The preceding picture makes it clear that
feedback loops are relationships, which
generate goal-seeking behaviour. Goal seeking is a fundamental activity, which all
living things engage in. Without the ability to seek goals, nothing could remain
viable for very long. Goal-seeking is what enables conditions within a system to
remain "on course." When deviations do occur, feedback relationships inspire, and
direct, corrective actions to bring conditions back in line.
Of course, goal-seeking does not always
mean "goal achieving." Let's look at one
more picture which helps to explain why this is the case.
As the diagram suggests, whenever goal-seeking
activity occurs within a web of
interdependent relationships, there is an opportunity for "goal conflict" to occur.
Goal conflict occurs when activities that are designed to bring one condition into
line with its goal, simultaneously "bump into" some other condition (or conditions),
knocking it out of line with its goal.
A good example occurs in the context of
time allocation. We'd probably all like to
be able to spend more time with our friends and families. However, often the
activity pattern, which would enable us to do, so causes us to fall behind in some
other important dimension of our lives.
Such conflict is everywhere. We want to
keep our food from spoiling, so we use a
refrigerator. But refrigerators release ozone-depleting CFCs into the atmosphere.
We want to be trusting, but when we are, we often are taken advantage of. We'd
love to exercise on a regular basis, but we also need to travel to fulfil professional
commitments. It' s difficult to achieve all of our many goals simultaneously. We're
forced to make choices and to endure the consequences. The real challenge is to
make the best tradeoffs, the ones that leave us feeling the best about ourselves and
simultaneously do the maximum good for "the web" to which we all belong.
Feedback relationships give systems their
distinctive behavioural character.
Feedback loops inspire both growth and collapse, generate self-righting
responses, and create resistive reactions.
There are two types of feedback relationships:
Negative and Positive feedback
loops.
