Overcoming Attentional Bias in Teams

There are so many different types of biases, but one I've been paying attention to recently is... attentional bias.

While this isn't a robust definition, think of attentional bias as your tendency to focus on certain data that hits your brain while ignoring other data points. Our brains have only so much attention to give, and so we need to focus on the most important things.

The problem is that we too quickly end up focusing on things that are consistent with our existing motivations or knowledge frameworks. The attentional bias applies to many different things, but one challenging way it shows up in the workplace is when we are evaluating or forming judgements about our colleagues (which, by the way, we are doing constantly).

At all times you have an internal framework or schema for each person you work with. This is the knowledge and perceptions that you have about them, who they are, how they work, what they like, etc. And the attentional bias means that you are more likely to pay attention to the words and actions of theirs that line up with your existing schema (and ignore the other things).

This makes it harder to see how your teammates might be changing and growing. And it can make it really hard to get to know people well enough for highly effective collaboration.

While it is impossible to fully avoid, luckily there are approaches to combat the attentional bias. And for us at Crewjoy we are tackling this by providing a better way to understand your teammates that can help remove biases.

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