How managers can tame stereotyping at the office

Kenyans watched in shock as Pat Robertson made outlandish claims about Kenya last week on his globally popular ‘The 700 Club’. Kenyan media showed clips from the programme whereby an anonymous wrote to ask the televangelist if he or she should reconsider travelling to Kenya on a mission as a result of the Ebola outbreak.

Pat Robertson notified the would-be missionary not to travel to Kenya because “the people have Aids” and even “the towels can have Aids”. Kenyans angrily took to Twitter with the marker #SomeoneTellPatRobertson. Despite the broadcaster CBN later apologising, many faithful ‘The 700 Club’ viewers expressed shock that a trusted religious broadcaster could hold such views in the first place.

However, most ‘The 700 Club’ viewers live outside the United States. Americans, on the other hand, remain very aware of Pat Robertson’s foibles.

One may view YouTube clips of the televangelist claiming that God told him that Mitt Romney would win the US presidential election and get re-elected to a second term. Well…someone might want to tell Pat Robertson to recheck his connection to God because a week after his prediction, President Obama won re-election against Mitt Romney.

Pat Robertson also purportedly prophesied that the then-Soviet Union would invade the Middle East, a terrorist with a nuclear bomb would strike the US, President Clinton would not get re-elected, and tsunamis would wreak havoc on the coasts of the US. All these, and many more, never came to pass.

More disturbing than Pat Robertson’s casual relationship with facts and science is his propensity to promulgate stereotypes against Africans and many other groups.

On the flip side, we hold stereotypes right here in Kenya against people’s decisions with regard to religion, foreign status, and career types.

Then we often typecast those with uncontrollable aspects in their lives such as tribal status, pastoralist ancestry, people of sexual minorities, people with albinism, other disabled citizens, tall people, short people, light people, dark people, thin people, and overweight people…… the list continues.

Stereotypes can lead to dehumanising other populations. The rise of the Nazis in the 1930s and the holocaust until 1945 that led to over 12 million victims were all based on extreme stereotypes that desensitised soldiers to their actions.

Additionally, the Arab slave trade of Kenyans from the second century all the way to the late 1800s existed based on “animalised” Africans in slave traders’ minds.

Thankfully, not everyone in a culture uses stereotypes in their own thinking. Do you stereotype your neighbours, colleagues, and friends? If so, what stereotypes do you hold about other types of people?

In creating stereotypes, we develop categories and assign traits. We assign a person to that category based on our observations. Then, we make assumptions that since the other person belongs to that category, then they possess the traits for that category of person.

Since I am a professor, let me pick on my category as an example. First, people may believe that professors are absent-minded.
Then, students in a class might note that their instructor is a professor. Next, the students may assign the traits of that category to me by thinking that therefore Prof Scott is absent-minded.

Psychologists refer to the above downward spiral as self-fulfilling prophecy. While we may discuss confused televangelists on the other side of the world, stereotyping and its negative impacts hits us right here in our offices.

Employees subconsciously act out on the expectations held on them. It may require coaching and incredible self-awareness for employees to rise above the self-fulfilling prophecy expectations that those around them hold on them. The stress associated with stereotyping leads to unhappy employees, lack of organisational trust, and lower performance.

So as a manager, how do you stamp out stereotypes in your business? Start by realising the accuracy and inaccuracy around stereotypes and training your employees.

Stereotypes usually possess some accuracy, but also many distortions and errors. Clearly the traits do not describe everyone in a particular group. People tend to screen out information that does not fit with their stereotype.

As a manager, work hard to mix different types of people in your firm through team building, joint assignments, and geographic reassignment. In thinking of steps to follow to reduce stereotyping in your firm and fix the negative effects from the practice, start with awareness training.

First your organisational leaders should learn the effects of negative stereotype perceptions that hurt the business. Then train your employees on cultural history that may lead to some stereotypes and then how to appreciate different cultures.

Second, mix your employees so different categories work together. Training and mixing alone does not solve the self-fulfilling prophecy problem part of stereotyping.

So, use researcher Dr Durbin’s three-pronged strategy that include supporting a learning orientation in your firm. Encourage learning about, not just mixing with, other cultures or people types. Next, engage in contingency leadership styles.

In other words, adapt your leadership style to the environment. Aware of stereotypes, adjust your leadership styles accordingly in each location.

Finally, increase employee self-efficacy. Stanford University psychologist Albert Bandura developed the idea of self-efficacy to address how an employee perceives his or her ability to perform a task within a specific context.

Positively reinforce the employee’s ability to do the task. Publicly praise the employee for performing the task properly.

In summary, fixing the stereotype problem takes time and effort. However, a low-stereotype environment improves performance and improves your employee’s sense of self-worth.

Share your thoughts, experiences, and debate opinions this week at #SomeoneTellPatRobertson on Twitter.

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Prof Scott is the director of the New Economy Venture Accelerator at USIU’s Chandaria School of Business and Colorado State University, www.ScottProfessor.com, and may be reached on: [email protected] or follow on Twitter: @ScottProfessor