Short feedback loops are powerful. They tell us what we did right and reward us for it and vice-versa, they tell us what we did wrong and punish us for it. Therefore by rewarding or punishing our behavior, short feedback loops alter our behavior.

In archery, for example, you can alter your second shot based on the feedback from the first shot. Feedback mechanisms exist in other spheres of life as well. For example, I have seen people that don’t litter in Singapore, litter in Bengaluru because there is a feedback mechanism in place in Singapore which is missing in Bengaluru.

A third example is the “Prius Effect”. In the early 2000s, Toyota launched a hybrid car called the Prius which was powered by an internal combustion engine (ICE) and a battery. The car would intelligently turn off the ICE while waiting at signals or use a combination of ICE and battery at slow/ uniform speeds. A ‘normal’ car that has only an ICE has a fuel efficiency of about 20-30 miles per gallon whereas a Prius would have a fuel efficiency of 50 miles per gallon!

What Toyota also did was they provided a dashboard in the car that gave the driver a real time feedback of how their driving was affecting the fuel efficiency. Driving at a uniform speed or avoiding meant improved fuel efficiency whereas rapid acceleration consumed more fuel. The dashboard have a real time feed back of their driving. And because of this real time feedback, most drivers drove in a way to maximize fuel efficiency. This is the Prius Effect. (I didn’t coin this term.)

Real time feedback loops like Prius Effect should be used to change behavior. For example, in Bengaluru bad driving such as driving without indicating, driving on the wrong side of the road, aggressive driving, excessive honking is rampant. And a big part of the reason is that these bad drivers have gotten away in the past with it and believe that they can do so in the future too.

What if we could create a feedback loop to punish the bad drivers publicly? My guess is, once people see such a system they are more likely to follow it. Now, we could also be creativeand reward good driving instead of punishing bad driving. I am all for positive reinforcements; but what I ask is that there should feedback, preferably in real time or near real time so that we can change that behavior.

I have heard that in Ahmedabad, as part of the smart city project, they used cameras at traffic light to punish those jumping the signal. And jumping lights has reduced.

And finally here is my personal experience with short feedback loops. I wanted to teach my son the importance of saving and being frugal. So we started giving him small chores to do at home for a fixed monthly salary. Now, getting my son to do anything is like moving a mountain. We have pleaded and yelled at him in frustration a million times.

And then I had a Eureka moment!

You see, I had been pushing my son to do his bit, but I myself was falling behind in my promise. I was sporadic in my payments and I would transfer money to his account like once in 2 or 3 months. So I changed my behavior to pay him every month on a fixed date. That acted like a short feedback loop where he could then see the connection between his efforts and his rewards. The loop was completed (and monthly salary is the third most addictive thing in the world after carbs and heroin. )

A few months into this experiment and then I was in for a surprise.

He went to a fair and I gave him Rs 400 for his expenses and I would deduct it from his salary. He came back from the fair and handed back Rs 200 and narrated the following:

• He found most things expensive and not worth their price
• The vendor selling potato twisty was charging Rs 80 at the fair whereas he sells the same at his regular stand for Rs 50. Hence he decide to skip it.
• He negotiated with the vendor and got his ice candy for Rs 40 instead of Rs 50
• He and his sister shared most of whatever he bought because they were over priced anyway and helped him save
• And finally and the most impressive thing he said was… he couldn’t believe that his friends were so careless with their money at the fair!

By the time he finished narrating this story, my wife and I were bursting with pride. I couldn’t have taught him these lessons without the feedback loop, could I?

So circling back- short feedback loops are powerful for changing behavior. Toyota used it. Singapore used it. I used it too. And you can use it too.

In my next post, I will share my thoughts on why long feedback are powerful too and how I think of them.

Cheers!

Image Credit: Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash