At the end of one’s life, nothing hurts more than the consciousness that what one thought and believed to be true is in reality false. One philosopher stated, ‘It is not what we know that hurts; but what we know that isn’t true hurts eternally.’ In these two articles, I will share with you the business cost of being judgmental. It is not the eventual truth that hurts but the time and opportunity lost in holding onto a lie. I will restrict myself to only two kinds of prejudices common in social and business environments.
The first is the prejudice against people [and the second is what the next article illuminates]. The grand cost of prejudice is in the crippling effect it has on the bearer that renders them incapable of not only utilizing opportunity but also adapting to change. A lot of lamentable wrong steps and unwarranted fears in business today attest to this weakness. No one can indeed estimate the true cost of narrow-mindedness to a person or a business. Today, I am placing my emphasis on the Prejudice against people:
The greatest prejudice in social life is that against persons. It is the bias held, not against people known to us in person, (for in that case it is dislike or indifference or even hatred) but against some people not even known to us by sight. It could be against a particular individual or a specific group of individuals. It is liken to the fear of the unknown with the absolute conviction that the unknown is bad. It is a total irony. And don’t forget that there are as many forms of intolerance as there different causes of prejudice.
The 4 Costs of Prejudice against People
The lack of firsthand experience with the object of one’s prejudice kills all objectivity. Many employees or entrepreneurs have distanced themselves from the kinds of people who could give the valuable props or opportunities for advancement simply because they regard them ‘the wrong type.’ Many employers have missed out on superb employees because they regarded them ‘the wrong type’ on first sight. In the business sense, prejudice will precipitate immense costs arising from;
Rejecting great talent whose acquisition would transform you into a formidable competitor;
Take the example of sports where a team manager refuses to take on a good player because of size, height or nationality. The player is taken by the competing team and straight away becomes the biggest influence on the game or the league.
In one of the recent meetings I held with my team, we discussed the possibility of hiring a person to work as our customer relationship manager. All agreed we needed a hand in that area. A person was sourced but from first sight, you could hardly give her a 4/10 score. However, when she began on executing her work with precision and class, lots of those who had dismissed her were tongue-tied.
Overlooking great business opportunities because the opportunity lies with ‘the wrong type’
In many interview with most successful business people reveal that when they started out, they focused on producing products and services for the upper class [because they are perceived to have a higher purchasing power since they have the money]. However, after some time down the road, they realize to their amazement that when you produce relevant products and priced in the category that the poor can afford, you make much more sales and gain a bigger profit margin in the long run. See, all of a sudden, the poor who were perceived as business liabilities become the biggest target market.
Unfair Mistreatment of Customers and Co-Workers;
It is unbelievable how quickly and easily we place wrong estimations on people. Like the analogy goes; to a hammer, everything is a nail [metallic]. How often do we see women despised for being women; short people disrespected for being so; less educated people being underrated; the disabled being offended; the fat, slim, white, black, old, young and poor people being perceived through unfair lens for just being what they are – it does not matter whether this kind of person is the boss or client, they will receive the same treatment from people prejudiced against them. What if the consequences of this unfair treatment are driving away massive business? What if this vice is detrimental to your business image? What if it increases employee turnover? What if?
People are people. Whether you rate them high or low they remain people. Granted, there are some who are more competent or gifted individuals than others. But who says that such competence or talent is a reservation for just one race, gender, religion, class, size, height or by whichever attribute you are prejudiced against? Haven’t you seen countless examples of people you were once prejudiced against demonstrating physical and mental excellence over and above your estimation?
Poor Decision Making
The quality of a decision cannot exceed the quality of information upon which it was based. What do you really think of the kinds of decisions based on lies, cheap gossip, unjustified fear or false assumptions? The decisions will most likely be as worthless as the information sources that influence them. The state of a business is the subtotal of all the decisions that have gone in its establishment. Good decisions are born out of research. The last thing that prejudiced people ever care to do is to research. They don’t think there is any aorta of need to verify anything. Hmm, why verify what they already know? Poor choices are a direct cost of being prejudiced. The sad part is when people are suffering because of their prejudice but can’t tell the preventable cause of their misery.
Think about how many times people are told about others in a negative way and the listeners take such opinions to heart. From that day on, they also begin transporting the same negativity about the same people who he has never seen, talked with or even had any form of interaction. It does even matter how they look. In fact Deborah L Rhode wrote an interesting article entitled why looks are the last bastion of discrimination. Negative opinions about ‘these’ people intensify each other to a point that these people are underrated due to popular opinion (transported through idle talk and superficial analyses). Then out of sudden coincidence, the prejudiced fellow meets a person from the group they negatively perceive. After a brief interaction, they realize to their disbelief that the individual is a great person to work with. In fact they changed their mindset about them and begin singing their praises. They are so overwhelmed and guilty to observe that the object of their prejudice is actually not menacing and repulsive as they earlier thought. They feel guilty for giving a bad name to a good thing.
How easily our unfounded convictions turn round to shame us. That we should constantly pretend to know more about others [including strangers] is beyond logical justification. It is a vice whose practice is pagan in nature. I cannot mention blunders that daily cost people time, money and life than prejudice. The habit of giving wrong estimates to things and people. Not that these people care enough to verify their belief; they are just content holding their belief as gold standard truth. Prejudices are misconceived opinions that are not based on reason or actual experience. They are opinions that come from the darkness of our ignorance and from the arrogance of our self aggrandizement. We are usually superior of inferior to the prime object of our prejudice. It is a solid example of the triumph of ignorance over reason. In there lies the true cost of being prejudiced.
As a life rule, personal prejudice can only be disproved by the actual fact. The most unfortunate thing is that some people die without getting the opportunity to interface and learn the truth behind their fears. And all this is the cost of being judgmental.
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