Dangers of the Subconscious: An Interview with Kwame Christian

The business world is more diverse than ever. This provides us with unique opportunities as well as challenges. If you're able to understand psychology of implicit bias, you'll be able to connect, communicate, and persuade at a higher level, as well as improve your ability to make high-level, and fair, decisions.

In May 2021, Kwame Christian, Director of the American Negotiation Institute, hosted a webinar on Dangers of the Subconscious for the Center for Operational Excellence. In that webinar, Kwame talked about recognizing the problematic personal preferences that lie beneath our consciousness in order to make more informed decisions and connect with colleagues. In this session, attendees developed an understanding of how the brain works as it relates to connecting with people with different backgrounds, learned how this can influence decisions and interactions, and gained tools to prevent unintentional negative impacts. If you missed this webinar, it is available in COE's Members Only Digital Content Archive. Don't have an account? Create one here.

Kelly Reo, Executive Director at Center for Operational Excellence, followed up with Kwame Christian on his podcast, Negotiate Anything, to discuss implicit bias, confirmation bias, problem solving, continuous improvement, and more.

Listen to the interview here

Kwame Christian, bestselling author, attorney, and speaker, is the Director of the American Negotiation Institute and and a respected voice in the field of negotiation and conflict resolution. Christian has conducted workshops throughout North America and abroad, and is a highly sought after national keynote speaker. Host of the world’s most popular negotiation podcast, Negotiate Anything, Kwame is dedicated to empowering professionals through the art and science of negotiation and persuasion. Now downloaded almost 2 million times, Negotiate Anything has a dedicated and growing following with listeners in more than 180 countries around the world. Kwame’s TEDx Dayton talk, Finding Confidence in Conflict, was the most popular TEDx Talk on the topic of conflict in 2017, and has been viewed over 150,000 times. His book, Finding Confidence in Conflict: How to Negotiate Anything and Live Your Best Life, is an Amazon Best-Seller and has helped countless individuals overcome the fear, anxiety, and emotion often associated with difficult conversations through a branded framework called Compassionate Curiosity.™ (*January, 2020). In addition to his role at ANI, Kwame is a business lawyer at Carlile Patchen & Murphy LLP. Kwame represents businesses in a broad scope of legal needs including contract negotiation, business formation and structuring, finance, transactions (including acquisitions and contract preparation and analysis), employment, and general business and legal counseling. As an attorney and mediator with a Bachelors of Arts in Psychology, a Master of Public Policy, and a Juris Doctorate (Law Degree), Christian brings a unique multidisciplinary approach to making difficult conversations easier. He also serves as a professor for Otterbein University’s MBA program, as well as The Ohio State University’s Moritz College of Law in the top-ranked dispute resolution program in the country. Prior to practicing business law and founding ANI, Christian worked at the Kirwan Institute doing civil rights work. While at Kirwan, he focused on criminal justice and health equity.