Input matters. Whether you are asking your preferred artificial intelligence (AI) to explain relativity, recommend a good dentist, or how to manage currency risk, the quality of decision-making hinges on having firm facts from a variety of sources at your fingertips. This is not always easy to come by.
The graph below pinpoints where 10 of the top large language models LLMs), such as ChatGPT and Perplexity, get the raw data they need to answer the world’s burning questions. It shows a decided tech-universe and Western skew, as well as gender and racial bias.
That’s an echo chamber in action: a siloed space where certain ideas and worldviews are constantly recirculated, where diversity of thought is lacking and where confirmation bias can thrive.
It’s not the only worrying echo chamber in town. If you sit on a board of directors, chances are that you, too, are sitting in a silo.
[insert graph from Statista]
Why we need to be worried
When board members come from the same “club” or culture, it’s harder to challenge long-held views and break away from stereotypical thinking. Yet, in a risk-heavy, fractured, and uncertain world, boards can and must challenge the status quo. By adding diverse perspectives, it’s possible to create “a rich tapestry that enhances the board’s ability to analyse situations, identify opportunities, and manage risk effectively”, says the World Council of Directors.
PwC’s US-focused 2025 Annual Corporate Directors Survey adds that diverse viewpoints “can also help unlock fresh thinking and avoid groupthink, especially when navigating uncertainty”. Rather than biting their tongues and avoiding anything that looks like dissent, bringing a new idea to bear “elevates the board as a whole”. As PwC found, most board members already recognise this fact – 25% felt their effectiveness would be improved by exposure to new ideas and a greater propensity for airing different views (24%).
[insert graph from PwC pdf]
Clearly this cannot happen if boards continue to be relatively homogenous spaces. Which, it seems, many are.
In the UK, for example, 79% of board places in 2024 were held by white directors – largely men over the age of 60, according to executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles. Thirteen percent were Asian, 4% black, 3% from other ethnic minorities and 1% Arab or Middle Eastern. As a percentage of the total, women board members account for just 16%.
On paper, South Africa punches above its weight when it comes to demographic diversity such as women on boards, at least compared to the global average (3.3 women per board on average in South Africa versus 2.3 globally, according EgonZehnder’s 2022-23 Board Diversity Tracker). However, South Africa is not immune to the echo chamber factor
Debbie Goodman, CEO of Africa’s largest executive search firm Jack Hammer Global, refers to the phenomenon of “performative diversity”. This emerges when “a board that has done the right thing on paper, adding directors who look different from the incumbents, but whose culture and dynamics remain unchanged. The new voices, if they push back or offer a genuinely alternative perspective, can find themselves subtly sidelined – talked over, not followed up on, or gradually socialised into conformity.”
The antidote for this may lie in how boards recruit new members.
How are board members recruited?
In the UK, 65% of all board appointments are made via personal connection, says David Schwarz, CEO of executive recruiter Board Appointments. Fifteen percent made an overture to the company or board they wanted to join, 10% were placed through a recruitment company, and 10% responded to an advert. Many potential directors in the UK are drawn from the alumni of top universities and elite private schools.
Similarly, a survey by the National Association of Corporate Directors in the US found that 70% of new directors owed their position to personal networks or word-of-mouth referrals.
Goodman believes these numbers may be even higher across South Africa and greater Africa. “In many African markets, professional networks are smaller, more concentrated, and more relationship-dependent than in the US or Europe. The result is that the same names tend to circulate – boards drawing from a relatively tight pool of known, trusted individuals,” she explains. “In markets such as Nigeria, Kenya, and throughout sub-Saharan Africa, what I observe consistently is that the default appointment mechanism is the tap on the shoulder. Formal, structured processes for board appointments remain the exception rather than the norm.”
This view is affirmed by Ronke Sokefun, chair of the Women’s Group of the Chartered Institute of Directors Nigeria and a partner in Templars law firm. “Most board appointments [in Africa] don’t come through job applications. No, they come through referrals. They come through relationships,” she told the Ascent Board Ready Series for female executives in Africa and the diaspora.
Illustrating this, Sokefun added, “I remember a power company a few years back approached me and said they were looking for a neutral person [preferably female] to sit on their board as chair.” Sokefun’s name had been floated by two individuals who were approached for recommendations. While she did not take up the seat, this anecdote highlights the value of strategic relationships in African business circles and a propensity for reinforcing the echo chamber effect.
