Chapter 5 — Feedback Drives Change

The wind shifts again. This time, it’s more noticeable. The sail pulls unevenly. The boat begins to drift off its previous line—not enough to alarm anyone, but enough that the change is clear.

Someone sees it. They don’t need full certainty. They don’t need a complete explanation. They only need to recognize that what was true a moment ago is no longer true now.

They say it.

“We’re off.”

The boat is already moving. Momentum carries it forward. The previous course still has weight. It would be easier to hold the line and adjust later.

But later makes the correction larger. The question is not whether the plan was right. The question is whether it still fits.

If the signal has arrived early enough, something simple is still possible.

Feedback Drives Change.

The adjustment is not dramatic. A shift in the sail. A small turn of the wheel. A new line taken, based on what is actually happening now.

Nothing is discarded. What was decided before still mattered. But it does not need to be defended.

The group is not trying to preserve the plan. It is trying to stay aligned with reality. This is what makes change possible.¹

When Feedback Drives Change, decisions do not harden too early. They remain open long enough to respond. This requires something subtle: the plan is not treated as final, changing direction is not seen as failure, and new information is still allowed to matter.

Without that room, something else begins to happen. Signals are heard, but not acted on. Concerns are raised, but not followed. Adjustments are delayed.

The plan continues.

At first, this still works. The difference is small. The drift is gradual. But the distance grows.

The longer a plan continues after it no longer fits, the harder it becomes to change. Not because change is impossible. Because it becomes more costly. More visible. More disruptive. More difficult to explain.

So the plan continues.

And the gap between expectation and reality widens. When Feedback Drives Change, adjustment is normal. When it cannot, adjustment becomes a problem. This is not about making perfect decisions. It is about allowing decisions to be revised.

The earlier the change, the smaller it is. A small shift keeps things aligned. A delayed shift requires recovery. This is why Dissent is Welcomed still matters for what follows.

Dissent is Welcomed so that Feedback Drives Change.

And when Feedback Drives Change, something important is preserved. Decisions remain close to what happens next.

The boat stays aligned with the wind.

A plan holds only while it still fits what is happening now.

From here, the loop completes—or begins to break. If change is possible, the group stays aligned. If it doesn’t, distance begins to grow.

When that distance becomes visible, the next question is whether the people deciding still feel what their choices do.

Footnotes

1. Karl E. Weick, The Social Psychology of Organizing, 2nd ed. (Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1979); Karl E. Weick, Kathleen M. Sutcliffe, and David Obstfeld, "Organizing and the Process of Sensemaking," Organization Science 16, no. 4 (2005): 409–421. ↩