Finding places where humans still live on trees and other joys of stereotyping !!
This is another topic on the decision making process. In this topic I am focussing my attention on stereotypes that may deeply impact the decisions.
We tend to pigeonhole people and in turn being pigeonholed by others based this may result us to jumping to conclusion or form an inference without looking at the full array of facts. For example a stereotype exists in the IT world particularly in US and Australia that it is cheaper to outsource to India because labour is cheaper. Wrong! Project cost is cheaper as the same team may have implemented similar projects ten times over in other geographies hence the outsourced team may be simply assembling the components of the project together just like a pizza joint assembles your pizza from its ingredients which are ready to go.
If you are seeking advice for your business pivot or a reconfirmation of your approach be careful you may be seen to be a particular stereotype and expect to behave in a certain manner. Research suggests that to overcome #gender #bias many women chose to dress and behave like men. In another case Sudha Murty, in her book Three Thousand Stitches, shed light on some of the prevailing issues in the society. The 66-year-old wife of industrialist Narayana Murthy wearing traditional India dress was asked to move to the “cattle class” queue at Londons’s Heathrow airport. It was assumed because she was and Indian and wore a saree, that she could not afford a business class seat.
We tend to stereotype people based on their looks, background, colour of eyes schooling, ethnicity, gender just be careful that there is no scientific evidence of correlation of any of these with IQ or capability. Unless we are looking at fact based suggestion that Kenyans are great marathon runners. Assuming that all Kenyans are marathon runners or all Indians are mathematicians is nothing short of stereotyping.
There is too much information out there and our lazy brain hates processing it and tends to take shortcuts. It gives us quick and easy and more often than less, less than optimum outcomes.
The scary thing about stereotypes is creation of self fulfilling prophecy. We assume at the onset that are born with a certain set of traits that will make us more suited for a particular task or job. As a result we self select ourselves for those roles without understanding our own individuality that makes us different. We hand out with people in a similar job type assuming our own stereotype net result are the behaviour and outcomes in line with anticipated yet suboptimal.
I was once in a conversation with a lady who is a well known public speaker. She had never travelled to india however she confidently said that she knows a lot about India. Wondering how did she reach that conclusion, her answer was every time I go in a cab driven by an Indian cab driver I talk to them and learn about India. I was aghast. She was claiming authority on her knowledge about India without reading a single book on history, travelling to country or doing anything remotely besides talking to cab drivers and making a picture about India in her head. Knowing that India spends significantly more in the space program, has more millionaires than the entire Australian population. This stereotyped view was far from true.
Take care when you are generalising about a group of people, a country, a school or even a continent ( some people still think that in Australia and Africa, people live on trees) that generalisation and stereotyping can mislead you.
Reference
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/why-kenyans-make-such-great-runners-a-story-of-genes-and-cultures/256015/
Best
Sameer Babbar
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