Bias Should you trust your gut in hiring Think again.

Bias Should you trust yur gut in hiring Think again.Bias Should you trust yur gut in hiring Think again.Imagine that youre interviewing a new applicant for a job, and you feel something is off. She says all the right things, and her resume is perfect for thejob - except your gut tells you otherwise.Should you go with your gut?In such situations, your default reaction should be to be suspicious of your gut.Research showsthat job candidate interviews are actually poor indicators of future job performance. Unfortunately,fruchtwein employerstend to trust their guts over their heads and give jobs to people they like and perceive as part oftheir in-group, rather than simply the most qualified applicant.This is the kind of challenge I encounter whenI consultwith companies on how tobetter handleworkplace relationships. Research that I and others have conducted on decision-making offer some clues on when we should - and shouldnt - listen to our guts.Should you trust yourgut or yourhead?The re actions of our gut are rooted in the mora primitive, emotional, and intuitive part of our brains that ensured survival in our ancestral environment.Tribal loyaltyand immediate recognition of friend or foe were especially useful.In modern society, however, our survival is much less at risk, and our gut is more likely to compel us to focus on the wrong information to make decisions.For example, is the job candidate youre interviewing similar to you in race, gender, socioeconomic background? Even seemingly minor things like clothing choices, speaking style, and gesturing can make a big difference in determining how you evaluate another person. Our guts automatically identify those people as belonging to our tribe and being friendly to us, raising their status in our eyes.This quick, automatic reaction of our emotions represents theautopilot systemof thinking, one of thetwo systems of thinkingin our brains. It makes good decisionsmostof the time but also regularly makes certain systemat ic thinking errors that scholars refer to as cognitive biases.The other thinking system, known as the intentional system, is deliberate and reflective. It takes effort to turn on, but it can catch and override the thinking errors committed by our autopilots. This way, we can address the systematic mistakes made by our brains in our workplace relationships and other areas of life.In regard to tribal loyalty, our brains tend to fall for the thinking error known as the halo effect. Thiscausessome characteristics we like and identify withto cast a positive halo on the rest of the person.Its opposite is the horns effect, in which one or two negative traits change how we view the whole. Psychologists call this anchoring, meaning we judge this person through the anchor of our initial impressions.I have to struggle with this every dayWhen a company asks me to helpmotivate employees to change through deploying social intelligence strategies, my autopilot system often experiences negative emo tions toward seemingly stubborn employees who refuse to align with the companys goals. It takes constant effort to avoid letting my first impressions anchor me.Fortunately, knowing about these intuitions helps me override my gut feelings and figure out what causes employees to avoid changing. The answer is almost always in their autopilot system - fear, anxiety, desire for safety, and so on.Being able to empathize with them is key to helping me overcome my intuitions and use my intentional system to provide companies with an effective plan for motivating employees.Heres how to override yourgutThe researchis clear that our intuitions dont always serve us well in making the best decisions (and, for a business person, bringing in the most profit).Scholars call intuition atroublesome decision toolthat requires adjustments to function properly. Such reliance on intuition can also beespecially harmful to workplace diversity and paves the path to bias in hiring, including in terms ofrace,d isability,gender, and sex.Numerous studies show thatstructured interventionsare needed to overcome bias in hiring. Butunfortunately,business leaders and HR personnel tend to over-rely on unstructured interviews and other intuitive decision-making practices.Leaders fall preyto the autopilot systemsoverconfidence bias, a tendency to evaluate our decision-making abilities as better than they are.They often go with their guts on hires and other business decisions rather than use analytical decision-making tools that have demonstrably better outcomes.A good fix is to use your intentional system tooverride your tribal sensibilitiesto make a more rational, less-biased choice that will more likely result in the best hire.You could note ways in which the applicant is different from you - and give them positive points for it, as well as give negative points for those ways they are similar to you. You can also createstructured interviewswith a set of standardized questions asked in the same o rder to every applicant.Your goal should be to avoidemotional reasoning, a mental process in which you conclude that what you feel is true, regardless of the actual reality.Ignoring your gut will help youmake the best decisions in workplace relationships - and hire the best people for the job.