Imagine a report or a colleague consistently arrives 30 minutes late to work every day for the next month. We can make numerous meanings about their 'late' behavior:

"They aren't committed to the job."
"They're meeting recruiters and want to quit."
"They are committed to the job so much they work extra hours in the evening supporting remote teams."
"They are managing their energy so they can perform optimally at work."

The human brain is an association, meaning-making machine. We make meaning every day about everything— for better or worse. The meaning we make about our sensory-observations— what we perceive using our five senses: visual (seeing), auditory (hearing), kinesthetic (feeling), olfactory (smelling), gustatory (tasting) — governs our experience of a situation and how we respond. And, these meanings we assign typically happen at the speed of thought— unless we consciously take a breath, reflect on our internal thoughts, and analyze them.

Back to the example with the colleague arriving 30 minutes late to work: look at the list of meanings, one by one, and notice your experience of the situation. Now, notice how you would respond to that report or colleague:

Do you immediately rush into punitive behavior?
Do you commend them for their commitment to outcomes instead of working long hours?
Do you reallocate their work-load just in case?
Do you have a conversation with them to understand their rationale for showing up 30minutes late to work?

There is no right or wrong answer. However, without being aware of the meaning we make about people's behavior, we run the risk of operating solely based on assumptions we have formulated from our historical life experience.

Human beings are experts at generalizing, deleting, and distorting information— this is a convenient way to organize infinitely abundant information so we can function in the world without having to consciously compute and re-compute the world every single moment of our lives.

For example, we assume that red-colored signals on the road mean we must either stop or slow-down immediately— it would be far too troublesome to have to consciously compute this every time we drive. However, say male seniors bullied you during your early school days— it might not be so useful to generalize that to your workspace and treat all your senior management like threats.

When filtering for personal bias, it is useful to identify what information you are generalizing, deleting, or distorting. Let's discuss this with a few more examples:

As a venture investor:

You do diligence on a growth-stage company, and, using LinkedIn metrics, you realize their team hasn't grown in number for two quarters— what does that signal to you?
If a founder is pitching you in a meeting and using a lot of pronouns such as 'I,' and 'My,' — do you assume they are a solo performer and not a team player?
When a founder shows up in a fundraising meeting wearing an old, black t-shirt and washed, faded jeans— what does that signal to you?
When you show up to a board meeting, and the founder demonstrates they have missed their growth targets for the quarter— what assumptions do you make, if any?

As a founder:

You send out a company-wide questionnaire to evaluate the state of your culture— only 10% responded— what meaning do you make?
Two cross-functional leaders aren't talking to each other— each claiming that the other has made unprofessional, disparaging remarks about one another — what does that signal to you?
Every time you present a new idea, milestone, or goal, your engineering lead responds with problems, roadblocks, and rationale for why it won't work— what assumptions do you make about his/her behavior?

Question: what meaning are you making about the external behaviors surrounding you?

Below, we share a simple practice you can apply to become unconsciously competent at:

Identifying your personal bias in specific contexts of your life.
Challenging your personal bias so you can determine when it is useful and when it is not.
Gathering newer, richer perspectives to enrich your day-to-day decision-making.

Before we share the simple practice, it is important to be aware of two types of information:

Sensory Information: information your brain collects from your five senses (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, gustatory), giving you information about the world around you. For example, you might see green trees, hear birds singing, feel the cool breeze on your skin, smell morning dew, and taste coffee on your breakfast table.

To accurately describe someone's external behavior, it is useful to describe it in sensory-terms. For example, "Joe just walked into the meeting 10-minutes after it had commenced and asked (vocalized) that he be caught up on anything he missed."

If we are in the room, we can confirm this with our five senses. In this case, it would be visual and auditory information. Sensory-based descriptions are typically behaviorally specific— you can take what is written and film a movie scene without needing to fill in too many details.
Non-Sensory Information: Non-sensory information is the information we can't confirm with our five senses. For example:
1. Charles isn't happy.
2. My boss, Mary, doesn't care.

The only way we can draw the above conclusions is by assigning meaning to sensory information. For example:

Charles: you might see Charles hunch his shoulders and avoid eye contact, and attach the meaning that Charles isn't happy. However, Charles might be feeling tired but genuinely fulfilled.
Mary: she walks past you daily and never says hello to you aloud, and you take that to mean she doesn't care. However, Mary might very well care about you as she focuses on building the business to ensure she has the resources to support your highest values.

To develop awareness about our personal bias, meanings, and filters in life, it is helpful to make the distinction between sensory and non-sensory information. And, whenever you use non-sensory descriptions, ask yourself the following questions:

What external behavior (sensory information) lets me know this?
What meaning am I making about that behavior?
How can I prove or disprove the meaning I am making?
What new information and awareness is available to me now?

— practicing this process a few times a day for 90 days can help you strengthen your self-awareness and find ways to manage your personal bias.

Here is an exercise to start you off: look at the image below.

List some sensory-rich descriptions:

There are visibly two human-like figures in this image.
The human-like figures are on the forefront of a white, vertical surface that is textured with rectangular geometry.
The person on the right has his/her head oriented in line with a vertical axis, while the person on the left does not.
One person’s hands are concealed in a black piece of material and the other person’s hands are partially exposed save for the 4 fingertips.

List some non-sensory descriptions:

The person on the left just woke up from a nap because part of his hair looks to be standing up as if he slept on it recently.
The people in this image are secretly in love but uncomfortable holding hands and that’s why the male has his hands in his jacket pocket.
Both people are actors who are practicing their ‘neutral,’ ‘no-emotion’ face as part of their acting-school curriculum.
They are both being held hostage by an Unsplash photographer.

Would love to find out what you discover when you practice this exercise! Godspeed!