A strong team consists of people with diverse talents and a fair division of tasks. Research, analysis, attention to detail, making calls, presenting—every task contributes to the final result. However, visible tasks often receive the most recognition, making some team members appear as key drivers while others go unnoticed.

This article, part of the #InclusieDoen series, explores how visibility and unconscious biases influence recognition and provides concrete strategies for a fairer task distribution.

The Impact of Visibility

In organizations, visibility is often crucial for new opportunities and promotions. Our brains naturally associate new projects and career advancements with familiar faces and their skills, overlooking colleagues who operate more in the background. Despite efforts to create objective selection systems, task distribution remains an overlooked factor. Those consistently assigned invisible tasks miss out on opportunities, leading to career inequalities and wasted potential.

Visibility Is No Coincidence

We tend to gravitate toward tasks that suit us, and personality tests reinforce this by categorizing us as analytical or social types. But these labels also justify why some people are in the spotlight more often—suggesting that this is simply how things are.

Extroverts receive more recognition, while introverts, modest colleagues, and team-oriented thinkers—who often do a significant portion of the work—are less likely to be seen as the “face” of a project. As a result, more impact and decisiveness are attributed to visible individuals, while others remain unnoticed and undervalued.

Those who are less visible are often judged based on limited information: being young, female, skipping after-work drinks, or asking fewer questions in meetings. The latter two, in particular, can be misinterpreted as a lack of engagement. This turns modesty into a disadvantage.

Visibility isn’t just about performance—it’s about perception. A true high-performance organization leverages all talents and ensures that career growth isn’t only for those who stand out the most. You don’t just want extroverted talent to advance, but also the quiet forces that strengthen and enrich your organization. A fair task distribution ensures that everyone can grow and contribute to team success.

The Consequences of an Unfair Task Distribution

Research shows that the division of visible and invisible tasks isn’t just linked to personality type—it disproportionately disadvantages women. A study by Rachel M. Korn, Asma Ghani, and Joan C. Williams from the University of California, published in the Harvard Business Review, highlights both a skewed distribution and a difference in perception: 85% of white men consider the task distribution in their team fair. This drops to 50% among white women and 43% among Black women.

The divide between two types of work has major consequences:

1. Career-boosting work – High-status tasks like presenting to senior management, representing the company externally, and leading high-profile projects.
2. Non-promotable support work – Invisible, routine tasks such as scheduling meetings, administrative work, tidying up shared spaces, and emotional labor (e.g., mediating conflicts).

Women take on 20% more non-promotable tasks than men, making them less visible and less likely to be seen as top talent. This keeps them under the radar, while colleagues who take on more visible tasks are perceived as rising stars. This demonstrates that task distribution isn’t just about efficiency—it directly impacts career trajectories. Simply working hard isn’t enough for career growth if the work remains invisible.

These imbalances accumulate over time and determine who advances and who doesn’t. A simulation study by Korn, Ghani, & Williams showed that a 5% promotion bias can, over time, lead to an organization where only 2% of top leaders are women. Task distribution has a far greater impact on career progression than we often realize.

Solutions: #InclusieDoen

The good news? Research from the University of California confirms that conscious task distribution works. Unequal patterns can be corrected, and leadership opportunities can be distributed more fairly—without taking opportunities away from others. A fairer distribution of chances strengthens the entire team and ensures that talent is utilized more effectively.

Our #InclusieDoen interventions focus on three levels: leaders, teams, and individuals.

Leaders play a crucial role in task distribution and, therefore, in their team members’ visibility. If you want a high-performance team, ensuring knowledge and talent are evenly distributed is essential. As a gatekeeper, you hold the key to a more equitable system.

Teams can actively work toward fairer task distribution by regularly evaluating who takes on which tasks, assigning them consciously, and holding each other accountable. A useful tool is a visibility matrix, which tracks names and responsibilities to identify patterns and make adjustments.

Individuals can break unconscious patterns by stepping outside their comfort zones. For some, this means actively increasing their visibility; for others, it means making space for quieter colleagues.

Task distribution shapes careers—be aware of this and contribute to a fairer system where everyone has the chance to grow, making teams stronger and more successful.

