After realizing that bias is natural and doesn’t necessarily make you a bad person, people tend to lean into it. That can become problematic.

But neuroscience teaches us that we can mitigate our unconscious bias through neuroplasticity. Once we identify a bias and understand its impact, we can “re-wire” our brains to create new pathways and teach ourselves to think and act differently.

For example, if I am biased about a team member being lazy, I will treat them accordingly.

At our core, we all identify as good. So if we think bias is inherently negative and only bad people have it, we close off exploring these topics further. We put up walls and say, “I'm not even going to go there because I'm a good person. I try to treat people fairly.” We get defensive.

If ...