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Best practices against corporate culture biases

Combine vulnerability, psychological safety, and difficult conversations to increase employee satisfaction.

By:
Fuckup team
February 23, 2023
Best practices against corporate culture biases | FUN

Biases: they get a bad rep, and for good reason!

From gender to race to age, these mental shortcuts help our brains create patterns and stories so we can make sense of the world, even if they’re not facts at all. Fun fact about our brains: for every shortcut or story we create, we get a dopamine shot as a reward. 

Remember how we covered corporate culture biases and the problems they caused? How about when we tackled psychological safety at work, either from one of our blog posts or from one of our webinars?

Well, here’s a short and sweet list of best practices that combine vulnerability, psychological safety, and difficult conversations in a powerful mashup to overcome those organizational culture biases that keep plummeting your employee satisfaction numbers:

  1. Loss aversion bias 

This bias is an adverse reaction to change. When it happens, people tend to focus on potential losses rather than focusing on the gains.

When a major shift in organizational culture happens, potential threats to "order" within an organization are often targeted and exaggerated, including risks to established processes that are generally obsolete and harmful to the work culture.

How to solve it: Taking accountability for our own decisions allows continuous learning.

It’s really hard to learn from our experiences if we cannot admit we did something wrong or that we could have done it better. This allows us to grow professionally and lead by example.


  1. Confirmation bias 

This occurs when we solely focus on information that confirms or favors our beliefs and opinions.

How to solve it: Defeating ego is a crucial step toward building solutions.

We're too used to talking up our results and brushing over our mistakes. Being conscious of our imperfections and challenges allows us to set the ground for more creative and strategic decision-making.

When there are proposals for new processes or alternatives to the corporate philosophy approach, be open to looking for opportunities to improve and progress.



  1. False consensus effect 

With this bias, we believe that more people agree with us than they do. 

This can happen when a team member expresses their point of view on how unnecessary it is to renew the organizational culture. 

How to solve it: Authenticity and empathy.

Vulnerability steps in as a game-changer in order to create deeper connections which result in higher empathy and more efficient and transparent communication. We often forget we're human beings working with human beings in our working environments. Creating psychological safety at work increases participation and reduces the fear of refutation. Therefore, people are more willing to let you know what’s really going on.


  1. Affinity bias

Occurs when we have more sympathy for what is known. People, faces, situations, or environments that are as similar as possible to ours.

How to solve it: Open communication to pivot and avoid irreversible failures.

We need to build spaces of psychological safety where one can feel comfortable admitting mistakes or sharing different points of view and concerns about a project or decision. This dramatically reduces the rate of the so-called impostor syndrome among employees and managers, a widespread symptom in traditional corporate cultures.


Do you think your workspace lacks some of these characteristics? Here’s a huge chance to improve how people feel about taking risks and sharing learnings: our workshops!

From Failure Management to Innovation, to Fear of Failure and Psychological Safety, we have a series of workshops that will help you turn around your organizational culture towards authenticity while increasing productivity -with a focus on diversity and inclusion. This is all part of The Failure Program!

Just fill out this form and we’ll get back to you with a customized proposal so you start making failure work for you.

Editor: Raquel Rojas

Editado por

Best practices against corporate culture biases
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