Replying to LO25450 --
"Richard C. Holloway" <learnshops@thresholds.com> wrote:
> one area that I've found only limited success in obtaining information
> about (with regards to LO's, organizational systems, etc.), concerns
> feedback.
>
> Feedback is a fundamental part of a viable system; learning seems to
> depend on feedback...so, what feedback methodologies are working in
> effective LO's?
and HJRobles@aol.com followed up:
> to see something on the feedback part. I second his opinion! When I did
> the case studies on community colleges as LOs, I did not find a single
> college, not even the two most known for being "cutting edge" in this
> area, that had a viable, systematic means of capturing and feeding
> organizational learning back into the institution. The CEOs of these
> colleges were quite explicit about it; it was their weak link. Maybe
Coming at this from a system dynamics perspective, it seems clear that
most of our organizations have some sort of feedback. As Doc and Harriet
said, most of those are not intelligently designed feedback systems,
though, and many are not explicit. (That's not that they were done by
non-intelligent people but that they didn't take advantage of what is
known about effective feedback. At least most of them I've seen tend to
be designed by intuition, and, for example, Dietrich Dörner's _The Logic
of Failure_ [Die Logik des Mißlingens. Strategisches Denken in komplexen
Situationen] illustrates the risks in such approaches.)
You might find "Pipeline Inventory: The Missing Factor in Organizational
Expense Management," referenced on
http://facilitatedsystems.com/pubs.html , of interest in describing the
effects of 2 different feedback mechanisms on the way an organization
controlled its spending. "Applying System Dynamics to Business: An
Expense Management Example," available by a link on that page, describes
the feedback a bit more fully (the former article is more more focused
on the entire change effort).
The key lesson is that it's possible to design an organization's feedback
mechanisms (both tacit and explicit) so that you are more likely to
achieve your goals.
On a somewhat different plain, we also use feedback to help us control our
personal learning--observing what works, looking for gaps between what we
wanted and what we got, and trying new approaches.
http://facilitatedsystems.com/llogs.html describes one way I've found
valuable in structuring that personal feedback to make my progress more
effective. I confess that the learning I've gotten from this can be
pretty intense, so I don't use this 100% of the time.
Regards,
Bill
-- Bill Harris 3217 102nd Place SE Facilitated Systems Everett, WA 98208 USA http://facilitatedsystems.com/ phone: +1 425 337-5541Learning-org -- Hosted by Rick Karash <Richard@Karash.com> Public Dialog on Learning Organizations -- <http://www.learning-org.com>
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