We automatically assume that technology can’t possibly have biases. Only humans have biases. Let’s examine this proposition.

In 2017 Google announced their speech recognition had a 95% accuracy rate. However, voice-activated searches still carry gender biases.

Meredith Whit taker,director of the AI Now Institute at New York University, noted that voice-recognition tools that rely on AI often don’t recognize higher-pitched voices. These mainly belong to women. The systems are not as well equipped to interact with women as with men.

Research by Rachael Tatman from the University of Washington indicated that Google’s speech recognition is 13% more accurate for men than it is for women.

Why do we see these results?

Tech is very male-dominated. Recent studies found:

             1. 18% of authors at leading AI conferences are women

            2. 80% of AI professors are men, globally.

            3. Women comprise only 15% of AI research staff at Facebook &10% at Google.

Technologies often reflect the gender biases in society& the lack of diversity in the design teams

Designers and software architects have their own biases & these are reflected in the way they create & train the technologies they work on

Source: “Sway” by Pragya Agarwal

Are you a habitual procrastinator? Did you know your brain is designed to help you #procrastinate…its not all your fault?

We often experience time having “run-away”, especially as we approach a deadline. Simultaneously, an internal voice tells us, we had enough time to comfortably finish the task, had we stuck to the plan.

Even though our #rationalmind swears, this is the last time this will happen…the story repeats itself. Why?

#neurosciencestudies have shown, the brain doesn’t like unpleasant tasks. It will take the easier option whenever possible. When faced with such situations, it sends out #painsignals to the body, just like when you are physically injured. This signal persuades you to #procrastinate and put off unpleasant/difficult tasks/

So what is #the solution: make your brain a friend.

How?

#Discipline yourself to take the start difficult tasks. Once the 1st step is completed, the brain stops sending the pain signal. This will ease #internalresistance. Additionally there is a “high” generated after #task completion. This energy helps to complete remainder tasks.

#learning: schedule the most difficult/unpleasant tasks in the morning. Your brain will let you finish the rest as per plan.

What #competencies do organizations look for when #hiringleaders? I recently read an article which quoted statistics based on a survey done across 2500 executives in leadership positions.

70% of leaders surveyed rated collaboration&high #EQ as highly as strategy when hiring leaders for their teams.

Recently a senior executive being considered for the position of a CEO was turned down because he was running late & was very rude to the driver that had come to pick him up for the job interview.

Organizations are increasingly looking for traits like #empathy & # humility. Gone are the days when organizations looked for the Archetype A leader that was aggressive. More than even skills&experience, organizations are looking for leaders that are collaborative, accept their #weaknesses & look to #leveragingteammembers strengths

In the drive to achieve results in the short term, some organizations may overlook senior leaders riding roughshod over the emotions of team members, however this trend definitely changing.

Confirming this trend is the increasing number of programs we conduct on #emotionalintelligence and #collaboration

Slowly the value of controlling one’s emotions, demonstrating #emotionalintelligence & being #empathetic are emerging as competencies that companies prefer in their leaders.