Most people believe that James Watt (1736–1819) invented the steam engine—but actually they are mistaken. The first modern steam engine was built by the English blacksmith and ironmonger Thomas Newcomen in 1712. Newcomen’s engine performed a very useful task: it pumped water out of an English mine. However, Newcomen’s machine was highly inefficient, earning it a reputation as a “coal guzzler.” Newcomen’s early design was itself based on experiments by French and English inventors who started testing ways of converting steam into kinetic energy as early as 1700 (almost 30 years before James Wattt’s birth).
In 1764, when Watt set about repairing a Newcomen steam engine, he recognized how inefficient the design was and how much steam was being wasted. This fired his ambition to develop a far better machine. To fulfill that ambition, he even went so far as to study foreign languages so that he could read publications about the steam engines being built in other countries at the time. Incidentally, many people who go on to achieve greatness learn foreign languages so that they can gain access to valuable knowledge. For instance, Arthur Schopenhauer and Peter F. Drucker both learned Spanish so that they could read the original of the excellent Oráculo manual y arte de prudencia, published by Baltasar Gracián in 1647, a book that Schopenhauer later single-mindedly translated into German. The English edition of Gracián’s book, titled The Art of Worldly Wisdom, became a bestseller.1
Returning to Watt, one thing is certain: in 1776 the first steam engine designed by him was put to work, and very soon it revolutionized transport and was being used to power ships and traction engines, the precursors of trains. But to learn something about management, we will consider another of Watt’s inventions, the centrifugal or flyball governor.
A governor is a device that controls and regulates the speed of an engine. The quicker the steam engine’s pistons move, the faster the governor rotates. As a result, masses on lever arms rise against the force of gravity, activating a mechanism to reduce the flow of steam and throttle the machine’s running speed. Watt used feedback from the centrifugal governor to keep his steam engines running at a constant speed.
Today, the principle of feedback is so widely applied that it usually goes totally unnoticed, whether in computers, for air traffic control, when performing surgery, in a production context, or when managing organizations—in other words, anywhere a process has to be controlled. Yet far too few managers make sufficiently systematic use of this essential management tool when managing people, when managing their organization, or when managing innovation.
Feedback is the key to continuous learning. As long as 2,500 years ago, the most celebrated physician of the ancient world, Hippocrates of Cos, taught that doctors should write down how they believed their patients’ cures should develop, based on what they decided. Subsequently, the outcome of that decision was to be compared with the doctor’s predictions. You will be amazed at how much can be learned from feedback, and how quickly! Within just a few years, the decisions made by someone who previously neglected this valuable source of information will be far more competent than before.
Make sure that, as a professional manager, you systematically receive regular feedback within your organization on key projects and issues. This means routinely gathering information on order confirmations, interim reports, and notices of execution. If you do this consistently, you will be making a major contribution toward ensuring the functional reliability of your organization as a whole and thereby also minimizing its risks. Not for nothing is such an approach absolutely essential in domains in which people’s lives are at risk, as is the case in surgery or in the context of military operations or air traffic control. There, feedback is indispensable for ensuring the safety of actions taken, and naturally the same applies to the transaction of business, too.
A perfect example of true professionalism related to feedback was provided by General Dwight D. Eisenhower at the end of World War II. After Alfred Jodl, the chief of operations for the German Armed Forces High Command, had signed the unconditional surrender at Allied headquarters in Reims, Eisenhower soberly penned this final, brief report to be sent to Washington: “The mission of this Allied Force was fulfilled at 02.41, local time, May 7, 1945.”2 Considering the significance of the message, what a singular display of professionalism that was.
The same approach that applies when managing an organization or managing other people can also be adopted for managing yourself. Whenever Jesuit priests or Calvinist pastors do something of significance, they are required to note down the results they expect. Then, nine months later they consult those records to compare what actually happened with what they anticipated, thereby guaranteeing a supply of valuable feedback. If you do the same, you will very soon find out what your strengths are, where lessons need to be learned to enhance those strengths, and where any weaknesses preventing you from ever becoming maximally efficient happen to lie. In addition, you will find out which habits you need to change in order to improve. Peter F. Drucker rigorously applied this approach for over 60 years, even at a very advanced age and always emphasized how fruitful it was for him.
Make systematic use of feedback analysis when managing organizations, people, or innovation. When you make your next key decision, write down what outcome you expect. Then, a suitable number of months later, compare the actual situation with what you expected it to be.
What do you need to do to make regular feedback standard practice in your organization? Who can help you establish the generation of professional feedback as a constant practice in your company?