- Allison Wynn is at the point in her article where she is listing her proposals to mitigate the ongoing discrimination in organizations when she adds the link to the article “Why Most Performance Evaluations Are Biased, and How to Fix Them”. The link is contained in a small paragraph that places blame on ambiguous evaluation forms that use open-ended questions that draws biased opinionated answers. The study she links to elaborates on this claim, and uses data and experiments to try and find a solution to the problem. The study involved speaking to current managers and their thoughts on the evaluation form and its process, and their answers typically were not confident in the current system. The ambiguity of the questionnaires leaves managers lost often, and in turn, their unconscious/conscious biases help them fill in the open spaces. The authors, Lori Mackenzie, JoAnne Wehner and Shelley J. Correll, then go on in the same direction as Wynn by proposing improvements to the evaluation form process. The study they conducted also included managers feedback and opinions on their more specific evaluation form that forced the managers to work through their employees using a standardized list of criteria, in hopes everyone is judged much more equally. The responses they received were 90% positive, and the managers who participated in the study said the new form made them feel much more confident in their evaluations.
- The target audience of Allison Wynn’s article “Individual Change Won’t Create Gender Equality in Organizations” is primarily the managers and executives in leadership roles that have the power to implement the reforms Allison Wynn is calling for. Baseline employees and even some of the higher positions in organizations usually have little power in making changes to the pre-existing standards of the company, although the manager’s role typically includes managing and evaluating their employees work. In the article, Wynn states
“While conducting a year-long, in-depth case study of a Silicon Valley technology company implementing a gender equality initiative, I investigated how executives understand and attempt to mitigate inequality. I found that their explanations for inequality—and strategies to address it—often fall short of enacting the change that’s most necessary.”
This statement was used in her introduction, and she brings up the fact that most of her studies results show that the people with the power to enact positive change often do not do so. This passage is calling out to executives, informing them of how large this issue has become and how they are the ones in the position to enact change, and the rest of the article calls back to this statement every time it mentions the executive’s role in a company.