Giving Compass' Take:

• As part of the Action for Diversity and Inclusion initiative, a custom-built bus is visiting 100 companies and offering unconscious bias training to build more inclusive workplaces. 

• The unconscious bias bus tour is a good start to get companies to think about their roles in diversity and inclusion efforts, but what more needs to be done to have a long-term change in DEI efforts?

• Read the guide to busting unconscious bias. 

That’s me in the photo above, engaging with an interactive, virtual reality (VR) installation on the “Check Your Blind Spots” unconscious bias training tour bus. The title of this exercise, “Look Into Someone Else’s Reality,” is both a literal description of the VR experience and a larger, metaphorical call-to-consciousness about racial, ethnic, and gender stereotyping and resulting behavior.

This was one of several such interactive offerings designed to examine unconscious bias in everyday life presented in the custom-built bus, a project of the Action for Diversity & Inclusion initiative. The bus combines cutting-edge tech with hot-button pushing of dinosaur brain emotions to deliver its strong message: “To face unconscious bias, build inclusion, and broaden impact beyond the business community.”

This $10 million “bias bus” is on a 100-stop tour to workplaces, universities, and communities across the country, with a goal of reaching 1 million people in person and online.

To date, CEO Action for D&I has collected 500+ signatories representing 85 industries and 12 million employees. Supported by research from Cone Communications that shows 78 percent of Americans want companies to address important social justice issues, and driven by the leadership of founder Tim Ryan, U.S. chairman and senior partner at PwC, CEO Action for D&I aims to double its number of signatories to 1,000 CEOs and add 100+ university leaders. The combination of its large scale and its top-down direction mark this coalition as one of the most significant civil rights initiatives of our time.

Read the full article about unconscious bias by John Howell at TriplePundit