30 December 2016

Strategic Management: Feedback (Just the Quotes)

"Most managers are reluctant to comment on ineffective or inappropriate interpersonal behavior. But these areas are often crucial for professional task success. This hesitancy is doubly felt when there is a poor relationship between the two. [...] Too few managers have any experience in how to confront others effectively; generally they can more easily give feedback on inadequate task performance than on issues dealing with another's personal style." (David L Bradford & Allan R Cohen, "Managing for Excellence", 1984)

"Organizations need the capacity for double-loop learning. Double-loop learning occurs when managers question their underlying assumptions and reflect on whether the theory under which they were operating remains consistent with current evidence, observations, and experience. Of course, managers need feedback about whether their planned strategy is being executed according to plan-the single-loop learning process. But even more important, they need feedback about whether the planned strategy remains a viable and successful strategy - the double-loop learning process. Managers need information so that they can question whether the fundamental assumptions made when they launched the strategy are valid." (Robert S Kaplan & David P Norton, "The Balanced Scorecard", Harvard Business Review, 1996)

"Just as dynamics arise from feedback, so too all learning depends on feedback. We make decisions that alter the real world; we gather information feedback about the real world, and using the new information we revise our understanding of the world and the decisions we make to bring our perception of the state of the system closer to our goals." (John D Sterman, "Business dynamics: Systems thinking and modeling for a complex world", 2000)

"The robustness of the misperceptions of feedback and the poor performance they cause are due to two basic and related deficiencies in our mental model. First, our cognitive maps of the causal structure of systems are vastly simplified compared to the complexity of the systems themselves. Second, we are unable to infer correctly the dynamics of all but the simplest causal maps. Both are direct consequences of bounded rationality, that is, the many limitations of attention, memory, recall, information processing capability, and time that constrain human decision making." (John D Sterman, "Business Dynamics: Systems thinking and modeling for a complex world", 2000)

"When we plan to win we take direct steps to ensure that we are building the right system at the best possible cost. Every action we take goes towards that end. Instead of trying to plan everything up front, we plan just the next few steps; and then allow customer feedback to correct our trajectory. In this way, we get off the mark quickly, and then continuously correct our direction. Errors are unimportant because they will be corrected quickly." (Kent Beck & Martin Fowler, "Planning Extreme Programming", 2000)

"The other element of systems thinking is learning to influence the system with reinforcing feedback as an engine for growth or decline. [...] Without this kind of understanding, managers will hit blockages in the form of seeming limits to growth and resistance to change because the large complex system will appear impossible to manage. Systems thinking is a significant solution." (Richard L Daft, "The Leadership Experience" 4th Ed., 2008)

"Clearly, total feedback is Not a Good Thing. Too much feedback can overwhelm the response channels, leading to paralysis and inaction. Even in a system designed to accept massive feedback (such as the human brain), if the system is required to accommodate to all incoming data, equilibrium will never be reached. The point of decision will be delayed indefinitely, and no action will be taken." (John Gall, "The Systems Bible: The Beginner's Guide to Systems Large and Small"[Systematics 3rd Ed.], 2011)

"[…] the practice of continuous integration helps a development team fail-fast in integrating code under development. A corollary of failing fast is to aim for fast feedback. The practice of regularly showcasing (demoing) features under development to product owners and business stakeholders helps them verify whether it is what they asked for and decide whether it is what they really want." (Sriram Narayan, "Agile IT Organization Design: For Digital Transformation and Continuous Delivery", 2015)

"No methodology can guarantee success. But a good methodology can provide a feedback loop for continual improvement and learning." (Ash Maurya, "Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth", 2016)

"An effective goal management system - an OKR system - links goals to a team’s broader mission. It respects targets and deadlines while adapting to circumstances. It promotes feedback and celebrates wins, large and small. Most important, it expands our limits. It moves us to strive for what might seem beyond our reach." (John Doerr, "Measure what Matters", 2018)

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