Randy Means & Associates has enormous experience delivering intense, one-day bias management training and with the leadership initiatives necessary to mitigate bias organizationally. We are not new to this territory and want to share our insights with you.
The way we think about people and events affects the way we feel toward people and events. The way we feel about people and events affects the way we behave toward them. Bias, then, is likely to affect behavior even when we didn’t wish for it to do so.
We all have a variety of biases, positive and negative, caused by a lifetime of socialization. By our early and constant exposure to our own culture and its normative attitudes, we are explicitly and implicitly taught what to think and therefore how to feel about others – across a wide band of generalizations – stereotypes. We are “taught” about gender and sexuality, age and disabilities, social class and religion, as well as nationality, ethnicity, color and race.
Apart from the portion of the brain that handles socialization lies the “old” brain, prehistoric in its evolutionary origins. This part of the brain harbors a survival instinct that tends to see difference as threat. It operates instinctively and instantly without our conscious thought or even awareness – so it is impossible for us to block its messaging – even if we wanted to.
All this paints a bleak picture, but there is hope. We may not be able to eliminate or even block some of our bias, but there are things we can do to minimize it and block its behavioral effects. This necessarily begins with self-awareness. The statement, “I don’t have a biased bone in my body” is more indicative of a lack of self-awareness than the absence of bias.
This all matters in all parts of everyone’s lives but it matters even more in police work. We’re not folding sweaters at the Gap here. We are detaining, searching, arresting, and using force, including deadly force. We are required by the Constitution and our oaths of office to deliver police work that is bias free – at least in its behavioral outcroppings.
To this end we have brought together a faculty of psychologists and other racially and otherwise diverse, extraordinarily-credentialed experts. They are career law enforcement officers and leaders with very special ability to see problems, and solve them. Several of them are US DOJ vetted and approved as bias mitigation trainers in projects involving major agencies.
Our training and other initiatives fall into two categories. One involves everyone – all officers, supervisors, managers and administrators. It is about our own personal efforts at bias mitigation. The other involves organizational leadership – what focused policies, strengthened systems and other initiatives can be brought to bear in this fight for the fairness in which we are all necessarily invested, pursuant to our legal and ethical obligations.
Live Training and Live Webinar Pricing
One (1) day In-Person Training or Live Interactive Webinar
Cost:
- One-Day, On-Site Bias Management Seminar: $3,500 (including instructor travel expenses)
- Same program, via LIVE interactive webinar: $2,500 per day
- Second-Fifth day (consecutive days) on-site Bias Management Seminar: $2,500 per day (including instructor travel and per diem)
Please contact us to discuss how we can help you at info@randymeans.com or call 302-757-5002