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“A thinking partner who isn’t an echo chamber…
How many of us dare to have such collaborators?”
Margaret Heffernan
If you’re a fan of sport you will have heard all about the saga of the ‘Super League’ but even if you’re not, you most likely will have heard about it as it made headlines globally for all of last week.
In essence, 12 of the biggest soccer teams in Europe made it public that they were creating a new league that they would control, could never be relegated from and would depart the premier competition in Europe, The Champions League.
Within 2 days of that announcement it was dead in the water.
Why?
Because the owners of those clubs sorely underestimated the reaction of the fans, players, coaches, national leagues and pundits – all of which turned against these club owners.
If you’re a leader in any context (business, charity, sports club, family) I think there is huge value in reflecting on the lessons for us all here.
It’s quite obvious that the primary (maybe only) motivator here was money.
Clearly without money, nothing will work. But it seems that the owners of these football clubs live in an echo chamber, where their own views are continuously re-enforced. And so they lost touch with reality. But I have no doubt they believed they were doing something that would be well received by the fans, players and pundits.
Maybe it’s worth reflecting a little today on ourselves and the potential echo chambers we live in…
Where can we ‘check’ our view of reality? Who around us do we let challenge our views?
Where can we explore the views (really) of the people we say we respect and value the most?
We don’t have to agree but at the very least, surely we have to be open to hearing, really hearing, points of view from others in our eco-system?
Otherwise, we run the real risk of losing the confidence and trust of the people around us. And when that happens, it lays the seeds for something we probably don’t want but is likely to happen…
A revolution.
Food for thought,
Shane
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