How the stories we tell ourselves shape what we think is possible

Breaking the biases that shape how we see people (and ourselves) is one of the most underrated challenges in building a high-performing team. Before we can start dismantling them, though, we need to understand how they take hold in the first place.

Three steps to sealing in a belief

Once a belief, idea, or point of view becomes established, it tends to stick. Our version of the truth can be like a splinter lodged just a little too deeply to remove easily.

Often referred to as confirmation biases, these preconceived interpretations act as the lens through which we view the world. Rather than testing our assumptions against reality, we unconsciously manipulate how we see facts and situations so they fit the narrative we've already built. And we apply these biases not just to other people, but to ourselves, narrowing our sense of what's possible.

These biases tend to embed themselves in three distinct steps.

The first is making an assessment. Suppose I decide that only people with a background in finance are eligible for a particular promotion within my organisation.

The second step is finding evidence to support it. I notice that Jane, who has worked in finance, has been promoted into the role, and I put it down to her financial background. I overlook the fact that she has the best results in the company. I also notice that John, who has no finance experience and coincidentally the weakest results, wasn't promoted. To me, this confirms what I already believed.

The third step is where the bias fully hardens. I misinterpret, misconstrue, and misread enough situations that the original assumption becomes, in my mind, an unquestionable truth. And once something feels unquestionably true, it's very hard to loosen your grip on it.

The consequences of that hardened belief extend in two directions. For leaders, it shapes who they see as capable or promotable. For individuals, it can cap ambition. If I believe I won't get the promotion because I don't have a finance background, I've already built a ceiling above my own success.

Context is decisive

A related and even more insidious force is unconscious bias, where prejudged assumptions (often favouring one group over another) operate largely beneath our awareness. The phrase tends to get filed under diversity and inclusion and stored for HR to address somewhere down the line. But unconscious bias shapes the way leaders across every level of an organisation see situations, make decisions, and even perceive their own limitations.

Our context is decisive. These biases change the lens through which we view problems, and every challenge an organisation faces arrives within a context. That context can easily become a constraint.

If you've internalised the belief that only younger people are good with technology, for example, that assumption might stop you from going for a role with a digital component (even before anyone else has had the chance to decide you're not right for it). You've already contextualised the situation through a lens of failure. That lens then reinforces the bias, which shapes future context. It's a self-perpetuating cycle that keeps turning until someone consciously interrupts it.

Putting it into practice

Challenging our biases matters from a humanitarian perspective. But from a business standpoint, it's essential.

Not only do these biases hinder us from putting together the most versatile, highest-performing team possible, they also frame our own beliefs of what we think is achievable within ourselves. Biases about our own potential are a kind of self-constructed prison, and they can be remarkably hard to escape.

The goal, when it comes to determining the ceiling of what's possible (for our teams and for ourselves), should always be to raise the roof. If you want to learn how to do it, get in touch.