BEAT GENDER BIAS

How to play a better part in a more inclusive world

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About The Book

Bias might be built-in to how our brains work, but that doesn’t make it acceptable. Recent advances in psychology and neuroscience give us an unprecedented insight into how biases interfere with good decision-making. When it comes to leadership, these biases create a sticky floor making it hard for women to rise to the top, despite their talents and ambitions. The good news is that the frustratingly slow pace of change in achieving gender-balance can be accelerated if you know more about how bias works.

In this book, Dr Karen Morley explains how biases, particularly the insidious unconscious ones, trip us up. She outlines what approach to take to minimise their impact on organisations. She shares stories from leaders committed to making their organisations fairer. Her Bias Busters are specific actions that you can take to outsmart bias, help advance the progress of women, and create more inclusive cultures. Her goal is to make it easier to notice, talk about, and overcome bias.

Beat Gender Bias is for leaders from CEO level to the frontline and all working men and women who want a better world of work. By replacing bias with inclusion, organisations will create personal, social, productivity and economic value that will sustain future success.

Karen believes that pretty much everyone wants to be included and to make a difference. This book makes it clear how you can do both. And play a better, satisfying part in creating a more inclusive world.

By replacing bias with inclusion, organisations will create personal, social, productivity and economic value that will sustain future success.

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What Executive Leaders have to say about Beat Gender Bias

‘Everyone knows about the causes and consequences of gender bias, but few know how to combat it. This book, packed with practical suggestions, is a must-read for anyone interested in reducing gender bias and creating an inclusive workplace.’

Dr Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic, Chief Talent Scientist at Manpower Group, Professor of Business Psychology at Columbia University and UCL

‘A thought-provoking and practical book on gender bias for any leader in today’s workplace. I really enjoyed Karen’s book because it provides effective leadership tools to help identify and overcome gender bias, reframe the conversation, and create more inclusive workplaces.’

Angela Williams, General Manager Community & Housing, Broadspectrum

‘When organisations have a role to serve the community, naturally half the population benefiting should be women and girls. However, many studies demonstrate that there is unconscious bias in service delivery by government agencies. The tools and tips outlined in Dr Karen Morley’s book Beat Gender Bias will assist councils to be more inclusive in service delivery to everyone across the community. Reading this will assist public sector leaders to make the invisible visible and then work to address equitable delivery of service.’

Ruth McGowan, OAM, Local Government consultant and trainer

‘Karen’s book is easy to read, data-rich, and informative. It provides practical and clear suggestions for achieving change on diversity and inclusion in groups and organisations. It is a valuable reference tool for those of us – whether we are leaders, members of groups, or parents – who want to see continuing change in this area in our society and our organisations. Most of all, it helps us learn more about ourselves and be better people and leaders for it.’

Andrea Durrant, Managing Partner, Boards Global

‘Creating a truly inclusive workplace, where your team genuinely want to put down roots and grow, starts with a mindset and culture of safety, connection and feeling welcome. A constant threat to this flourishing is bias, and as leaders it’s often the unconscious thoughts that play out in the lived reality.

‘Beat Gender Bias’ is a fantastic framework for raising awareness and identifying behaviours in ourselves and our teammates, and for challenging this head on in a way that brings teams on the right journey to a place of work that bears out the true nature of diversity and inclusion.’

Michael Schneider, Managing Director, Bunnings

‘Dr Morley has extensive experience working with organisations and their leaders. Her insights, combined with her extensive knowledge of organisational behaviours, have clearly been brought to the fore in Beat Gender Bias. It is a very approachable and well-organised tool to enable anyone to understand bias, the situations that arise when bias is viewed as acceptable, and how you can turn a toxic environment into an inclusive one. I would recommend the book to anyone that is hoping to lead an organisation to maximise everyone’s talents and create a highly productive organisation that will be successful into the future.’

Anthea Hancocks, CEO, Scanlon Foundation

‘Karen Morley has done us all a great service by writing this book. She has the deep knowledge and experience to translate what we know about building more inclusive organisations into how to do it. And she does it in such a straightforward and practical way. In particular, I appreciate that Karen tells stories and gives tips that provide a way forward for leaders and organisations that might feel stuck, despite their best intentions. Her ‘bias busters’ provide a great checklist for what can and needs to be done.

I’ve known Karen for many years – and she has never failed to offer insight and practical guidance. With this book, I am confident that all readers will deepen their knowledge and find ways to become more effective leaders. And it is through personal leadership that we can all make a difference – to build stronger organisations and a better society.’

Kathryn Fagg, AO Chairman Boral Ltd, Past President Chief Executive Women, Non-Executive Director Male Champions of Change

‘I had the pleasure of being supported by Karen on my leadership journey for the last 12 months. During this period we had lots of meaningful conversations around purpose-driven leadership and what makes a strong team. Having worked in many different countries around the globe, there is one big learning for me: don’t believe thinking or doing things your way is the only or best way! Diversity is one of the key enablers to a high-performance team. The more different backgrounds, experiences and worldviews the people in your company have, the better they will find solutions and drive performance.

‘Gender bias is still one of the most pertinent biases, and as the father of a daughter, I am much more sensitive to this dimension of biases since she was born. The topic of bias is much wider than that – any bias prevents you from exploring the opportunities around you and it can be very hurtful to another person; it is never factual. We are all used to seeing the world through our own eyes, but I encourage every leader to change perspective and to experience the wealth of a more diverse view – it is truly enriching and one of the greatest experiences I have as a leader every day.’

Rafael Pasquet, CFO, Mercedes-Benz Financial Services Australia Pty. Ltd.

‘I have long been a believer in the critical importance of diversity of thought in achieving high performance. The GFC and economic cycles have seen many organisations without sufficient diversity of thought struggle or even disappear. Encouraging inclusion and listening are keys to leveraging the diversity dividend. How to successfully and consistently promote diversity and achieve inclusion are the hard parts. Thankfully, Karen’s book gives all leaders the tools we need to do this.

‘I was fortunate to have exposures to some amazing Male Champions of Change (MCCs) in my time at Aurecon. MCC leaders like Giam Swiegers and Bill Cox have highlighted the correlation between diversity and innovation as not being a coincidence – diversity drives innovation. The numerous industry awards won by Aurecon are proof of that. Not to mention that truly diverse and inclusive organisations are more fun to work in! With Karen’s book in hand, I am confident many more leaders will be able to champion change and beat bias, to ensure that their organisations and communities are high-performing.’

Paul Axup, CFO, Aurecon

Highlights from the virtual book launch!

At the launch of Beat Gender Bias, I was joined by Nick Marinelli, former CEO of Fulton Hogan Australia, who provides one of the stories I share in the book, and Lesley Williams, publisher extraordinaire and Director Major Street Publishing. Dan Hillier, General Manager at Terry White Chemmart was MC.

In the video I outline what led me to write the book and what is in it. Nick speaks about the gender diversity journey at Fulton Hogan and his tips for success, and Lesley Williams highlights the book’s practical focus.

Enjoy the video replay!

Free Book Club Webinar Series

To celebrate the release of Beat Gender Bias: How to play a better part in a more inclusive world, I’m running FREE monthly book club webinars.

We discuss the book, its case studies and stories, share resources, and explore other books that also focus on how to beat bias.

Topics include the value of unconscious bias training, how to have challenging conversations that help break through bias, and identifying how to be more influential in your organisation’s diversity initiatives.

3rd Tuesday of the month at 2pm AEST.