What Are People Saying?
I attended the Unconscious Bias and Diversity Workshop [with Mike Hess, Executive Director of Blind Institute of Technology]. This workshop’s power to spotlight our preconceived biases helped bring a thoughtful reminder on how we should approach each interaction in the future. I would highly recommend anyone to attend this workshop – this is helpful professionally and personally. Don’t judge the book by its cover…
The unconscious bias event was truly impactful to me. Mike showed us how our experiences influence our bias and how we can grow past it to better connect with people.
The Unconscious Bias workshop led by Mike Hess at the Blind Institute of Technology on April 18th, 2019 was an event that I left filled with new knowledge and actionable takeaways. What I learned does not fail to resurface every day as it has impacted both my personal and professional life. The power of conscious listening was the biggest eye-opener for me. Just like breathing, it is easy to overlook as it is in our nature, however, truly practicing and harvesting this skill can change every relationship and day-to-day interaction you have in your life.
This workshop isn’t your typical lecture-style workshop. It’s interactive and collaborative and doesn’t try to point the finger at everybody as if to say “You’re biased!” We all are. It’s just a really safe space to explore that as an individual person so that I can learn about ways to keep working on being less biased, not just at work but in life. I would recommend this to anyone who wants to create a more inclusive space around them!
The Unconscious Bias Lunch & Learn led by Breaking the Bias at the Amplify Denver/Boulder event was above and beyond what we expected. Although we only had an hour to scratch the surface of a very complex topic, UB and Joe presented the information in a concise, digestible, and inspiring manner. The members of our group left with more awareness of their personal biases, increased curiosity for others and the biases they hold, and motivation to start or continue the dialogue outside of our group. 10 out of 10, would recommend!
The Unconscious Bias session helped me realize that my unconscious biases get busy shaping each experience for me so that I feel less uncomfortable both in groups and one-on-one. Unfortunately that also means I’m only minimally exposed to different ways of thinking which results in me learning less. This session created a non-threatening environment within which I could experience not just feeling uncomfortable but understand why! Sessions like this one help each of us unfold our biases and contribute more of ourselves personally and professionally. There is no mandate that can make companies more inclusive; it is only when the people in a company are intentional about being inclusive, which requires some vulnerability, that the company organically becomes more inclusive.
Joe Thurman and UB Ciminieri are truly breaking barriers with their forward thinking and approach to building teams for organizations from the top down. It was a true awakening for me to acknowledge that no matter what background a person may have, that they most likely have biases in some way or another. Whether they are conscious or unconscious biases, Joe and UB are on a mission to bring those biases to your attention, while helping organizations realize the potential of building diverse, inclusive teams that will flourish. Their talk has forever changed my view of how organizations recruit, hire, and retain their work force, and I am forever grateful that I will be able to be a part of their movement in Breaking the Bias! I highly recommend you join them on their journey!!
UB and Nina were fantastic and helped us to understand where our unconscious biases stem from. It’s helpful to know that our brains are hardwired to simplify the world around us, but that we can change that by raising our awareness and actively being more conscious as we operate in our daily lives.
Great training! Really opened our eyes to different types of biases one might not otherwise think about. The examples were great (chips, drawings, phones, etc). The opportunities to share were great and it felt like a safe and comfortable space to do so. Thanks for a great training and looking forward to checking out the workbook.
What is Breaking the Bias?
Curiosity should be deliberate. Diversity should be natural. Consciously choose to change your judgments into curiosity.
Breaking the Bias is a program and a strategy designed to help companies and individuals create tools, methods, and strategies that systematically change our ability to drive curiosity – curiosity for people, ideas and collaboration – and build more inclusive and involved workplaces. Created by Joe Thurman and UB Ciminieri, co-founders of Jobber Group, a national talent strategy firm, this program puts action behind the conversation of Conscious Inclusion and Unconscious Bias.
We approach Breaking the Bias not as a one-off talk but as the beginning of a conversation about bias in your workplace. Engagements are based on our time with you. We introduce you to our program and then spend time with your leadership team to map out a long-term strategy for your Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging (DEI&B).
