Government and Feedback

Ch. 4 Processes and Feedback P. 109-110:

Under the systems theory, both negative and positive feedback are “a system of loops that connect communication and action.” As we learned before, learning organizations take advantage of both negative and positive feedback to improve their operations.

In the public sector, I suspect that government entities are not as willing to benefit from negative feedback as they could be. Because the purpose of many public entities is to provide a legally-mandated services equally to all people in its charge, treating people “equally” tends to trump efficiency, timeliness and often times - courtesy. As government strives to adapt to the societal needs of the 21st century, it must work to become more aware of both internal and external interdependencies as well as its environment. Feedback will help it to achieve this going, and can come in a myriad of ways: fewer people using a once-popular bus route, an increase in affordable housing requests, objections to development plans, etc. Of course, the system is complicated by the fact that government agencies are limited in the extent to which they can change as they are subject to the laws passed by the people and governing bodies.