It can be comforting to know that people agree with you.

And it can be especially comforting when you find people who agree with your ideas.

It makes you feel safe, and this is one of the primary human motivations.

However, if you surround yourself only with people who think the same way you do, you are likely to hear ideas you already agree with repeated over and over again.

This is what happens in echo chambers.

Too often, companies fall because the leadership team surrounded themselves with “Yes Men” who agreed with everything the leaders were saying, while in reality they were being disrupted.

Or you might know about someone working at a startup where all of the coders and engineers think that their product is amazing, yet they don’t understand why customers are not buying.

In order to be creative, it helps to get new information, and different opinions and experiences can be powerful fuel for creative insights.

The opposite is also true: being stuck in an echo chamber can kill your ability to be creative and innovate because you are being starved of input to form new, different associations.

The problem today is that new technology makes it easier than ever to only surround yourself with people who agree with you.

In fact, the algorithms of social media companies are rewarded every time they show you something you like. So their goal is to find you more content which will give you a similar reaction and exclude content which is very different.

Suddenly and without any active effort, you can find yourself surrounded online by ideas which you agree with and people who think like you, and further down the rabbit hole you go without realising.

So if you want to stay creative, make sure you are actively looking for different points of view and new experiences.

Otherwise, you might just get lost in that cave, listening to your own echo.

Did you know that scientific evidence shows your creativity decreases over time

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Nick Skillicorn

Chief Editor, Founder & CEO at Improvides Innovation Consulting
Creativity & Innovation expert: I help individuals and companies build their creativity and innovation capabilities, so you can develop the next breakthrough idea which customers love. Chief Editor of Ideatovalue.com and Founder / CEO of Improvides Innovation Consulting. Coach / Speaker / Author / TEDx Speaker / Voted as one of the most influential innovation bloggers.