Bubble trouble: How leaders can identify and escape their biases

Wassia Kamon, CPA, was a featured speaker at the Future of Finance Summit in Orlando late last year, and she joined the JofA podcast from the event to discuss how leaders can overcome their own biases to be more inclusive.

Kamon, vice president of finance at the Low Income Investment Fund in Atlanta, points out that with social media and other commonly used applications, it’s very easy for us to choose our own news, friends, and interest areas — or have algorithms choose the focus areas for us.

That can be detrimental to people expanding their understanding of the world and learning about others.

Kamon also explains a few types of bias and how they can hold people back, and she explains why it’s important to mix progression planning with succession planning.

What you’ll learn from this episode:

• Why we’re now in the “golden age of self-curation,” according to Kamon.
• The danger of “blocking people” if you’re in a leadership role.
• An explanation of implicit bias and status quo bias.
• The meaning of leading in a “roundabout” way — and how it differs from a “traffic light” approach.
• How Kamon once reacted when approached by a manager about receiving a promotion.
• The importance of being “receptive to change.”

Play the episode below or read the edited transcript:

— To comment on this episode or to suggest an idea for another episode, contact Neil Amato at Neil.Amato@aicpa-cima.com.

Transcript

Neil Amato: Welcome back to the Journal of Accountancy podcast. This is Neil Amato with the JofA. Wassia Kamon is the VP of finance at the Low Income Investment Fund in Atlanta, and she is our next guest on the show. Wassia is a CPA and keynote speaker who recently presented a session on inclusive leadership at the Future of Finance Summit in Orlando. We’re recording in mid-December at the event.

Wassia, first, welcome to the show. I wanted to start with a point you made in that session that really made me think. You said this is “the golden age of self-curation” and that we’re in an age also of selfishness. Explain to people what you mean by that, especially as it relates to the algorithms on some of our favorite social media apps.

Wassia Kamon: Awesome. Thank you so much for having me. The golden age of self-curation is just this era where everything is catered to us; we are the audience of one. When you go on Google and you are scrolling down, you’re really seeing the news that you want to see, and you have the option of just blocking those that you don’t like.

Same thing for what we have on LinkedIn. It’s all the things that you like or dislike, and if there is someone you may not like or some type of content, you can also flag it and say, “No, I don’t want to see it again.” It’s out of sight, out of mind, and everything revolves around your own bubble. The news you consume, the people you interact with, you end up being in your own bubble, which is tricky when you take it to the workplace.

In your personal life, everything is saved. You have what you want, you hang out with the people you want to hang out [with], your connections, etc., on social media. But then you come to work and, especially as a leader, you may be tempted to do the same because you have the authority to mentor, coach, or just leave some people out. Very interesting age, I will say.

Amato: It is an interesting time we’re in, and you kind of touched on it. I’ll ask you to go into a little more detail on it. Why is that a bad trend for leadership? I guess leaders shouldn’t really be blocking people.

Kamon: Right. We have that option in our personal lives. We interact with the news we want to interact with. We connect with the people want to connect with on LinkedIn and other platforms. But then when you come to work, as a leader, you should not be blocking or just interacting with those that you like. You should really be thinking about how do I empower everyone on my team to be their best.

Amato: We’ll talk some about specific biases in just a minute. But I guess even a leader who understands what you just talked about and is willing to listen, that leader does still bring in biases. Is there a way to check biases at the door?

Kamon: Not really, but it’s good to be aware of them. During this session, someone said that their company was passing around the list of different biases and their definition to bring that back to memory. As you go through, it’s easier to challenge and go, in this moment was I really under the influence of this bias versus not? It helps you challenge, but being aware of it to me is the first step.

Amato: It’s my opinion that our listeners probably understand recency bias, in particular, affinity bias. Maybe you disagree. But I was hoping you could explain one of the biases that you said was tricky, and that is implicit bias?

Kamon: Implicit bias is when without even realizing it, you’re forming judgments and opinions about certain people. Let’s say you have a young person on your team, and they are late. If you have implicit bias, you may think, it’s because they’re sloppy, rather than thinking, oh, something must have happened.

It’s very sneaky. If you already have in your mind, like that bias that young people are irresponsible or don’t take their work seriously. If you have somebody coming late, you automatically think, it’s because they’re sloppy. That person must be lazy or slacking off versus, is something going on?

That’s why I say it’s sneaky because you’re going, “Oh, this is a nice person. I don’t need to do due diligence.” Or “I’m not sure about this one, I should do more background checks,” things like that. It’s very sneaky, but it’s something that as leaders we have to challenge ourselves when we are in those moments and thinking those thoughts.

Amato: Do you think that the finance profession in general might still have a status quo bias?

Kamon: Yes. Status quo is when you would rather not change because being where you are is comfortable. Now, in finance, we have a lot of legacy systems. We say we want change, but then change comes with a lot of work.

As much as we may think that we want to move some of our team members, [we] may not be willing to do it. Because, well, it feels good to know that this is where I need to go for this report versus the next.

