Case Studies
unconscious bias education

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solution
results
Since January 2017, 270 of Ketchum’s leaders, managers, and employees have attended Cook Ross’ training in the U.S. across six of their office locations.
Ketchum firmly believes that diversity, equity, and inclusion don’t just happen by accident. It requires a consistent, focused effort to be a creative environment where talent feels empowered to bring their whole self to work. Prior to working with Cook Ross, Ketchum created LaunchPad, a gamified selection process used to recruit entry-level talent, which brought in blind hiring. The Mind Your Bias training has helped Ketchum have real, open dialogue about diversity, equity, and inclusion. It has inspired continued innovative initiatives that mitigate bias in talent acquisition and engagement programs with the goals being to hire and retain more diverse talent.
The Mind Your Bias program also helped inspire the development of Ketchum and Fast Company’s Creative Echo Chamber study, which explores unconscious bias and insularity in the creative ranks.
What our Clients are saying
Global Women’s Executive Development Program

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solution
Results
- Sessions led or co-led by the pharmaceuticals division head and executive committee – 50%
- Participants promoted onto a local/country or functional executive committee – 14%
%
Participants promoted to moved into new roles
%
Retention among participants 3 years after the program
%
Participants appointed as country heads or general managers
Conscious and Inclusive Leadership Initiative

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solution
The rollout called on Cook Ross’ global consulting team to deliver culturally competent sessions consistent across all locations, yet appropriately tailored to resonate for the regional leadership groups. We worked closely with our main point of contact in the United States, the various points of contact in each one of the regions, and the leaders of all delivery locations to ensure alignment. This helped us gain a deep appreciation for national laws and customs, and the unique challenges and opportunities for each location, so that we could adapt our facilitation and educational goals. Delivered primarily in English, the Cook Ross team supported individual exercises and small group interactions in the locations’ primary language, working with local staff to translate linguistically and culturally, as necessary.
Hover over the map below to discover where we delivered training for this partner
Reinforcing a Global Diversity & Inclusion Strategy

challenge


solution
To date, Cook Ross has delivered more than 200 hours of training, with significant additional time devoted to preparation and project management. Live engagements have taken place in seven U.S. states.
In 2015, at the company’s request, Cook Ross researched their talent review, calibration, and succession planning processes to look for bias vulnerabilities. Based on our research, and in close collaboration with the company’s talent strategy group, we designed a targeted learning solution to be delivered to senior executives and their teams immediately before their annual talent review meeting. The solution combines classroom training with case study review and group coaching in a live, two-hour instructor-led seminar. The seminar leaves participants with a clear set of ground rules for their talent review meeting, an understanding of the unique ways bias affects their leadership team dynamic, and a plan for addressing bias when it occurs in the meeting—all designed by the executive team itself with coaching from a senior Cook Ross consultant.
Results
Several Cook Ross interventions are deeply integrated across the company’s diversity and inclusion strategy. High satisfaction with the applicability of the course has been reported in qualitative and quantitative data resulting in a documentation of better decision-making in hiring and talent review. Cook Ross partnered with this client to focus on longitudinal outcomes to sustain long-term impact and return on investment.
The partnership recognizes the critical role of accountability and seeks to measure the ROI – Cook Ross has worked closely with our client to create a dashboard to help track retention and promotion impacts of the effort to decrease the impact of Unconscious Bias and other issues across business units.