Have you ever had an executive who was happy to tell you how much you needed training, but when it came to him/her, training wasn't necessary. Well this week, the executives at the Mississippi Highway Patrol walked the walk by completing the implicit bias and diversity training they prescribed for everyone else.

Implicit bias, those biases to which you are consciously unaware, is something that you possess even after going through training. Because of the way your brain works, there is no way to ever completely get rid of your biases, and in some cases, these biases, despite their negative connotation, save your life. Training, however, can sometimes help you recognize what some of your hidden biases are as well as teach you how to mitigate the potential effects of these biases.

If you need proof that implicit biases affect your decision-making, contemplate these findings from an analysis of Fortune 500 CEOs in 2017:

14.5% of American men are over six feet tall but 58% of CEOs surpassed that height.

57% of the workforce is female but females represent 7% of CEOs.

Less than 1% of black males are CEOs.

There are no black female CEOs. (1)

Implicit bias affects your decision-making without you even realizing it. Mississippi Highway Patrol executives understood this and engaged in interactive exercises so that they could learn how the brain works, how biases are formed, and how steps can be taken to try and mitigate the effects to their decision-making. While we hope that this class will make them better leaders and better executives, our greater wish is that the lessons learned will help them better serve the people of their fine state.

See why so many people are calling Michael "Bret" Hood’s unique approach to leadership, financial crimes, interviewing, and ethics training as the "some of the best training I have ever taken!" With limited or no power point, you are the focus of the learning. Bret has a unique, interactive, and fun way to take difficult concepts and tie them into your experiences so you can move past theory and directly into application. If you want training designed to make you and your colleagues think, contact Bret at 21puzzles@gmail.com and see why Bret was the top-rated instructor at the ACFE's Global Fraud Conference as well as the FBI Academy.

Bret is a founding partner in 21st Century Learning & Consulting, LLC, a group that offers leadership, ethics, interviewing, diversity, & financial crimes training, investigative consulting and expert witness services. Bret is also the author of the critically acclaimed leadership books, Eat More Ice Cream! A Succinct Leadership Lesson for Each Week of the Year, and Get Off Your Horse: Fifty-Two Succinct Leadership Lessons from U.S. Presidents, available at www.amazon.com

(1) Brainard, M. (2017). The Impact of Unconscious Bias on Leadership Decision Making, Forbes, September 13, 2017. Accessed November 14, 2018 at https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbescoachescouncil/2017/09/13/the-impact-of-unconscious-bias-on-leadership-decision-making/#c4736485b3f4