Training Industry Magazine - March/April 2021 - 33

for prejudice reduction is redefining
social categories by highlighting
intergroup similarities.

situations they face and their sphere of
influence to affect systemic change.

Behavioral change is difficult and effortful,
because our brains are wired to rely heavily
on shortcuts. Practice is needed for longterm behavioral change. Simulation is an
effective tool, because it can mimic the reallife pressures people face while enabling
them to practice speaking out.

People need to feel part of a cohesive
team of allies working toward shared
goals of initiating positive social and
business changes. This is where training
often falls short. Placing blame on training
participants can not only set off a threat
response but create an " us " vs. " them "
mentality. Research has revealed how
easy it is to create division; even when
people are assigned to arbitrary groups,
they differentiate between in-group and
out-group members.
Why is this important? In-group bias,
the tendency to prefer someone
within your social circle or group,
is a well-established phenomenon.
Brain imaging studies reveal that
reward areas of the brain become
more active when in-group members
succeed compared to out-group
members, suggesting we are more
likely to celebrate the success of our
teammates. People are also less likely
to empathize with someone whom they
perceive as belonging to a different
group. All this impacts how we behave
towards others.

Human-centered Design
One-time, one-size-fits-all DEI training
results in disengaged learners who view
training as a box to check. To better
inspire allyship and promote long-term
changes, organizations should examine
their training through the lens of humancentered design to be more intentional
in the following:

1. Meet people where they are.
It's critical to identify where learners
are on the " allyship continuum " to
customize training for the target audience.
Organizations possess different cultures
and starting points for DEI, and people
within organizations have different
understandings of and experiences
with DEI. People at all levels are critical
in cultural change. However, it is a
disservice to ignore that, in addition to
personal differences as an advantaged or
disadvantaged person, a learner's function
and level within the organization impacts
their knowledge about the organization,

3. Provide practice
opportunities.

4. Consider the holistic
learning journey.

Conducting
empathy
interviews
helps designers better understand
and empathize with learners. User
personas can then be developed
to characterize their motivations,
challenges and training needs to
ensure that the unique needs of the
audience are considered in design.
When this is not done, we lose an
opportunity to gain allies; if people
feel that training is not relevant for
them, they are likely to tune out.

2. Be specific.
With knowledge gleaned from empathy
interviews, designers can use realistic
examples of how exclusion and inequity
could show up in the target audience's
world. Training that is vague will not
be much use to learners. For example,
it is easy to agree not to be racist,
but people may not recognize all the
ways that racism shows up or specific
behaviors to enact in response.

One-off training on everything at once can
overwhelm learners. Consider how learning
opportunities can be scaffolded and
reinforced across a holistic learning journey.

Conclusion
There is an outcry and a yearning to
address systemic inequities. However,
lasting systemic change does not happen
organically and requires a coalition of
allies to forge change. Effective training
is needed to build and prepare allies.
Leveraging insights from neuroscience
insights, we can be more intentional when
designing training to ensure authentic
allyship and prepare allies to affect lasting,
systemic change.
Grace Chang, Ph.D., is a cognitive
neuroscientist focused on applying
her research background and industry
consulting experience as associate director
of learning research and development
at Ernst & Young. Samad Aidane is a
cross-cultural leadership development
researcher, trainer, consultant and
coach. Email Grace and Samad.

The Impact of Threat
Our brains are sensitive to potential
threats in the environment, whether
physical or social (e.g., losing status).
When threatened, our amygdala, a
brain structure critical for processing
emotions, becomes more active and
initiates a series of biological events,
resulting in a " fight or flight " response.
While the rational frontal cortex of
our brain can down-regulate this

automatic threat response, this is
difficult to do if the threat is strong
or if we are not motivated to do so.
Threats draw our focus and can make
it difficult to engage in the thoughtful,
creative thinking needed to shift
how we think. Our brain's reaction to
threats is important, because allyship
training and allyship itself are ripe with
opportunities to experience threat.

T R A I N I N G I N DUSTR Y MAGAZ INE - BUILDING AN EQUITABLE W ORKP L AC E I WWW. T RAI NINGINDU S T RY . C OM/ MAGAZ I NE

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https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-psych-071620-030619 https://www.doi.org/10.1002/ejsp.2420010202 https://blogs.perficient.com/2019/01/16/design-thinking-empathy-observation-pt-3/ https://www.trainingindustry.com/articles/content-development/creating-learner-personas-for-learning-success/ https://static1.squarespace.com/static/54238bf2e4b068090a9b54bb/t/54342558e4b08c886778d404/1412703576008/Cikara+et+al.%252C+2011+-+PsychSci.pdf https://www.trainingindustry.com/articles/content-development/creating-learner-personas-for-learning-success/ https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/7/5/596/1693313 https://academic.oup.com/scan/article/7/5/596/1693313 https://www.designkit.org/human-centered-design https://www.designkit.org/human-centered-design https://mrc.ucsf.edu/allyship https://www.trainingindustry.com/magazine

Training Industry Magazine - March/April 2021

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