Why I defend Bill Michael, no matter his privilege

Written for Linkedin: view the original here.

 

Bill Michael, the outgoing UK chair of KPMG, is probably not someone who many people would feel inspired to defend. He has quit his role after comments he made criticising staff for moaning about the effects of the Coronavirus pandemic, and for a blistering attack on Unconscious Bias Training.

It’s the comments he made about unconscious Bias Training (UBT) that I would like to focus on in this article. He describes it as “utter crap,” and dismisses the notion that such  a thing as unconscious bias exists, emphasising that “Because after every unconscious bias training that has ever been done, nothing ever improves.”

Like it or not, he’s got a point, despite the furious backlash, which saw one colleague write: “Are you joking? Please do your research before just making such statements. Check your privilege.”

 

It may be fair to question the man and invite him to present his research. A good argument should always take account of the evidence if the proposer wants anyone to regard it as anything more than an unpersuasive personal opinion.

However, it’s the demand to check his privilege that I find troubling. For one thing, I cannot imagine speaking to any colleague of mine so discourteously, even anonymously. More important, however, I want to know the basis on which this person assumes that Mr Michael has ‘privilege.’

 

The notion of privilege requires careful definition, yet the laudable desire to increase diversity and eliminate prejudicial bias has led to a peculiar situation in which, it appears, a person’s privilege can be rather readily assumed. And the uncomfortable truth is that these judgements are made on the basis of personal characteristics: as a white, middle-aged man, one is privileged. That’s a fact!

The reason it is fact is because there has been a considerable shift in how we understand privilege – and not one for the better. No longer seen as relating to special advantage or immunity that is typically not afforded to a majority, it is now simply defined as the absence of barriers, paving the way for entire segments of society to be described as such – ‘White Privilege’ is probably the most well-known.

This sets up a terrible situation in which individuals can be readily identified within a hierarchy of privilege, without any assessment of whether they have enjoyed any benefits. They can be labelled as a beneficiary with no attempt to understand how they have got to where they are, and indeed the extent to which undeserved good fortune has played its part.

 

There is, in fact, no substitute for detailed biographical knowledge to really assess whether a person is privileged or not, for nothing, including a single characteristic, exists in isolation but only as part of a complex puzzle including everything from upbringing to the arbitrary randomness of fortune, or as Harold Macmillan famously described it, “Events, dear boy, events!”

None of this is to deny that characteristics are linked to barriers – the ethnic minority and female underrepresentation at senior levels, and the underrepresentation of disabled people in the general workforce continue to point to the existence of such barriers, and in that sense the new definition of privilege holds up. But it’s useless because it cannot be meaningfully translated across to the life of any individual, and thus provide us with any understanding of how we get to where we are.

Our level of privilege is, in fact, a deeply personal matter. It cannot be anything else. Neither, therefore, can assertions about anyone else’s be anything other than deeply personal observations.

And that’s the real problem with Unconscious Bias Training. It’s a problem not of content but of framing, since it is often pitched as a way to break down organisational barriers despite in fact being a form of training that offers most benefit to the individual, willing to utilise its theoretical underpinnings to conduct searching self-reflection about how who they are influences how they make sense of who others are.

But UBT isn’t sold in that way. Too often, it’s presented as the means by which an organisation is challenging and dealing with its bias. In the end, though, that is a demand inevitably placed on the individual. When it exists alongside the privilege discourse, it’s hardly surprising then that those assumed to be fortunate by default react in a visceral way, like Bill Michael. It’s either that, or accept that they have more than others to be sorry for.

It’s easy to sneer at such a reaction as a resistance stemming from misunderstanding, or the expected protest from the type of person who would say that, wouldn’t he! Yet when we start with a hierarchy already shaped and determined by background, we end up offering something that’s supposed to foster greater understanding within conditions and dynamics which serve to drive us apart.

It’s that which explains the fact that, whilst I think Unconscious Bias Training is very far indeed from being “utter crap,” and I do acknowledge that background still leads to barriers, I think there is significant truth in what Bill Michael asserts about the accomplishments of UBT. I don’t know his motives or his reasoning, but there is a sense in which what he says is very true. That’s why I defend Bill Michael, no matter his privilege.