We believe that DEI&B should live as a separate entity within every organization, positioned as the “center of the wheel” through which every other discipline should flow. This practice will encourage and reinforce that every behavior, whether it be in Sales, Product, Finance, Operations, HR or Technology, leads the organization to becoming more inclusive:
Breaking the Bias 101
“The Code of Curiosity”
60-90 minute in-person or virtual sessions for employees and leaders to develop a starting point for cohesive understanding and awareness of unconscious bias and conscious inclusion in your organization.
Deep Dive w/ Leadership
Strategic DEI&B Discussion
A strategic leadership discussion about DEI&B initiatives in your organization, focused on your areas of need, i.e. unbiased interview strategies.
Breaking the Bias Half-Day Workshops
Immersive and Experiential
3-4 hour workshops for employees and leaders to continue a deep dive into the science of bias and to start building competencies through exercises in 3 areas: Curiosity, Empathy and Conscious Communication.
Strategic Consulting
For DEI&B Leaders and Practitioners
Most DEI&B leaders find themselves with little to no support in their organizations as they are tasked with building a “diversity and inclusion” strategy. The question we get the most is “Where do I even start?” We can help. Ask us how.
Fill out our contact form to receive more information…or tell us what you’re interested in for your organization!
Interested in talking to us? Check out our availability for a chat and let’s get something scheduled:
Where Can You Find Breaking the Bias?
Our team can often be found partnering with amazing organizations for special events, fireside chats, panel discussions and more! Click below to check out our Events page and sign up to join us!
What Resources Can Help Me?
How Can We Break the Bias to Drive Change in Different Areas of Our Business?
Break the Bias to Create a Long Term Solution to Build Curiosity and Drive Inclusion
Breaking the Bias can help design, develop and deploy an ongoing program to help you and your employees build habits of curiosity. We can work with you to create 6, 9 or 12-month curriculums that mature from Bias Awareness to Racial Bias, White Fragility, Sexual Harassment and Allyship. We can also focus a series of trainings in areas such as Interviewing, Sales, Product Development, Onboarding and Development of Managers.
Break the Bias to Create Curiosity in the Interview Process
Breaking the Bias helps to lay the foundation for talent acquisition teams and hiring managers to replace gut-feeling and unconscious and implicit bias with curiosity for the differences candidates have and will bring to your organization.
Break the Bias to Sell More or Build Better Products
Breaking the Bias helps sales and product teams unlock the power of Curiosity and Inclusion to better understand your customers, drive more sales, build better products and develop a culture of inclusion.
Studies have shown that diverse and inclusive teams increase profit margins and reach or exceed quotas faster than less diverse and inclusive organizations by comparison.
Break the Bias to Develop and Implement DEI&B Strategies that Work
Breaking the Bias will go beyond the “talk” to work with your Diversity, Equity, Inclusion & Belonging and leadership teams to develop diversity and inclusion strategies that go beyond “checking the box.”
Break the Bias to Create Employee Well-Being
Breaking the Bias helps to lay the foundation for a healthy working culture. We are not focused on whether the culture you are trying to build is the right culture; our program is focused on ensuring that your culture is safe and healthy for Employees, Customers and Partners.
Conscious Curiosity and Involvement drives Collaboration – About 75% of employers rate teamwork and collaboration as “very important” – Queens University Study
Break the Bias to Create Cross-Generational Organizations
Breaking the Bias helps to lay the foundation for mature organizational cultures that have the ability to support and encourage multiple generations. Generational stereotypes create barriers while a culture of curiosity removes those barriers and helps all people succeed and thrive.
Creating Accessibility for a Few Creates Inclusivity for All
Breaking the Bias explores building more inclusive workplaces through the lens of building more accessibility into those workplaces. By addressing the needs of communities like the blind, visually impaired, hearing impaired and the deaf, companies can actually start to create a more inclusive workplace for eveyrone.
Who Are the Founders?
Who is on the Breaking the Bias Team?
Check out Nina’s TEDx Talk from January 2020:
We’re ALL going to experience some type of disability in our life. The best products are coming from places where they think deeply about inclusive design and accessibility. The future of technology depends on it, because designing tech with disabilities in mind, turns out to be designing great tech for everyone.
Who is Our Team of Facilitators and Advisors?
What Are We Talking About?
Check out articles by our Founders and guest contributors.
