The Echo Chamber

One of the biggest dangers faced by any business is not financial in nature.  It’s lurking out there in good times and bad.  It’s insidious  – so much so that often the business doesn’t realize it’s in trouble until there’s a major shock to their operating system:  a financial crisis, the departure of significant staff members, or the defection of several major client.  These are some of the dangers of The Echo Chamber.There is often talk of media or online communities being trapped in one of these.  As the definition goes for media…

participants may find their own opinions constantly echoed back to them, and in doing so reinforce a certain sense of truth that resonates with individual belief systems. This can create some significant challenges to critical discourse…

but businesses are hurt just as badly although often not as obviously.  We all know places where the business is run by a dominant individual who looks at the world a certain way.  While they may ask for an open, honest conveyance of information, the reality is that their response to information which conflicts with their world view is either denial, anger, or a combination of both.  Sometimes there’s a flurry of activity among the staff to “contextualize” the bad information to make it coincide with the operative noise pattern.  It needs to echo the “right”way.

We can’t just talk to ourselves.  One useful reason to hire someone like me is to provide that outside perspective – to resonate in a way that’s outside the chamber.  When the history of the current financial situation is written, I’m sure that the echo chambers of certain businesses and business sectors are what caused part of the problem.  The same thinking applies to marketing a brand without listening to the customer – stop listening to yourself and the echoes of your peers.

Are you hearing new voices or is it the same of echoes?  What are you doing to tear down that wall?