A speaker coming to the University of West Georgia next month hopes to use decades of experience to share strategies that will affect a person’s actions in a workplace at all levels – from team meetings to water cooler chat.

Tickets will soon be available for the spring installment of the BB&T Lectures in Free Enterprise series, sponsored by UWG’s Richards College of Business. This semester’s speaker will be Stephen Young, co-founder of Insight Education Systems, who will bring his message to UWG on Thursday, Feb. 15.

Young’s topic for the event is “MicroInequities: Managing Unconscious Bias.” The lecture will be held at 6 p.m. at the Townsend Center for Performing Arts. Tickets are free but required, and will be available at the Townsend Center box office beginning Thursday, Feb. 8.

Dr. Faye McIntyre, dean of the Richards College of Business, said she’s learned a great deal from Young’s seminars and writing in the past.

“Stephen Young has a powerful message that we can all learn from,” McIntyre said. “His lessons about subtle messages that we send and receive without intent or awareness have helped me become a better communicator, and I’m excited we can share those insights with our students and the west Georgia community.”

Young is the developer of the acclaimed seminar “MicroInequities: The Power of Small” and author of the business best-seller “Micromessaging: Why Great Leadership is Beyond Words.” He has been a consultant for more than 20 percent of Fortune 500 companies and the former senior vice president and chief diversity officer at JPMorgan Chase, with work featured in the Wall Street Journal, the Harvard Business Review and O Magazine.

Unconscious biases are social stereotypes that individuals have outside their own conscious awareness, and Young said he plans to share some actionable solutions on how to eschew those biases in a workplace at all levels.

“Many people have likely experienced some type of unconscious bias in the workplace,” Young said, previewing his speech at UWG. “I’d like to introduce an astonishingly simple approach for managing that bias that will shift the balance of influence of who affects culture change within an organization.”

Young is the senior partner of Insight Education Systems, a management consulting firm specializing in leadership and organizational development services. The business provides diversity and inclusion consulting services for business at all stages of diversity development.

Students, faculty, staff and community members are welcome to the BB&T Lectures in Free Enterprise series. Past speakers have included Stu Thorn, David Daniels and Warren Brown.