And what works better by Frank Dobbin and Alexandra Kalev. Businesses started caring a lot more about diversity after a series of high-profile lawsuits rocked the financial industry.
They have also expanded training and other diversity programs. Although the proportion of managers at U. The numbers were even worse in investment banks though that industry is shrinking, which complicates the analysis. Among all U. Even in Silicon Valley, where many leaders tout the need to increase diversity for both business and social justice reasons, bread-and-butter tech jobs remain dominated by white men.
Firms have long relied on diversity training to reduce bias on the job, hiring tests and performance ratings to limit it in recruitment and promotions, and grievance systems to give employees a way to challenge managers. Yet laboratory studies show that this kind of force-feeding can activate bias rather than stamp it out. As social scientists have found, people often rebel against rules to assert their autonomy. Yet this approach also flies in the face of nearly everything we know about how to motivate people to make changes.
Do people who undergo training usually shed their biases? Researchers have been examining that question since before World War II, in nearly a thousand studies. It turns out that while people are easily taught to respond correctly to a questionnaire about bias, they soon forget the right answers. The positive effects of diversity training rarely last beyond a day or two, and a number of studies suggest that it can activate bias or spark a backlash. Nonetheless, nearly half of midsize companies use it, as do nearly all the Fortune Many firms see adverse effects.
One reason is that three-quarters use negative messages in their training. Another reason is that about three-quarters of firms with training still follow the dated advice of the late diversity guru R. Roosevelt Thomas Jr. Trainers tell us that people often respond to compulsory courses with anger and resistance βand many participants actually report more animosity toward other groups afterward. Research from the University of Toronto reinforces our findings: In one study white subjects read a brochure critiquing prejudice toward Blacks.
