Vision, Feedback and Action - Three Meals a Day Keep the Corporate Doctor Away

Someone said that feedback is the breakfast of a champion. However, in today's turbulent marketplace, surviving on breakfast alone is insufficient. You need three meals a day to keep the doctor away.

In the corporate dietary system, you need vision for breakfast, feedback for lunch and action for dinner. Vision is a clear and precise mental portrait of a preferred future. Feedback is the return of a portion of the output to the input. Action is to the take a decision and execute. Vision and feedback without action is dreaming. Action without vision and feedback is wasting time. But vision, feedback and action - feeding on the three meals a day will serve to keep the corporate doctor away.

Some people believe that information is power. However, information without action is useless. It is similar to the treatment of a sick patient. The doctor can have all the right information on how to cure the patient. However, if he does not take the appropriate and timely action to treat the patient, the outcome for the patient remains unchanged. But action must be complemented with the correct information. Acting on the wrong information may kill the patient as the remedies may be worse than the disease. This is why all three 'vision, feedback and action'are necessary. They are the meals required to provide the required daily nourishments to the company. It is the harnessing and application of the correct information that unleashes power.

In the context of management theory, it is useful to apply the best blend of Eastern and Western practices. Developing Asia can learn much from the more established and intellectual Western managerial professionalism in the area of clear vision, proper research and feedback. The Asia financial crisis in 1997 has exposed the weakness of some mega corporation in the East. For instance a number of Chaebols in Korea, Keiretsu in Japan and SE Asian banks collapsed.

They were lacking in focus, over extended and diversified. Their product lines have little connections with each other. On the other hand, the top blue chip companies in the West such as Microsoft, Coke, IBM are mainly one-product companies with clear and focused corporate vision. However, the big Western companies have their weaknesses too. In the early 1990s, IBM almost went under. IBM then also had good vision and feedback. Many major companies were using IBM systems and certainly gave feedback to IBM regarding its products and services. The problem was that such reports and feedback processes stopped short at IBM's head offices. Decisions were not taken to correct the situation on a timely basis. In the 1970s, this inability to act also affected the major US automotive manufacturers resulting in the Japanese being able to penetrate the market and whittle away their market shares.

The West can learn from Asia's entrepreneurs' acumen and instincts to quickly act on the information available. The Japanese have taught the West about quick implementation of quality systems and products. Now the Chinese and the Indians are winning the fight against the Western corporations in the areas of low cost and good quality products and services.

Therefore to compete effectively in today's global marketplace, it is vital to integrate the vision and feedback management system of the West with the entrepreneurial and instinctive action of the East.

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