Feedback Loop and Organizational Behavior
Wanda I. Ramos
Trident University
BUS 599: Integrative Project
Dr. Jeffrey Snider
Feedback Loop and Organizational Learning
The Excellent Consulting Group
Organizational learning is no doubt an important concern to organizational researchers and practitioners. However, few theories or models of organizational learning have widespread acceptance, even the basic concept of what organizational learning is (Fiol & Lyles, 1985; Huber, 1991, Kim, 1993).
Each learning cycle and process is to be treated as reorganizing feedback mechanism to achieve the task’s objectives. “The technical view assumes that organizational learning is about the effective processing, interpretation of, and response to,
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They are also element of effective management.
Discussion
A feedback loop is a common and a great tool when designing a control system. Feedback loops take the system output into consideration, which enables the system to adjust its performance to meet a desired output response. System feedback loops constitute an essential part of the systems thinking theory which allows viewing organization as a system. They are also connected to the theory of organizational learning., which may occur within a loop. Organizational learning theory and population ecology would suggest that rule making is subject to limited resources (e.g., unsolved problems) which would be absorbed as the rule apparatus grows, leaving less resources for new rules resulting in a negative effect of rule density on rule birth rates.
There are different feedback loops at Whole Foods Market, two of which will be discuss in this paper. Identifying and having control of the reinforcing and balancing loops provides a company with an advanced understanding of its internal processes and creates multiple learning opportunities that will allow it to become more successful in the future.
Whole Foods Market reinforcing loops consists of the following elements:
1. The demand for organic foods
2. The profit earned
3. The number of stores that operate within the grocery chain
4. The customer awareness of healthy eating habits
The revenue and profit of the company depend directly
2. Give your opinion on the current Organizational Learning Mechanism(s) (OLMs) that hinder organizational learning. Support your response with one (1) example of a training or learning initiative (e.g., sharing knowledge, training programs, working as a team, experiences, procedures, processes, etc.) and the outcome when it was applied to the organization.
For most companies, identifying what a learning organization should be and actually becoming one is tricky at best, impossible at worst. One way that manager's and companies can promote the concept of being a learning organization is to assess whether the company is in need of a short-term fix or whether it is more focused on long-term results. Organizational learning is a long-term activity that will build competitive advantage over time and requires sustained management attention, commitment, and effort. Learning organizations maximize their competitive positions during strong economic times and they prudently train their employees and prepare for change even in turbulent times. As a result, learning organizations and learning
A feedback loop refers to a pathway or a channel that is formed by an effect that returns to the cause while generating either a more or a less effect. The feedback loops can either be balancing or reinforcing loops. A balancing loop refers to the loop that tends to move a current state of an organization to the desired state through a certain action. On the other hand, a reinforcing loop refers to a loop through which an action produces a result that has an influence on more of the same action and thus leading to growth or a decline in the organization (Morecroft, 2015). The Whole Foods Market has various balancing and reinforcing loops. A balancing loop that is critical to the performance and success of the Whole Foods Market is the ecosystem promise whereas a reinforcing loop used in the organization, is the customer feedback loop.
The main objective of this semester was to learn various organizational behaviors that are conducted in a business environment outside the classroom; these would help us as students and as future business entrepreneurs. Throughout the semester, every week different professors came and gave us lectures. Each lecture was about different topic with professors of different departments. Along with the weekly lectures we also had an interactive session that gave us the opportunity to apply the lessons and techniques learnt in our professional and personal lives.
Organizational learning promotes: adaptability, participation and information openness. Consequently, not only employee performance will be enhanced, but also the increase of organizations effectiveness and efficiency.
Throughout our final semester of study at Maryville, our cohort has studied Peter Senge’s, The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. Rather than set of management practices, the book describes how organizations, especially those that are sustainably competitive, know how to learn. These “learning organizations” are continuously learning how to work together, where the norm is producing their best. In the book, Senge identifies five essential elements, that when practiced together, create perfect conditions for an effective learning organization. These five practices are Personal Mastery, Mental Models, Shared Vision,
In his book The Fifth Discipline, Peter Senge emphasizes his model of a "learning organization," which he defines as "an organization that is continually expanding its capacity to create its future." A learning organization excels at both adaptive learning and generative learning.
In systems theory, a feedback loop is a type of relationship between different factors in an organization. There are two basic types of feedback loops balancing and reinforcing (MindTools.com, 2012). Understanding a feedback loop requires an understanding of not only the data but the way that the data affects behavior, and works on the relationship between different factors. Organizations seek to cultivate feedback loops in order to improve performance (Goetz, 2011). By understanding the feedback loops to which the organization is subject and learning from when those loops no longer function or learning from negative feedback loops when they are functioning organizations can improve their performance over time.
Organizations use individual members as instruments of adaptation in learning. However, different parts of organizations (subunits or individuals) may have different learning experiences from the same historical events in the organizations. This creates a need for synergy to convert individual or subunit experiences into an organizational learning in order to harness the benefits. Given that humans have only bounded rational abilities** to perform actions, creating such a synergy is a major management challenge for practitioners, and a topic of scholarly pursuit for researchers. I wish to study how intra-organizational learning may drive innovations, and identify moderators that may influence the relation between intra-organizational learning and
Whole Foods Market began in 1970 as a local supermarket. Over the past 31 years, Whole Foods Market has grown from a single store in Austin, Texas, to becoming one of the worldwide leaders in providing consumers with natural and organic foods. They have grown to over 300 stores in both North America and the United Kingdom. (Whole Foods Market, Inc., 2011) This report examines the chief elements of the strategy that Whole Foods Market has put into place. Also, it uses past financial data to provide an assessment of the condition of the company going forward. Those assessments include recommendations of future actions, along with concerns I have about the way the company is currently operating and some difficulties that may be on the way.
An organization’s capability to learn and convey that learning into action quickly, is the supreme competitive advantage. The learning organization is the structure that eases the realization of such competitive advantage, it empowers employees, it deepens and enhances the customer experience and cooperation with main business partners and eventually improves business performance. Organizational learning is considered as the suitable process to develop knowledge resources and capabilities/core competencies (human capital, social capital and organizational capital) that engender ongoing values; which in turn yield persistence superior performance; which lead to sustainable competitive advantage within the context of the strategic management.
This paper will identify and analyze one balancing loop, and one reinforcing loop for Whole Foods Market (WFM) systems that are critical to the company’s performance and success. Additionally, WFM’s organizational learning systems will be identified, and a recommendation for improving performance will be made.
Organization Development (OD) is a deliberately planned, organization-wide effort to increase an organization's effectiveness and/or efficiency, and/or to enable the organization to achieve its strategic goals (2015, Wikipedia).
Jashapara (2011) defines organisational learning as the processes of improving organisational actions through better knowledge and understanding.
Peter Senge argues that not only we humans learn, but organizations also. However, learning itself may not be enough for the organization to survive in this ever-challenging era. In his book, The Fifth Discipline, Senge introduced five ‘disciplines’, namely systems thinking, personal mastery, mental models, building shared vision, and team learning, that characterizes an organization as a learning organization.