Let’s Escape the Echo

Happy June, and (hopefully) happy summer to all of you in the northern hemisphere! I’m inspired by the blooming flowers, countless birdsongs, and creativity and diversity that warm weather brings.

It feels like a good time to really dive into one of my favorite topics: Escaping the Echo Chamber.

I recorded a lovely podcast episode the other day with Dan Lappin, an executive sales coach and founder of Lappin180, a high-performance sales consulting firm that’s disrupting the way people think about selling.

He and I hit it off, and we surprised each other at how much overlap there was between our fields of practice. A lot of us have a view that sales is a “dirty” word, a sales person is somebody to be avoided. And I’ve realized that quite a lot of people probably see leadership and leadership coaching the same way—the insight for me is it’s all about the person behind the title and their approach!

That was eye-opening for me in many ways and the perfect lead-in to this focus on breaking out of our own echo chambers by intentionally engaging with perspectives, resources, and voices from different industries, backgrounds, experiences, and worldviews than our own.

It’s critical to staying fresh, building empathy, innovating our businesses, and more.

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Welcome back to the Leader’s Playground. Let’s dive in!

What to Read This Week

You’ve got to check out The Courage of Compassion if you haven’t yet. Authored by Robin Steinberg, The Courage of Compassion: A Journey from Judgment to Connection unveils how we can reimagine justice through compassion.

Steinberg shares her journey as a public defender, representing people at precisely that time in their lives — their own worst moment. She recounts the heart-wrenching stories of her clients and invites us to interrogate our fears and beliefs about justice and punishment.

Lastly, Steinberg reveals moments when she questioned her own capacity for compassion, as well as her ability to fight for better, more humane justice from within a system that is riddled with holes and seemingly interminable problems.

This book helped me better understand the impact that privilege has on our relationship to and journey through the so-called “justice” system. I believe it’s a must-read for just about everyone.

Lessons in Leadership

The desire to “Escape the Echo” has been a driving force for me as a leader for a long time. I think part of that is because I’m a naturally curious person. But I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t also because, put simply, it’s just good business practice.

In today’s world of digital media and hyper-entertaining social platforms, with algorithms that know our likes and dislikes almost as intimately as we do—and cater directly to them, it’s so incredibly easy to wrap ourselves up in a cocoon of like-minded voices. A cacophony of validation. An echo chamber.

But innovation doesn’t happen in an echo chamber, and social progress certainly doesn’t either. To nurture a flourishing diversity of ideas and people, those of us in leadership positions must learn to explore beyond the natural bounds of our own minds—by learning from others who think differently from us.

Take Accenture, for example. The leading global professional services company has implemented sweeping initiatives to support neurodiversity in their organization, noting the bottom-line benefits of divergent thinking in the workforce.

They cite a study from BCG, as highlighted by Forbes, saying companies see as much as a 19% increase in their bottom line by increasing workplace neurodiversity. That’s monumental—it’s the impact of breaking the echo chamber of thinking!

“Neurodivergent candidates are wired to think out of the box and gifted in skills that are essential for digital success,” a recent Accenture article says. “For example, people with ADHD have exceptional focus and problem-solving abilities. Similarly, autistic people are meticulous and have higher analytical thinking.”

What Accenture is doing is insightful because they’re coming at it from multiple directions: They’re coaching critical skills, such as communication, in their neurodiverse team members, and at the same time they’re working with leaders and managers at all levels to help the entire team understand how to support and work well with all kinds of thinkers.

And it’s bringing them amazing results.

Of course, learning from our neurodiverse team members is only one way that escaping our own echo chamber—of neurotypical thought—can help us build happier and healthier businesses.

One major benefit of escaping our own echo chamber in this way is that it helps unearth undiscovered leaders among us. When we prioritize an outdated office culture that expects uniformity and conformity, we miss out on so many incredible opportunities to elevate people whose natural talent goes unrecognized by the traditional system.

By creating psychological safety in our teams, encouraging people to truly be themselves and allow their natural strengths to shine, and making space to hear ideas and perspectives that don’t always align with our own, can take us and our organizations so far.

There are infinitely more opportunities for bringing fresh perspectives into our daily lives, whether it be listening to a podcast slightly outside our normal go-to’s, reading a book (like The Courage of Compassion) that gives us insight into life experiences we haven’t had, or intentionally setting up a lunch or phone call with a colleague whose ideas tend to be at odds with our own.

When we can put our ego aside and truly listen to ideas that might usually ruffle our feathers or stretch our comfort zone, chances are we’ll learn something meaningful.

I challenge you these next two weeks to escape your own echo chamber, in small or big ways. And I’d love to hear how you do this, and what you discover!

The Leadership Tales Podcast

Joshua Seiden is a speaker and author whose work around design thinking, and particularly on the focus on outcomes, has inspired me greatly. He joined me this week for a fabulous discussion about the importance of focusing on outcomes, as well as Josh’s thoughts on approaches such as lean, agile, and design thinking.

Josh has authored four books, three of which were collaborations with prominent UX thought leader, Jeff Gothelf. His books and his thinking have shifted my views radically on how I run my business over the last 12 months. He also shares a bit in this episode about his fascinating career and how leaving his ego at the door allowed him to see things more clearly.

Be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts—and if you can, please leave a review. Each review helps put our show in front of more listeners, which means more opportunities for those who need them.

And if you know of someone you think would be a great guest on the show, reply and let me know about them. I want to share stories from leaders making a positive difference in the world—and the more tales we tell, the better.

Until next time...

I hope you’ll take me up on my challenge to escape your own echo chamber these next couple of weeks. I truly believe the best way we can learn as leaders and people is to engage with many diverse perspectives, whether it be by reading books, listening to podcasts, or carving out time for conversations with people who challenge us.

I’m inspired by Accenture’s work around neurodiversity, and think it can motivate all of us to be more intentional about how we create space and support for all kinds of thinking in our organizations. Not only is it good practice in a business sense; it’s just plain good human behavior.

Thanks again for joining me, and please do forward this on to a friend who may enjoy it—the best way to gain wisdom is in community. The more, the merrier!

See you in two weeks!

Cheers, Colin

To learn more about my book, Be More Wrong: How Failure Makes You an Outstanding Leader, click here.