What Makes a Feedback Loop Actually Useful

In Part 1, we looked at why feedback loops fail when outcomes aren’t objective. But even with perfectly objective outcomes, you can still get off course.

Progress comes to a halt when the goal shifts without anyone noticing. Effort gets rewarded, busyness feels productive, and comfort quietly replaces achievement. At that point, feedback loops don’t disappear. They just start reinforcing the wrong thing.

When Goals Stop Doing Real Work

This is where goal-linking matters. The point of a feedback loop is achievement, not activity. Goals are meant to stretch people and systems. That stretch is what creates compounding progress.

Stretching is uncomfortable. When discomfort is not intentional, comfort quietly takes over. Effort gets rewarded because it feels productive. Busyness replaces achievement. The feedback loop keeps running, but it is no longer linked to the goal. It starts reinforcing comfort instead.

How Goals Drift Without Anyone Noticing

Being goal-linked sounds straightforward. You set a goal, define outcomes, and use feedback to improve. In theory, that should be enough.

In practice, drift doesn’t happen all at once. It happens when goals are hard to live with day to day. Tension builds. Tradeoffs get uncomfortable. Small exceptions start to feel reasonable.

Over time, effort becomes easier to reward than outcomes. Activity feels productive. The system stays busy, but the goal slowly loses its grip.

What Drift Looks Like in Practice

If you’ve been around long enough, you’ve experienced the dreaded daily standup meeting, where each person talks about their current work. What did you do yesterday? What are you doing today? Do you have any blockers? Over time, it starts to feel like a daily chore. Repetitive. Monotonous.

Even though these meetings feel dull, they often go unquestioned because they have objective structure. People show up. They give updates. They are visibly busy. Participation itself gets rewarded.

For these meetings to matter, they need goal linking. When people aren’t working toward the same outcome, the meeting turns into status reporting. The feedback loop exists, but it’s no longer linked to progress.

Good standups feel different. The conversation is about movement toward a goal. Blockers matter because they slow progress. Updates matter because they change what the team does next. The meeting reinforces progress instead of activity.

Comfort Checks: How to Stay on Course

Drift doesn’t happen because people stop caring. It happens when we lack the systems to keep us on course. These checks help surface that shift before it becomes the norm.

1. Ask “Are we there yet?” every day

Not rhetorically. Literally.

If the honest answer is “no,” that should create discomfort. If it doesn’t, the goal has already lost its grip. Progress toward a meaningful goal should feel demanding, especially when you’re behind.

This also exposes a hard truth: not everyone is here to win. Some people are here to stay busy, stay comfortable, or avoid friction. Goal-linked systems require people who are willing to sit with uncomfortable answers and act on them.

2. Use dates as forcing functions, not suggestions

Dates exist to set pace, surface blockers, and force tradeoffs. They are not there for optics.

If you aren’t continually doing the following:

• adjusting pace

• resolving blockers quickly

• consciously changing scope

then the date isn’t doing its job.

Everyone involved needs to be oriented around the date. When focus drifts away from it, progress usually follows.

3. Anchor every outcome back to the goal

Each outcome should earn its existence.

Here’s how to test if it does:

If you could have it right now, would it change anything about reaching the goal?

If the answer is “not much,” it’s probably busy work.

This is why showing results matters. Teams need the habit of consistently demoing what they’ve produced. Results should be visible. Outcomes should be tangible. Reward progress toward the goal, not the effort it took to get there. If you’re not there yet, you should feel uncomfortable.

Without visible results, there’s no way to know when you’re off course and no way to correct it.

Closing Thoughts

Feeling productive is comforting. It gives the sense that things are moving, that effort is being made, and that progress is inevitable. But comfort is a poor substitute for achievement.

Feedback loops don’t fail loudly. They keep running. Meetings still happen. Work still gets done. The danger is subtle. The loop stays intact while the goal quietly loses its influence.

Goal-linking is what keeps that from happening. It forces tension. It makes progress visible. It keeps feedback honest and uncomfortable when it needs to be. Without it, activity gets rewarded and drift creeps in.

In the next post, we’ll look at the final piece of a feedback loop: taking action on the feedback itself. This is where results start to compound.