How does the kind man who stops at a crosswalk for a young family become the hateful voice in a comment section? A big part of the answer is the algorithm: a pocket sewn into our invisible briefcase that we never asked for.

Here’s how it trains our hand, what it costs us, and how leaders can reach past it.

I once asked a PMI thought leader a question that had been burning in me for years.

PMI is the global standard for project management. So why is culture missing from the methodology? Why is it barely referenced in the PMBOK and never in these conference conversations?

His answer stopped me. "PMI was built for and delivered with the intention and standard of cultural neutrality."

Cultural neutrality. On the surface it sounds fair. No one's culture centred or favoured. But is that actually possible?

I learned to be afraid, disgusted even. How could anyone live on the streets!? Can’t they get their act together? They’re so lazy. From my parents, friends, teachers, and co-workers, this disgust and aversion to people living on the streets wasn’t wrapped in explicit instructions such as “You need to be disgusted with those people.” No.

It was in my dad’s shifted tone during conversations about how people need to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps and get a job. It was in my co-worker’s demeanour as he looked down at his feet while he walked downtown, pretending not to notice the people lying on the sidewalk beside him. It was in the comment made by a teacher about how terrible the streets are and how they need to be “cleaned up from all this riff raff.”

Anytime I was with my international friends, the same question of ‘Where are you from?’ was always directed at them and never at me.

After our first year, my friend from China said something that changed how I viewed this consistent exchange.

“I just want to fit in, belong. But every time I’m asked where I am from, I feel separated from everyone else in that moment. . . like I’m ‘other’. It’s tiring to always be asked the same question when there is so much more to know about me.”

I was silent.

I was saddened.

I was oblivious and yes, even ignorant.

I once led a team that looked like a mini United Nations — and I thought I was doing everything right.

I championed equity. I wanted to flatten the hierarchy. I opened every door.

And people still left.

It took me a long time to understand why. The truth is, my egalitarian approach wasn't as equal as I thought — because it didn't make room for what others actually needed.