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Strategy as an adaptive feedback system

  • 1.  Strategy as an adaptive feedback system

    Posted 03-10-2009 05:33

    Not sure if your comment came out a bit wrong Jack – but to avoid any misunderstanding, feedback systems thinking most certainly does not 'ignore time' .. its whole purpose is to understand how things change over time and how to improve that trajectory - the concept is meaningless in the absence of change-over-time.

    A powerful underlying science to deal with it is 'system dynamics' developed back in the 1960s by an MIT Prof in control systems engineering [see www.systemdynamics.org ]. It is a hugely developed field on which there are many textbooks covering many fields, including management [e.g. mine!].  

    Kim Warren

     

     

    From: Management Education and Development Discussion [mailto:MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Jack Ring
    Sent: 09 March 2009 14:22
    To: MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: Definition of strategy, strategy must be an adaptive feedback system

     

    Romie,


    Thanks for the post. Good thinking.


    I suggest that you are really talking about feed-forward. Feedback is an
    engineering term that ignores time. Many business people misinterpret the
    term.

    Findings from situation assessment of on-going operations and of effects
    wrought on customers and suppliers can affect only what comes after.

    This moves you away from the control theory model and closer to the brain
    theory model in which synapses are preconditioned to process stimuli
    differently than before.  Strategy must anticipate the impediments yet to be
    encountered and think in terms of the resources yet to appear.

    Note that I am not taking issue with what you say, only suggesting a way of
    saying it that will generate less ambiguity in the 'student.'

    Onward,
    Jack Ring