Birds of a feather
This “birds of a feather stick together” phenomenon can be detrimental in a globalised world where working with people from other races, genders, cultures, geographies, socio-economic backgrounds, religions, and even communication styles is essential for navigating complex systems.
A 2009 statistical analysis of corporate boards networks in South Africa, by Ian Durbach and Hamieda Parker, clearly demonstrates the “small world” effect of tightly connected board ecosystems. The “homophily effect” affirms that people from the same “clubs” tend to stick together.
Homophily is a prominent concept in sociology, specifically when it comes to understanding social ties and networks. Sociologists Miller McPherson, Lynn Smith-Lovin, and James M. Cook explain, however, that sticking with people we understand – who are “like us” – “limits people’s social worlds in a way that has powerful implications for the information they receive, the attitudes they form, and the interactions they experience”.
For Goodman, the debate is no longer about whether or not boards need to break the homophily mould. Research and her own observations, gleaned after two decades spent advising boards and CEOs on executive and leadership appointments across Africa and globally, affirm that diverse leadership teams make better decisions, particularly in uncertain and complex times.
“When a board includes directors with genuinely different professional backgrounds, industries, geographies, life experiences, gender perspectives, and generational viewpoints, the quality of the conversation changes,” says Goodman. “Assumptions are challenged and the risk of ‘groupthink’ is substantially reduced.”
Casting a wider net
The rationale for abandoning networks as the go-to source of would-be directors may be justified, but many boards will rail against the idea of appointing someone they don’t know to a prized and influential position.
However, there are real risks for complacency, which go way beyond issues of confirmation bias. “Risk gets missed and blind spots go unexamined, and the organisation’s ability to respond to a complex, rapidly changing world erodes – especially if all the people around the table have limited experience in or context for the issues facing the organisation,” says Goodman.
In contrast, boards that make a deliberate decision to value diverse ideas and productive disagreement by shaking up the echo chamber, “are able to deal with the discomfort of dissenting views around the table” and navigate shifting sands.
Where do you start?
Jack Hammer Global CEO, author and host of the business podcast On Work & Revolution, says Debbie Goodman, offers some choice advice for any board looking to break out of its echo chamber.
The starting point and “single most important variable” is buy-in from the very top. “An exceptional chair will shape a culture of diverse thinking, by moderating and facilitating constructive debate,” says Goodman, who believes the nomination process for board chairs should be as meticulous as it is for any other director appointment.
“A chair who is uncomfortable with ambiguity, who prizes harmony over rigour, or who consciously or unconsciously defers to the most senior voices in the room, will neutralise the benefit of even a well-constituted, diverse board,” warns Goodman. “Conversely, a skilled chair can bring extraordinary value out of a board that, on paper, might seem somewhat homogenous.”
The best chairs do this by creating space for alternative views to be aired and moderating discussions intentionally to ensure the same voices don’t dominate. It means gently, and sometimes privately, calling out inappropriate behaviour or a tendency to interrupt. If individual directors seem less inclined to speak up in full meetings, it may also warrant one-on-one check-ins.
It also requires a clear and strategic approach to onboarding new directors. It starts with undertaking a critical and structured analysis of the current board composition and its gaps, says Goodman. This goes beyond demographic breakdown to considerations about generational representation, functional expertise, industry perspectives that might be missing, or regional and international experience.
“This kind of structured analysis should precede any appointment process, rather than beginning with a name in mind. From there, boards need to be intentional about where they look. If you restrict your search to your existing networks, you will reproduce your existing board,” she says, noting the value that a professional executive search firm can bring to the process from the beginning of the search.
It might also be necessary during this process to assuage concerns that diversity is likely to cause conflict and dissent. Intentential onboarding and integration are crucial for ensuring that this doesn’t happen, says Goodman, who adds, “To be clear, the real threat to cooperation is not diverse views – it is poor facilitation, unclear expectations, and a chair who has not created the conditions for all voices to engage productively. Address those things, and a more diverse board will almost always outperform a more homogeneous one.”
Snapshot
- Boards should be inviting diverse opinions into their midst – even if this has the potential to stoke debate and discomfort.
- Research shows that diversity of thought improves board effectiveness.
- Adding demographically diverse directors from the same network pool is not the answer.
- Directors with different competencies, experiences, and viewpoints must be actively courted.
- To avoid echo chambers, company chairs play a vital role in creating an environment where healthy debate is the norm, new ideas are heard and conflict is managed.
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