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What are they?
Feedback loops are the causal relationships between events within a system, such as how the system responds to change. These responses can reinforce the change, or resist it.
Why are they important?
Feedback loops allow us to observe and influence systems over time, noticing how they do or do not change in response to different events. The better we can understand , predict, and prepare for feedback, the more chance we have of succeeding in our attempts to trigger or avoid a tipping point.
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The world outside of us is not a virtual wasteland awaiting our programming. It also does things. It initiates. It objects. It refuses. It stands in the way. It experiments.
Dr Bayo Akomolafe
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Click on the arrows below to expand the questions which feel relevant and interesting to the change that you are working towards
Where to start
- How is the system responding to your attempts to change it?
- What happens when we try to create change without understanding how the current system will respond?
- How can we notice and overcome resistance?
- How can we know if the feedback loop are reinforcing enough to create momentum for change?
- What conditions, feedback loops and triggers have sparked rapid, positive system shifts?
Questions to go deeper
- Which feedback loops are you already seeing in your work? What could happen if I create new feedback loops, or resist existing ones?
- How do simple rules among many actors lead to complex, often unpredictable patterns?
- How can we bring play into an exploration of how feedback loops work in practice?
- How do we reinforce or resist the spread of ideas and behaviours?
- What can the stability of a system tell us about its potential to reach a tipping point?