Even worse, because we will be trying not to, it may well creep in unconsciously so we won't even be aware that we are doing it.

I feel that it's much better to deal with our biases and preferences by being open about them. Don’t try to suppress them, discuss them openly with the client. That way we (and our client) aren't subject to them, they are out there as object and able to be discussed in an objective way. Even better, by being open about our biases, we can encourage our clients to be open about theirs. That way instead of having the coaching relationship subject to two sets of biases, we have all of them held as object in the relationship and we can see each other's perspectives more clearly.

In a coaching conversation I always try to be up front when one of my biases is at play. If we are discussing the potential impact on an organisation of a course of action, I will, very early in that conversation, lay my cards on the table - "I believe strongly in the principle of equality and fairness so if it were my decision to make, I would be tying to come up with a solution that spreads the pain (or rewards) as evenly as possible...what factors do you see as most important in this decision?". That way a conversation can happen around our two viewpoints, both held openly and with respect. If the discussion is around environmental impacts I will make my preference for the lowest impact clear at the outset. If the course of action being proposed will lead to harm in pursuit of profit, I will make my discomfort at that position clear.

I coach a number of people who work in industries that I feel are inherently harmful - gambling, for example, which I regard as being little better than drug dealing - an industry designed to prey upon the addicted. They know that I view the industry they work in as harmful. They know that I have made a choice personally to not work in their industry. They know that I will coach them personally but won't do any work directly for their organisation. But they also know that I absolutely respect the fact that they have made a different decision and that for them, the industry is fine. They respect my views, I respect theirs. And in the middle we have wonderful and useful conversations about how people can hold different perspectives.

By being open and up front about our own motivations, perspectives, biases and preferences we can approach the coaching relationship as a whole person, not just as a coaching persona. By being open and showing up completely, and by holding other views with respect rather than rejection, we open the door for our clients to do that same. By meeting together as two complete people in a respectful space we can deepen the coaching relationship and the conversations we have. By making both perspectives object in the relationship, it allow us to explore them in a much deeper way that if we both hold different perspectives but don't acknowledge them.