Amato: You gave, for both individuals and then teams or organizations, four takeaways. I want you to go through all four of them, but one that stuck with me was the implementation and the diversification of a personal board of directors. I love that concept. Tell me more about that.

Kamon: Yes, that’s a concept I learned from a book called Unstuck and Unstoppable by Jeannine K. Brown, and in there she was …

Amato: A former JofA podcast guest.

Kamon: Oh, wow, OK. In that book, she was talking about how you need different truth tellers, different voices in your life. As I was thinking about inclusive leadership, it’s really a personal skill, a personal advantage that you have to have. In your personal life, you should have people from different backgrounds, age groups, genders to help you navigate what’s going on in life.

You have to be comfortable talking with people who don’t look like you, who don’t think like you. It helps you on a personal level expand your own view of the world, your own perspectives on different things.

[In] my personal board of directors, I have four CPAs, but I also have a lawyer, event coordinator, supply chain director. Thinking of that T-shaped professional. It’s good to have different views and be able to call someone and say, “Hey, I have this issue, what do you think about it? What’s your view? How would you see it?”

Because we are in this age of so much change going on. Just being in your silo on a personal level is not helpful. You really need that community at a personal level. That’s what I meant by either implementing, if you don’t have one already, but definitely diversifying to have people of different age groups, at different stages of their career, and coming from different backgrounds or industries.

Amato: Can you go back to the T-shaped model? Explain what that means?

Kamon: The T-shaped accounting professional is a framework where at the core level, that vertical line, [is] your deep knowledge into accounting, [the technical side]. But then at the top line, the horizontal line, you also have leadership skills, people skills, digital skills, strategic, business acumen — all those skills that will make you well rounded in today’s world.

Amato: It’s like the vertical line and the T is the deep technical skills, and then the wide line across horizontally, you’re basically trying to constantly widen that. Tell me about this concept: As more roundabouts or traffic circles get put into intersections all over our country — and maybe all over the world, I don’t know. They used to just be in a few states, and now they’re everywhere.

Kamon: Yes.

Amato: “Lead more with roundabouts than traffic lights.”

Kamon: Yes.

Amato: What does that mean?

Kamon: That’s a concept I learned from Alyssa Cox, and she spoke at the AFP 2023 conference. I was also speaking. She gave such a great analogy of when we as a leader lead as a traffic light, then you’re given a red light [or] go for every single business decision, and so your team is not empowered to move forward.

Now, when you think about roundabouts, you’re really facilitating decision-making within your team, you’re empowering them to make it happen. Now, what happens in real life is that as leaders, we tend to be traffic lights with some types of people and then roundabouts with others.

When we are thinking about inclusive leadership, we should be thinking about empowering every single person, no matter their age, their background, what we think or may not think of them, so they can keep things moving. It’s important because you want that today because of resilience, you want stronger teams.

You want things to keep moving whether you’re here or not. Making sure that you’re leading with more roundabouts, empowering people to come with you on that journey, is more helpful than just saying every decision has to start or stop with you.

Amato: Tell me about this concept: Mix progression and succession planning. I’ve heard a lot about succession planning. I’m not sure I’d ever heard progression planning before your session.

Kamon: Awesome. I wrote an article in Accounting Today a couple of months ago about how we should encourage the next generation of accountants. Because we realized that more and more people, as we enter the workforce, we’re not necessarily interested in becoming partners or having your boss’s job.

That was me a couple years ago. My boss came to me and he was like, “I’m moving to another department. Do you want to take my role?” I was like no, and he was so shocked. But I was like, I have two young kids under the age of five, I’m not ready for it. I’m ready for, whoever comes next, I will support them.

Progression planning is thinking in terms of, rather than grooming people for a specific role, you groom them to be a great asset on your team. You identify the major things, the core competencies or skills that you want on your team, and then you make sure everyone, not just the one you picked for the next role, is equipped and learning those skills. So that whether that next person leaves a company or is no longer interested, you still have a team that’s still high-performing.

Amato: The Future of Finance Summit has been held three years. You’ve been to the past two now. What would you say, at least from this event as a closing thought, are some of your takeaways, some of the things you’ve heard?

Kamon: It’s just been a great experience. From last year to this year, I love the growth overall and the sessions that are so well tailored to what we go through as finance and accounting professionals, and learning from your peers. I had great conversations about how do you handle this? How do you deal with employees that are not ready to move when you are ready to move, or pressured to move?

The sessions about how are you coachable really resonated with me as a leader. How they said that as you grow from entry-level to midlevel career manager, then to executive, your coachability, your learning zone tends to decrease.

It’s a reminder for myself to [ask] how do I onboard my team or engage my team better when they’re in those early stages of their careers? How do I help them be more inclusive? How do I help them lead change better? When they’re more receptive to change, they’re more receptive to learn more.

Amato: Wassia Kamon, thank you very much.

Kamon: Thank you so much, Neil. It’s a pleasure.