Fixing the Feedback Loops that Actually Drive Performance
- Darren Emery
- Jul 7
- 4 min read
From Reporting to Real-Time Decision Making
Every organisation wants to be “data-driven.” It sounds great in a board pack and sells well to investors. But let’s be honest: most executive dashboards are glorified screensavers - static, lagging, and completely decoupled from the decisions that shape outcomes.
We don’t have a data problem. We have a feedback problem.
Why Dashboards Don’t Drive Outcomes
Dashboards are supposed to help us steer the ship. In reality, they’re often more like rear-view mirrors in a fog. They tell you what happened, not what’s happening - and certainly not what to do next.
In one organisation I worked with, the executive team proudly showed me a sleek reporting suite - automated, colour-coded, full of KPIs. But buried underneath the interface was a telling detail: most metrics were updated monthly, compiled manually by teams working "crunch" nights to meet arbitrary reporting deadlines. By the time insights reached leadership, the data was already three weeks old. The product teams had moved on. The customers had moved on. The market had moved on. But the dashboard? Beautifully static.
This isn’t a one-off.
A recent McKinsey study found that 70% of executives believe their organisation’s data isn’t used effectively in decision-making.
Forrester reports that less than 20% of business leaders trust the metrics they’re shown.
And yet, in meeting after meeting, decisions are made based on outdated charts, red-amber-green colour schemes, and gut feel - often in that order.
It’s not that dashboards are bad. It’s that they’ve become substitutes for feedback. And feedback - not reporting - is what drives performance.
What Real Feedback Loops Look Like
A feedback loop is not a status update. It’s a tight, responsive mechanism that helps people course-correct in real time. Think of a thermostat: it senses the current state, compares it to a target, and takes action instantly to adjust. That’s a loop.
In contrast, most corporate “feedback loops” look like this:
Something happens.
A team documents it.
The report is sent to leadership a week later.
It’s discussed in the next monthly meeting.
Someone says, “Let’s take that offline.”
That’s not a loop. That’s a lag.
High-performing organisations compress the time between signal and response. They don’t just observe - they adapt.
In a financial services firm I advised, we implemented a simple yet transformative change: weekly flow reviews instead of monthly retrospectives. Each team visualised blocked work, cycle time volatility, and customer feedback live from their delivery system - not as a report, but as a conversation.
The result? In six weeks, lead time dropped by 34%, decision bottlenecks were cut in half, and - crucially - teams felt they had control over their work again. One team lead said, “We’re not just reporting upwards anymore. We’re learning forward.”
Signal vs Noise: The Cutler Principle
John Cutler has a great line: “Most teams drown in data but starve for insight.” The real challenge isn’t collecting more information - it’s separating signal from noise.
In enterprise settings, noise is everywhere:
Vanity metrics (page views, ticket counts, story points)
Delayed customer feedback
Aggregated roll-ups that hide variation
“Red” items that trigger executive escalation but lack context
Real signal, on the other hand, is about change. What’s shifting? Where are we stuck? What’s working better than expected?
This is why product telemetry, direct user feedback, real-time delivery metrics, and short-cycle experiments are so powerful. They don’t just report - they inform action.
Retrospective vs Responsive
Let’s call this out: the traditional retrospective model - wait two weeks, look backward, write post-its - is not built for scale. It works in isolated teams with psychological safety and a clear mission. But once you scale to multiple teams, multiple layers, and multiple agendas, the signal collapses under its own weight.
Organisations need to shift from retrospective loops to responsive loops.
That means:
Moving from post-hoc analysis to real-time instrumentation
Replacing reports with conversations around living systems
Training teams to interpret signals, not just escalate them
Giving leaders visibility into movement, not just metrics
The Executive Role in Feedback Culture
Here’s the uncomfortable truth: leadership is often the slowest node in the system. Execs want insight, but then require slide decks. They want accountability, but then centralise decisions. They want adaptability, but then measure stability.
You don’t fix feedback loops from the bottom up. You fix them by changing how leaders engage with information.
If you're a senior leader, ask yourself:
Do your teams get faster because of your involvement—or slower?
Are you asking for answers—or creating the conditions for discovery?
Do your forums reward accurate reporting - or honest learning?
One of the most powerful shifts I’ve seen happened in a quarterly business review (QBR). Instead of reviewing lagging KPIs, the exec asked each product leader, “What’s one thing you’ve learned this month that changed your thinking?” That single question reframed the entire session from performance theatre to a learning loop.
Building Feedback at Scale
To build real-time feedback into the fabric of your organisation, start here:
Instrument everything – From customer behaviour to flow metrics to deployment frequency. Make signals visible.
Shorten the cycle – Move from monthly reports to weekly insights. From static decks to dynamic dashboards.
Close the loop – Ensure feedback leads to action, not just awareness.
Decentralise decisions – Push context and autonomy to the edge so the loop doesn’t need to pass through the boardroom every time.
Model it at the top - Leadership must be learners, not just listeners.
One Meeting, One Loop, One Big Shift
In one media company, a single change delivered outsized impact. They replaced a bi-weekly update call with a 30-minute live flow review. Work in progress was reviewed on screen, blockers were identified on the fly, and leadership agreed to resolve stuck decisions within 24 hours.
Delivery improved. Engagement improved. But more importantly, feedback became cultural - not procedural.
If your feedback loops are slow, your organisation is slow.
The real competitive advantage today isn’t just talent, capital, or code. It’s feedback speed. The faster you learn, the faster you improve.
So, next time you hear “Let’s circle back on that in next month’s QBR,” smile politely - and then go build a loop that learns in days, not quarters.
