Icebreaker: “Two Truths and a Lie”
Objective
To increase participants’ awareness of unconscious bias and its impact on workplace decisions and provide strategies to mitigate bias.
Session 3 Materials
Facilitators
- Unconscious Bias cards
- Whiteboard
Participants
- Implicit Association Test results (if possible)
- Printed copies of their digital reflections (page number)
Icebreaker: “Two Truths and a Lie”
Step One: The facilitator will ask each participant to share two true statements about themselves and one false statement that sounds plausible. The group will try to guess the false statement. Allow everyone to share and guess before moving to step two.
Step Two: Discuss how their biases (about the individual) influenced their perception and judgments, even in a simple exercise such as this one.
Step Three: (Defining Unconscious Bias)The facilitator will ask participants what they believe unconscious bias is and write those on the board. Then the facilitator will write the definition that we will use for this training on the whiteboard (see definition below).
- Unconscious Bias is the automatic and unintentional mental associations or stereotypes that affect our decisions and actions.
Step Four: The facilitator will ask the following questions to the group for discussion.
- Is there a bias that’s been getting in the way of solving a problem you’re currently facing?
- What is getting in the way of innovation because of your bias?