Program
A gamified workshop experience to understand unconscious bias and D&I.
Objective
• While D&I has always played a major role in driving innovation and results, this was cemented as one of the key values for this organization, only
recently.
• Hence, the objective of the program was to introduce and make participants aware of the six prevalent unconscious biases that exist in teams.
Audience
• This program was designed for the entire leadership team with 250+ leaders from all business units of the company participating.
Solution & Execution
The entire execution was planned through a combination of engagement on an app and a video conferencing platform.
A gamified solution was designed on the app with an interesting storyline of ‘the chamber of secrets.’ On the day of the intervention, participants were sent to breakout rooms of a virtual meeting platform and challenged to crack clues that would help restore a ruined ancient monument.
To set the context and as a prelude to the workshop, participants were requested to go through some curated content related to D&I. This also
enabled to get the participants to immediately relate to the gamified content and for us to build momentum from the start.
On the day of the workshop, the context was set, the participants were split into teams and then put in breakout rooms. Each room had the same
objective – to solve the clues in the shortest possible time. As participants began solving the clues, they were for themselves, also uncovering the widely prevalent unconscious biases, one at a time.
The activity was interspersed with reflective questions. These nudged participants to think about any behavior that they would like to change/
eliminate/ incorporate in their own lives. The whole engagement was finally culminated with a debrief that brought all the learning together in the
organizational context.
Some snapshots from the app
Impact
While the participants had a fun and engaging experience with each other in the breakout rooms, there were several intangible benefits too.
Participants reflected on how they would change their behavior. Some of the participant inputs that we received are stated here verbatim:
• I will listen to new ideas with an open mind – even if I do not agree with the person
• I will never create stereotypes and prejudices only on looks and other useless traits.
• Check myself before applying any horn or halo effect. Don’t judge a book by its cover
• I will focus on the facts and data and remind myself of biases
• Unconscious biasness is difficult to leave behind but not impossible, will try to not look for similar to me effect
• I will monitor my own behavior, question my own decisions and drive a culture where there is Diversity and everyone feels Inclusive
• Giving talent an opportunity to flourish and recognizing that strength comes when different races, religion, ages, ethnicities, sexual orientations, nationalities and social statues work together. This is true inclusion and diversity for me
• Don’t judge the employees basis their past performance. Measure them on objective and realistic goals.
We also asked the participants how they liked the gamified activity and if they would like to rate it on a scale of 1-5, and this is what they had to say:
• Brilliant – more than 5 🙂
• Rocking game !!
• Excellent and interesting
• 5- it’s been a great activity
• 5; nice new experience of get connected on virtual platform
This is what our client stakeholders from the company, had to say about the entire engagement:
Client stakeholder, Head of Learning, Talent & OD
Focus U team, Big thanks for facilitating and designing this engaging activity. Our leaders and managers had a fabulous experience with the collaboration and competitiveness.
Client stakeholder, D&I Lead
THANK YOU to the FocusU team ! It isn’t easy to engage a group of 250 + managers. And you did it awesomely well.