The first 60 minutes you spend with someone are crucial. Whether it’s one long first meeting or 60 brief chats in the elevator, those initial impressions shape how you perceive and collaborate with each other. This applies to a new colleague but also to someone you’ve worked with before but don’t yet know well.

In this article, we explore a key insight: when meeting someone, it’s smarter to look for common ground rather than differences. This reduces unconscious biases and increases the chances of finding a connection with any colleague. And let’s be honest—who wouldn’t want that?

Connecting from Day One: Here’s How

There are many ways to get to know someone. When a new colleague joins or you start working together on a project for the first time, take the time to truly connect. A simple “Great to have you on the team! Want to grab a coffee?” or “Nice to work together (again), fancy a short walk?” can go a long way.

Sometimes, introductions happen spontaneously—in the elevator, by the coffee machine, or on the way to a meeting. Even a brief chat in those moments is valuable.

How Our Brain Works

After meeting someone, your brain doesn’t necessarily remember the content of the conversation, but it does remember how much you have in common. The more similarities, the more positively your brain assesses the collaboration.

If you’re on the same wavelength in terms of humor or happen to binge-watch the same series, your brain automatically feels more comfortable with that colleague.

This also influences whether someone falls into your inner group or outer group. People in your inner group unconsciously get the benefit of the doubt—their work seems slightly better, and you take their ideas more seriously. Colleagues in your outer group don’t have this advantage and often experience subtle biases.

This happens because the limited information you have about them—such as their age or accent—becomes the defining factor in how your brain perceives them. This can lead to subtle forms of exclusion, such as being overlooked for important tasks (“They’re really too young for that”) or being interrupted more often in meetings.

The Power of Connection

We subconsciously select those who seem similar to us, making collaboration feel easier. At the same time, everyone craves connection, especially in the workplace.

Meeting someone new is an intense experience for your brain. It’s already sensitive to signals of acceptance or rejection but becomes hyper-aware in such moments. This is even more intense when joining a new team or organization—your brain is on high alert.

Yet, if we’re not careful, introductions often fall into superficial conversations that emphasize stereotypes or differences. Think of remarks like, “That’s how we always do it at home” or “Your generation sees things differently.” These statements can create distance instead of connection. Your brain remembers the lack of common ground, making collaboration more difficult.

Loneliness in the Workplace

This missed opportunity for connection has serious consequences. Gallup research shows that one in five employees worldwide feels lonely. According to Harvard Business Review, this is partly due to misconceptions—like the belief that reducing hybrid work automatically increases connection.

In reality, working in teams can cause more loneliness if expectations are not met. Without conscious attention to team bonding and personal interaction, connection fails to develop, leading people to withdraw—from work events, colleagues, and eventually their tasks. This process, known as quiet quitting, can trigger a negative cycle that’s hard to break.

Make Time for Common Ground

How do you break this negative cycle? Start with those first conversations and invest time in finding common ground. Hacking your brain a little can be quite simple: by asking the right questions and focusing on similarities, you reduce the influence of biases on your collaboration.

Bias is human, but you can work around it by making a conscious effort to connect. Even if the person in front of you is clearly from a different age group, ethnicity, gender, or background—challenge yourself to look beyond stereotypes. This conscious effort not only helps break down unconscious biases but also lays the foundation for strong collaboration from the start.

Practical Tips

How do you find common ground? Sometimes it’s obvious, sometimes you have to dig a little deeper. Maybe you support different football clubs but share a passion for the sport. Or your hobbies differ, but you both enjoy spending time outdoors.

If appropriate, express your intention to connect. Shared history, hometown, family life, hobbies, passions, values, music or film preferences, or work styles—all these can create bonds. Ask questions and discover where you overlap!

Even if you’ve worked together for a while, you can reconnect. Try organizing a team bingo where everyone shares three unexpected facts about themselves. Esther often sees colleagues walk in nervously but leave feeling more connected (“I never knew you were afraid of spiders too!”). It’s a playful way to discover commonalities and strengthen bonds.

The quality of those first conversations can plant the seed for a great working relationship. So, actively seek out common ground instead of focusing on differences. That way, you give every colleague—and yourself—the chance to truly connect.