Echo Chamber
(Disconnect)
“If you break your neck, if you have nothing to eat, if your house is on fire — then you’ve got a problem. Everything else is an inconvenience. Life is inconvenient. Life is lumpy. A lump in the oatmeal, a lump in the throat, and a lump in the breast are not the same kind of lump. One needs to learn the difference.”
— Robert Fulghum
“The best lesson I have learned from watching this election from the front row is that we are all better off when we challenge what we believe to be truths and seek the people who disagree with us to try and understand their point of view.”
— Anonymous
Wait! What? Surprise, Silence, then Outrage and Denunciation at the unexpected result…
Then a lot of Wondering, “Now HOW did that happen?” Then, the obligatory declarations that the opposition are a pack of sub-humans, beneath contempt.
But, after all the consternation, there’s a significant question: “How did that happen, when everyone was banking on something else?”
Because (Great Britain and America), we’re (all of us, both as groups and as individuals…) talking exclusively to ourselves, about ourselves and congratulating ourselves! (Celebrating Our noble truths…) while somehow having disconnected from the larger community…
We have retired into our “custom designed personal echo chambers” of curated social media, selected “news” sources, (BTW… I mourn the death of the Fourth Estate!) local political organizations and our like-minded, politically aligned corporate entities…
Nestled into our safe spaces, we don’t have to confront the troubling reality that there may be hundreds, thousands, millions of other people out there with differing opinions… or no opinion… which we might best respect, listen to, and acknowledge… thereby getting something like the same treatment (and respect) in return. Alas, we have gone willfully, intentionally, blind.
But this does not only affect us as political creatures, but also in the corporate and family arenas. Consider; if we remain safely cosseted in our private bell jars, we can’t know how our ideas are being received, by our countrymen, by our customers, or by our families. We can’t know how the discussion is really going unless we allow ourselves to have an actual (live) discussion! We can’t know whether they respect, trust or admire us, because we haven’t given them the benefit of the same.
The Solution…
Stop talking! Start Listening! Be humble!
Great communication begins and ends with understanding and respecting the mind of the listener, customer, elector. What do they want? What do they need? What are they upset about?
In these most recent elections, in Britain and the US, there was a clear distinction with one side telling people what they should think and what they should be FOR… The other side spoke to what people were feeling and what they actually wanted… In each case, the surprise verdict delivered the unhappy news: We want what we want, not what you tell us!
Getting elected is about letting people know that you GET them, and are willing to represent them. Not “fight” for them, not that you are the correct sex, size, national extraction, or that you speak in dulcet tones. But that you get them, and are willing to represent their wishes, interests and desires.
If you don’t respect and connect with your market, your customers, your electors, your public, there’s a dead certain reality that they are going to do, buy, connect to, or vote for what pleases them — no matter how hard you try to sell your point of view.
“It’s not about you. It’s about them!” Always.
1. Individually
“I wonder what they think?” A great question to consider before ever opening your mouth. The exercise of imagining someone else’s perspective is a great way to stretch your own viewpoint and discover that there’s a great big world out there, beyond the purview of your portable device. Go, in person. Meet in person. Connect. Interact. Then retire to build your platform, your speech, your argument. But begin with the listener, and the end, in mind.
2. At Home
“You’re a pig! You stink! I hate you!” Obviously the rough dialogue of children and family. Except it’s more likely the election dialogue. Can you remember when people said, “My Honorable Opponent, I beg to Differ, I Disagree, or I won’t hold my opponent’s youth or in-experience against him.” There’s an elephant loose in the kitchen now — the language, the disrespect, the absence of dignity, and the willingness to set the house (or the country) on fire to make a point…
If we’re going to turn this around, we’re going to have to do it at home, one disagreement at a time.
3. At Work
Why not spend a week getting your colleagues to talk with you? Ask ‘em what they care about. What they hold dear. What they want to change. How they think things are going wrong and where we should start. Listen. Just listen. And see what you discover. At minimum, they will see you in a different light. And that can’t hurt, right?
To be successful, you must leave the echo chamber, beyond the portable devices, the media, the crowd or the institutions… You must simply go and converse (without an agenda…) with anyone you can reach. It’s how you build a rich personal life, a family, a business or a nation.
Dessert:
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