The Pitfalls Of Echo Chambers In Design, Dev And Marketing Communications

There’s structure and then there’s structure overkill. Every company, at least initially, wants a coherent structure to its workplace. There’s no debate that we need structure for stability but how much of it is too much? When does it become a blockage to efficiency and a restriction to organizational progress?

Think about a road and its lanes. Different speed limits maintain a steady flow of traffic and avoid chaos. It’s all about balance. Sometimes small to mid-sized businesses seek to have a single lane. And that’s when the trouble begins.

In the beginning, a single lane isn’t a bad thing. It helps with establishing a foundation and having a sense of order but later on, as you grow, delegation and decentralization is key. If you keep holding onto the reigns, you’ll develop an echo chamber where your singular approach and decisions will repeat themselves at the expense of the company. An echo chamber is, after all, a bubble shielding one type of thought, refusing to let others in. And that will hurt your company.

Delayed Decision-Making

Let’s try the road metaphor again. With a centralized approach and having one person in charge of each chamber, you’ll decrease your adaptiveness and flexibility because you’re making every car go through one toll to cross the bridge and proceed. By having a single member in charge of approvals, execution, and core management, you’ll have bottle-necks. Eventually, your echo chamber will hurt the whole place.

Low Motivation and Commitment

Do you want humans as coworkers or robots? If you can’t let go of micro-processes or smaller details and empower others on your team to drive their grow or improvements, you will begin to witness a lack of motivation. As humans there are several factors that motivate us and money is only one of them. Without a sense of being and a daily challenge, mundanity and monotony hit us hard and both are beyond effective at sucking the morale out of an individual.

Decreased Creativity

By resisting cross collaboration and a synergist environment, you’re restricting people perceptions and ability to experience new things and work with new people. Without new challenges or knowledge, people will maintain singular and unchallenged ideas. Overtime you will begin to see a lack of creativity amongst your silos because there is no one challenging them from a new perceptive and each member tends to look at a problem the same way.

Poor Environmental Adaptation

While the core brand of your company is going to remain the same, the challenges surrounding everyday tasks and the occasional battles vary case by case. That’s how life is. With a centralized echo chamber, you may be creating an environment where your team isn’t prepared for something unpredictable. Adaption will suffer greatly.

Don’t believe it? Consider the example of Starbucks branching out to India. In the beginning, the company didn’t pay attention to local members on ground who cautioned against the American model. Within 60 days, Starbucks had to pull the plug. On the fly coffee wasn’t exactly an Indian pastime. Tea, on the other hand, was the local go-to source of relaxation and socializing. The company didn’t adapt and had to close shop. An echo chamber like that must’ve been a disappointing one.

Lack of Management Development

Management means developing managers, directors, and VPs. Because most decisions in centralized communication are taken by top level management, middle and lower level management cannot participate and be involved in decision-making and planning. As a result, they can’t supply critical information and their management skills are hindered because they haven’t been empowered to execute their own ideas and strategies.

So, you get the picture. No echo chambers, ideally. Creating your own shell to stay in can hurt everyone in the company, including the lower level members who have direct contact to and understanding of specific problems. Through a centralized approach, you won’t be able to connect with your company on a primary and fundamental level and that could slow your progress by days, weeks or even months.