Beliefs, prejudices & biases

To what extent do my beliefs, prejudices or biases influence my thinking in terms of providing service in my profession? Include several examples.

In my main profession, programming boring tax software for Wells Fargo, I don't have a lot of interaction outside my own small team. I have some interaction with internal customers (accountants, program managers, account reps, etc,) but even that is pretty limited.
This limited amount of data to analyze gives me the ability to think critically about what beliefs, prejudices or biases might influence my thinking during those interactions.  The scary part is, without this writing prompt and this class, I may never have slowed down and thought about it in this way.
One thing that I often catch myself thinking about when I join conference calls with people I have never spoken with before is their accent. If I see a name that looks like it originates in India or Pakistan on the attendees list, I immediately begin wondering how fast this person talks or whether I will be able to understand them. Digging deeper into this, I would bet that if I paid attention and observed the parts of the conversation I was involved with, I would more often engage a person who shared the same accent/speech pattern as me. In fact, I remember several occasions when I have almost completely checked out of a conversation when the person speaking was difficult for me to understand.
Another example is pre-judging someone based on the appearance of their name or photo.  At my workplace, we use Skype for Business, an enterprise wide Instant Message and video conference platform.Conference calls or small group conversations include a list of participants and a small avatar/picture of the person next to their name. Making a mental assessment of a person's intellect or skill level based on either of these appearances is something that I am guilty of doing.  I know this because I can recall times when I have thought to myself "Oh that person really knows their stuff!" or "That went much better than I expected it would."  Those kind of afterthoughts lead me to believe that I had already set my impression of a particular person without having ever met or spoken with them.
Another less frequent occurrence has to do with gender.  Having joined the military at a time where opportunities for women were much more limited than they are now, I developed some biases that initially were incorrect and potentially damaging to my career and relationships with superiors, but have since evolved into a much greater appreciation for accomplishments than gender based assumptions about how someone may have risen to the level they currently occupy.  I remember just after boot camp, listening to a talk given by one of the very few female Admirals.  At that time, it seemed completely normal to me that there was not anything close to equity in flag promotions between the genders in the military.  This remains true, to a lesser extent, even today. In 2013, women made up 16.6% percent of the officer corps, but only 7.1% of our generals and admirals were women. The Air Force had the most, 28 female generals, while the Navy and Army were close together in second place with 21 admirals and 19 generals, respectively.  The Marine Corps, often chided by the other branches as being far behind in several categories, had only 1 female general in 2013.¹

Vice Admiral Robin Braun, USN (ret)²

I don't know what changed in me, other than maturing and possibly being introduced to and working for a lot of really great female leaders in both the military and my civilian careers. The Admiral pictured to the left was the Chief of the Naval Reserve during the last few years of my career. I met her on a few occasions and know that her highest priority was taking care of reserve Sailors.   My skipper on my deployment to Iraq was a female captain, and one of the best Commanding Officers I ever had.  My current manager at Wells Fargo is an outstanding boss, who often gets out her stern, disapproving voice when her people aren't being treated fairly.
I know that since writing this, I will be more aware of the thoughts that go through my head that are caused by nothing more than bias or stereotypes. It is probably going to remove some stress from my daily life and will certainly not hurt my career aspirations.



¹By the numbers: Women in the U.S. military. CNN. http://www.cnn.com/2013/01/24/us/military-women-glance/. Published January 24, 2013. Accessed January 7, 2017.
² Navy Biographies. US Navy. http://www.navy.mil/navydata/bios/navybio_ret.asp?bioID=379. Published September 29, 2016. Accessed January 7, 2017.