Can you stop a one-ton metal box moving at 65 mph, solely by controlling its friction with the ground, within one foot of a target line?

You do it every day.

You exit the highway, close in on the car ahead, and bring thousands of pounds of moving metal to a complete stop without solving a single equation.

How?

Feedback.

Your eyes continuously measure the gap and the closing speed.

Approaching too fast? Brake harder.

Slowing too quickly? Ease off.

Still too far? Keep rolling.

Getting close? Adjust again.

You never make one perfect decision. You make dozens of tiny, real-time corrections.

That is feedback control.

It is how cruise control holds speed.

It is how a modern elevator stops level with the floor.

And it is one of the analogies I use when training Talroo teams about communication and product development.

The problem with most product and engineering teams is not a lack of intelligence. It is feedback latency.

Build in a vacuum for three months, then ask the customer whether you got it right.

By the time you get the data, you have already overshot the mark.

That is a broken control system.

Talk to the product manager daily.

Talk to real users as often as you can.

Observe.

Adjust.

Observe again.

Adjust again.

The goal is not to make the perfect decision at the start.

The goal is to shorten the feedback loop.

Precision almost never comes from predicting perfectly.

It comes from correcting continuously.

That is how a one-ton car stops within a foot of its target.

And that is how Talroo ships work that actually hits the mark.

#Talroo #TalentAcquisition #Leadership #Feedback #Communication

Perhaps my kids aren’t the biased ones. I am.

They don’t like seafood. They like fried chicken, the kind that comes out of the bag still crackling.

A lot of kids seem to feel the same way.

“Their taste buds haven’t fully matured,” a friend explained.

“The school feeds them chicken all the time. They’re just more used to it,” a mom said.

Maybe.

But what if we’re looking at it backwards?

Did we develop a stronger taste for seafood because our taste buds matured?

Or did we first learn that lobster is expensive, oysters are sophisticated, and certain fish are rare, and then begin to experience them as tasting better?

Different cultures offer a clue.

One culture treasures fermented fish that another finds unbearable.

One considers strong cheese a delicacy while another thinks it smells spoiled.

Some people experience intense spice as pleasure. Others experience only pain.

The food may not have changed. The value system surrounding it did.

And once people adopt that value system, they don’t merely tolerate the food. It can actually begin to taste good.

As adults, our perception is crowded with signals of value: price, scarcity, status, reputation.

Kids haven’t absorbed nearly as many of those signals.

They are still free to ask the simpler question:

Does this taste good?

That made me wonder whether experience sometimes makes us less objective, not more.

Maybe we don’t perceive something first and assign value to it afterward.

Maybe what we value helps shape what we actually perceive.

The same thing happens in management.

When I evaluate someone’s performance, I have to strip away the adult equivalents of price and scarcity:

Title.

Years of experience.

Credentials.

Compensation.

Personal friendship.

How confidently they speak.

What everyone else thinks of them.

These things can contain useful information. But when they substitute for observing the work itself, they can change the performance we think we see.

Only then can I ask the questions that still matter:

How engaged are they?

How clearly do they think?

How much do they actually improve the outcome?

Sometimes the hardest part of management isn’t learning how to evaluate performance.

It’s unlearning all the things that have taught us what we’re supposed to value.

“Chase is very critical of you. All he tries to do is replace you.”

People told President Lincoln that about Salmon P. Chase.

Chase’s ambition was no secret. But he was also an exceptionally capable Secretary of the Treasury.

Lincoln’s response was simple:

If his ambition helps save the Union, why should I interfere with it?

Some leaders protect their egos. Great ones protect the mission.

I shared this story during a Talroo leadership training session because it captures what I call a system designer mentality.

System designers think in terms of the bigger picture and the bigger goal, even when it means tolerating personal discomfort.

While leading Talroo, I’ve often taught through stories rather than abstract principles.

Abstract principles fade. Stories stick.

Storytelling is how I create value clarity at Talroo.

Hire competent people. Give them value clarity. Then you can create a state I call high agency:

People spot problems, coordinate across teams, build plans, execute, and keep me informed as milestones are hit.

That’s the state I wanted to build.

The internet made information abundant. AI is making execution abundant.

The remaining scarcity is judgment: What matters? What matters long term? Why does it matter?

Value clarity guides judgment.